Today my friends, I finally obtained my CCSP or CCNP Security whatever Cisco wants to call me. Man, it was a long journey, when I started I thought it would take me a year. My work life had it go otherwise, had to spend too much time working on other technologies and learning other stuff and did not have time to study, and not working directly with ASAs and IPSs made it tough. Why would you go for a CCSP if you don't even work with that stuff some may ask? Well, networking is not just a job, it's a lifestyle. My line of thought was, get good at something you like, prove you are good, then somebody will hire you to do it. And if has kind of worked, now, thanks to my studies beside my full time job I also consult for some customers with ASAs and other Security equipment.
Getting a "P" level certification is commonly a 1 year journey for many, I thought it would be for me too when I started this path, I also thought I had chosen a specific path that I would work on, that I would become a Security expert and never have to think about voip or BGP or other stuff. Boy, did life teach me otherwise, during these 3 years I had to pause my studies many times to stay competitive at my new job and learn to deal with servers, learn voip, learn bgp and then find some time in between to continue what I had started, reading books, working without charge in exchange for access to a customer's CBT Nuggets, and paying gigavelocity for rack rentals. Today, that path is complete, it was long and tough and had failures (
http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccnp-security/68566-failed-ips.html ), but that only makes me enjoy it more.
Profile update: CCSP! Yoohoo! Man...I'm more excited than I thought I would be when this day came!
