TSHOOT before ROUTE or SWITCH?

DPG

Has anyone here taken TSHOOT before passing both ROUTE and SWITCH?

I have already passed SWITCH and was planning on having ROUTE done by now. Due to work constraints, I really haven't had the time. Lately I have been looking over the TSHOOT material and am thinking about attempting this exam.

QHalo

How do you feel troubleshooting advanced Routing concepts would be the key question here. I mean I guess if you deal with doing that daily I could see going that route (no pun) but I don't know of anyone that did it that way. Seems backwards to me unless you just know it all cold. And another point would be, if you can troubleshoot it, what's stopping you from just taking ROUTE to begin with?

pham0329

Doesn't make sense to take TSHOOT before anything unless, like QHalo said, you already have working knowledge of it. How do you plan on troubleshooting something you haven't learned?

DPG

I like that the TSHOOT exam appears to be very hands on and not trivial like the other exams.

I am still interested to see if anyone took this path and how it worked out for you.

SharkDiver

I don't know that I would have the guts to try that.

I do know this.

Cisco Networking Academy considers CCNP ROUTE and CCNP SWITCH to be prerequisites to taking the CCNP TSHOOT class.

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/course_catalog/docs/CCNP_AAG.pdf

So, take that for what it's worth.

ethibault

I would not recommend that either.

I have just taken tshoot and since tshoot does not go as deeply into routing protocols as BSCI (and so for Route I assume) you will end up learning twice the same items, whereas if you begin with Route, tshoot will be a lighter revision.

DPG

I am going to go against everyone's suggestions and attempt the exam in about a week. I feel very confident in my ability to troubleshoot CCNP level routing and switching issues.

Hopefully I will pass and it will give me the motivation to finish the CCNP. Perhaps the exam will knock me on my ass and force me to take a step back.

QHalo

Good luck

DPG

I think I am going to schedule the exam for Tuesday.

Here is my game plan:

Write down 1-12 or however many trouble tickets I am presented with.
Browse through each ticket to see if I can find any easy answers.
Write down the answers to each of these easier tickets.
Go through the tougher tickets and compare configs with the easier tickets if necessary.
Write down the answers for the remaining tickets as I solve them.
Go back over the written answers, enter them in, and close out the tickets.

I am going to use ping, ipconfig, traceroute, and show run primarily. I'm not sure if the sim supports advanced show commands or debugs.

DPG

Passed TSHOOT today!! .

The exam was a little more difficult than I thought. I guess the test atmosphere and clock ticking made the difference.

My strategy worked well except that a particular command was not supported. I was able to work around it.
There were some questions that you could not prepare for by solely labbing the provided topology.

Some tips:

Read EVERY question carefully. I wasted some time due to this.
Comparing known good configs is helpful but not foolproof.
Be sure to note that some windows can scroll down further than it first appears. The exam environment looks to be built to support 800x600 resolution so you have to do a lot of scrolling.

gaby_978

Congrats on the pass

SharkDiver

Congratulations!

So a command was not supported?
That kind of throws a little wrench in the exam, doesn't it?
Great.

QHalo

Guess you didn't need our advice after all. Grats!

Netwurk

Congrats!

Never thought of taking TSHOOT first. But I'm deep into ROUTE after having passed the old SWITCH (BCMSN) so too late for that.

Nice job passing.