What a ride these last eight months have been. I took the ICND1 exam a month and a half ago after 5 months of on and off studying and passed. With the impending move to San Francisco, I have since the ICND1, been in absolute study mode. Hours every day. Weekends consisting of only studying. My goal was to nail this certification before the move. Well, it's paid off. I'm finally at a point where I feel it was worth it. I passed the ICND2.
My study materials this time around were a little different however. I still used Jeremy's videos for introduction but I decided to use Todd Lammle's book this time because I wanted to compare his writing style to Wendell Odom's. I find him very similar to Jeremy. He doesn't go as in depth as Wendell, but it's a much easier read. I still went back to Odom's book though to get a better understanding on some concepts that weren't as clear to me. The chapter on Routing Theory for example I thought was much more informative than anything I read in Todd's book. So for my easy comparison for those that are curious here it is.
Todd Lammle = Jeremy Cioara
Wendell Odom = Chris Bryant
In addition, I also came across Dan's Courses. VERY nice what this man is offering for FREE! I watched almost all his ICND2 material and did the labs in Packet Tracer many many times. It was in my personal opinion, pivotal to my success.
The test itself, I thought was just a tad more difficult than the ICND1. I might have received a different pool of questions than some here, but overall I wouldn't say it was very much more difficult. That being said however, I did score lower this time around. After seeing that I passed with a 902 with no time to spare, I literally did a fist pump in front of the camera. I'm sure whoever was watching had a laugh.
Thank you everyone for answering my questions along the way. Lets just say, my recent question on Frame Relay was very helpful.
The big question is what to do now? I'm moving to the Bay Area this Tuesday. A nice 11 hour direct flight and really haven't decided on a path yet. I was thinking of reading Network Warrior to get another perspective on CCNA level topics. I was also considering picking up a book on some Network monitoring programs like Nagios. Perhaps a better understanding about using Wireshark would also be helpful. Or should I just jump onto CCNP ROUTE? I want to be as employabe as possible when I arrive over there.
What do the wise ones here recommend?
