CCVP without CCNP?

shuffles62

I've been working in the sonet world for the past 5 years, but i'm in between jobs right now and i'm having a hard time selling my somewhat esoteric skills. i'm no stranger to the ip world, but my focus has been from the service provider side and i haven't done a whole lot of router/switch configuration. telco companies here in the us haven't really been hiring people with my specific skills lately so i'm brushing up.

for now i'm still working on ccna, and i don't see that taking much longer....so i'm trying to decide which direction to take after thats over. Do you need all the ccnp skills to survive in voip? I see that it isn't specifically a prereq, but I wanted to get thoughts from people that have a bit more experience in the area.

I really think there will be some great opportunities in the voip field over the next few years and i'm looking for ideas as to the best way to make the transition. Thanks for the help.

Ten9t6

While, it is not a prereq...the more you know about Cisco r/s configurations, the easier some of the other tracks will be for you. The way I look at is this.....You have to understand the "core" routing and switching before adding on to it.

But, I have seen people go into the VoIP / Voice or Security track without their CCNP and have no problems. It depends on the individual and their experience. ...If you consider yourself to be in a time crunch, I would go straight to VP right after NA. To complete the NP and VP will take a while. There are quite a few tests to complete both and none of them are "easy".

I hope this helps..

tunerX

From my experience, I have found that it is not necessary to know too much about R/S, aside from the basics.

I haven't done anything with advanced routing protocols, only basic EIGRP or OSPF configurations, just to get the individual networks to talk. I do plenty with VLANS but that is just because I only have three switches and dozens of different networks to mix together. I used to make advanced R/S configurations for my gateways but found that took away from my voice studies. I ended up just adding my gateways to different subnets and used default routes to get into the IP network.

QOS and CAC is really big and I find that I have to engineer my lab networks with low clock rates like 128-256k, to get many of the QOS functions to meet the bandwidth thresholds.

I should be ready to take the CIPT test in a couple weeks. I will let everyong know what I studied and what I think worked for the test.

crumbaughs

You may not need the routing/switching knowledge to pass the exams, but in the real world you will need it unless you are focused on the SMB market. Small businesses with one site are relatively simple. When you add in routing, VLANs, VTP, routing protocols, multi-site clusters, and inter-cluster trunking, it is another world. The real money is in the medium to large business environment where things get tricky and the staff talent does not extend to VoIP or IPT. You have to be able to assure the client that you have the S/R skills as well as the IPT cert.

I recommend you make sure your routing and switching skills are at a CCNP level, even if you don't get the paper. And of course having both certs makes you more marketable.