CCIP track - Please help me.

Dears in CCIP,
I would like to finish my CCIP certification, I already pass QoS exam last week, I have two questions: -
1. Should I start with MPLS exam first or BGP exam.
2. What is the best book for BGP exam?
I would like to finish my CCIP certification, I already pass QoS exam last week, I have two questions: -
1. Should I start with MPLS exam first or BGP exam.
2. What is the best book for BGP exam?
Comments
You can use Doyle's Routing TCP/IP BGP chapters as a review of your BSCI/ROUTE BGP studies and a warmup for Halabi's Cisco Press Internet Routing Architectures book for the BGP exam.
Like what ? Not anything specific of course, just the topics
And luck of the draw on the questions -- and the inclusion of ungraded beta questions -- means you may not see "one of those" questions or that it may just actually be ungraded.
The NDA wouldn't let us tell you the topic. We can tell you the listed topics on the blueprint we studied the most or were glad we studied the hard, but we can't say which topics were tested on the exam. And then throwing out an unlisted topic that could only be answered by disclosing knowledge of something you saw on the exam would definitely be an NDA violation.
But I've always assumed that the "uncovered questions" were salted into the exam as ungraded questions by Cisco for them to get a good measure of people cheating on the exam. If everyone has to guess on a question, then only about 20% of the people should get it right. But if 60-70% of the people are getting "one of those" questions right -- then you know who's exam and exam metrics to review for other testing anomalies.
As mkomon said -- don't worry about it.
Having scored >910 pts it did not have too much effect. It just pointed me at a couple of things to take a look at to fill in gaps in those little details.
Read the BGP chapter in Doyle II and Halabi, spend enough time labbing to fully understand all of the protocol features and routing policy concepts and you will be good to go. Also Cisco Systems, Inc is a great resource I used (BGP Command Reference Guide etc).
Why Mike? With a basic understanding of BGP, would you be able to jump right into MPLS and leave BGP last?
BGP Design and Implementation - by Randy Zhang
Awesome book...and mike is right..... For the BGP exam anything is fair game..... Even if the objectives don't explicitly state it!
CCNA | CCNA:Security | CCNP | CCIP
JNCIA:JUNOS | JNCIA:EX | JNCIS:ENT | JNCIS:SEC
JNCIS:SP | JNCIP:SP
I decided to take the exams in the order I thought I would have most difficulty, not having looked at MPLS I decided to take it first, BGP I have a good knowledge of, and QOS very good.
Might not make sense to some, but it is so far working for me.
I am reading the Sam Halabi book for BGP (Internet Routing Architectures). Currently on my third read through, although I have just spend the last week reading Chapters 11-12 constantly, I am also doing lab work in GNS, and looking through the command reference.
Hoping to take the exam towards the end of September.
For MPLS I read MPLS Fundamentals by Luc De Ghein which was a good read, that with GNS labs was enough to get me through.
JC
I've opened GNS3 to try to understand this stuff a bit! I think i get the concept but there's something i don't get yet.
Is it normal that an Edge router who run BGP one side with "no mpls ip" and run eigrp the other side with mpls enabled can't peer with a P router?
BGP (No mpls)
R1
EIGRP---MPLS enabled
R2
R1 can't peer with R2 - LDP
I've watched a few labs from gns3vault.com and to be honest, when he threw me some VRF stuff with family and communities...i was totally lost
6 hours on MPLS today...time to go dream about it lol
[ ] - Lab exam (60h)
Personal blog: http://www.tommyf.net/
I confirm! But it's R3 and R1 in this example
R3
R1 This show the R1 neighbor on fa0/0, but no neighborship with R3 Tracing route through my opposite Edge router...no mpls.
There's also no LDP neighborship between R2 and R4.
I suspect a BGP issue?
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There are two workarounds/solutions for the situation, I'll let you think about it. It is covered in the LDP chapter of MPLS fundamentals. Of course you can ask for them but I think you'll figure it out soon.
Martin
Edit: the same applies for R2-R4. And a LDP problem is never a BGP issue (I can't think of such scenario, as long as we're not talking about targeted LDP for example).
I think i found one
R3
R1
I created a loopback on each Router and include it in eigrp but since i don't know how to reset MPLS, i've restarted the routers!
The second thing, probably less best practice, would have been to use the mpls ldp router-id fa0/1 command ?
This subtleties remind me something like announcing a BGP network not in the routing table by creating a Null route
[ ] - Lab exam (60h)
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-add a route for 200.1.1.2 on R1 or add the network into EIGRP
-create the loopbacks and use them for LDP ID
You don't have to reload the router after changing the LDP ID. Add the keyword "force" at the end of the command to force LDP to use the ID immediately.
In a real word scenario I would go with loopbacks and LDP IDs bound to them.
Martin
redistribute connected would only include the 200.1.1.0 subnet so it's great!
Thanks for your help ! I'll be able to advance a bit
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Personal blog: http://www.tommyf.net/
It helps to compare the old technologies with the new ones.
I don't know if i'm correct comparing MPLS to frame-relay, because the way i see it, MPLS is much more powerful than just a layer 2 protocol because it can run on top of them but it can do the same job without all the hassle of configuring PVCs.
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I have a question based on chapter 6: AS prepend
If you prepend your AS by adding 1 or 2 duplicate, will it propagate worldwide or just throughout your ISP?
Basically, i want to know if the NAP of your ISP(s) will strip off duplicate AS entries from different routes they learnt before reaching another AS?
Thanks
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Thanks, i can't see an advantage of using MED over prepending now. I guess it depends on ISP policies
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[ ] - Lab exam (60h)
Personal blog: http://www.tommyf.net/
Found them to be in Chap 11-12...Quite a different method of presenting the content but can't wait to read it
For the MED vs AS_PATH, i've got 1 situation where it would be tricky to prepend AS_PATH and 1 situation using MED.
For the AS_PATH, i think it is uncommon to prepend AS when using confederations because the PE router would strip it?
For the MED, i think it is unlikely to have 2 different ISP enable "bgp always-compare-med" each others on their link?
So i went to the conclusions that, it is probably better to run MED under a Dual Homing scenario running confederations inside your AS and it is probably better to prepend AS_PATH while you run Single multihoming scenario.
I think that under a Dual multihoming scenario, you could run MED for "dual" and AS_PATH prepending for "multihoming" sections in the case both ISP wouldn't share their MED values.
I don't know if it is a common practice, but tweaking the routes ORIGIN doesn't seem to be a bad idea?
Cheers
[ ] - Lab exam (60h)
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