Dr Ahriakin's Singalong JNCIE-Sec Blog

brunojuniper

hi Ahriakin,

how 's inetzero JNCIE-SEC workbook? is it good ?

BR/ Bruno

Ahriakin

It's not without a few errata (pretty much every workbook from everyone vendor is the same) but overall it's very good. I highly recommend their Mock-Lab also when you are getting close to the date.

No updates for a while since there isn't really anything new to add yet. I will when there's something more interesting than me simply listing off tasks I'm repeating .

Ahriakin

Righty, time to come clean. As many of you probably guessed I did end up taking a 2nd attempt 2 weeks ago. I didn't want any extra pressure or distractions so I did it quietly. I found out this morning I passed .
Actually the lack of updates wasn't just to avoid distractions there really wasn't anything new I was doing worth wasting text here with. I did the obvious of focusing on areas I had issues with the first time, and reinforcing/refining my own CLI shortcuts and verification techniques. My certificate isn't online yet but if it matches the Cert ID # then I'll be 105.

I think the single biggest difference the 2nd time was the same as when I did the Cisco side, more confidence and simply having a better mindset. The first time excitement and nerves about time mgmt etc. can get in the way beyond the challenge of the lab itself.

Many thanks to everyone who has followed this Blog; Johan for hosting it, Aldur and Zoidberg for the sage advice along the way, and everyone else for offering encouragement. Also of course my amazing wife, offering support from the simple things like supplying my caffeine while in study-trances, dealing with the isolation while I was in them and most importantly helping to pick me up and get motivated again after the first fail.
This is turning into another 'Oscar' speech . I'll stop there then, but I want to make it clear these things are not achieved in a void.

__________________________

So now it's done I can answer a question I've been asked multiple times about how well the source materials I've mentioned along the way actually prepare you:

AJSEC and JIPS Courses/Books :
Relevance - 9/10
These are your core materials, the base foundation for everything you will have to delve deeper into for the IE level.

O'Reilly Junos Security Book:
Relevance 8/10
Treat this as an overlay to the official coursebooks. For the most part it delves a little more into theory, but not as much into practice.

O'Reilly Junos Cookbook:
Relevance 6/10
A good resource for day-day work or quick reference on your own labs so it is handy to have, but there is nothing here necessary for the JNCIE-Sec that you won't find in the materials above.

InetZero Workbook
Relevance 9/10
Even with some errata (like all vendor workbooks I've seen) this is an essential resource imho. The difficulty matches very well to the real event. I would say their graded mock-lab is actually a little tougher.

Juniper.net config guides:
junos-security-swconfig-security 11.1.pdf
Relevance 7/10
Only lower in score when you have the above resources already, it is a great resource but is not written to be read end to end . Worth a read through at least once when you feel you have mastered the coursework to pick up some little tricks and fringe config elements. The main thing you want though is to have a clear idea of how to navigate this document for reference in the real thing.

junos-security-swconfig-routing-protocols-and-policies 11.1.pdf
Relevance 6/10
A great resource for FBF and routing in detail but you can cover most of what you need in the O'Reilly book.

Aldur

Fantastic job man!! So glad to hear that you passed! And a great run down on the materials you used and the relevance of those materials.

Big congrats!

zoidberg

Way to go!!! No surprise that you nailed it this time around. Great work sir and welcome to the club!!!

kasuj

Yes, big congrats

Ahriakin

Thanks folks, it's a big weight off my shoulders. Now I have to remember what I used to do in the evenings

networker050184

Congrats man!

Ahriakin

Thank you sir.
The cert itself is ready and yup it matches the certmanager's listed ID. #105 I am.

instant000

Congrats.

I especially like the scoring relevance you provide for the preparation materials.

jamesp1983

congrats! You are doing really well!

teren

Great to hear and great work indeed! Enjoy getting your evenings back

Ahriakin

Thanks again guys. Yes it's nice to have some free time again ....now I'm kinda eying up the SP track...must resist, for a while anyway.

hamza_b

Hi Ahrakin,


I am planning to sit for my JNCIE-SEC exam too and plan on buying the Inetzero workbook as well. Just a quick question though. How many iterations of the inetzero do you think will suffice the proficiency for exam. Now that you have failed once and passed once if you had time on you how many times would you have done in ideally? to improve your proficiency do i really need to go beyond the workbook i understand the bootcamp may help anything else?

Ahriakin

It really depends on your own uptake, and no one source has everything you need. The workbook will cover a huge amount of what you are learning from the study materials but it won't (can't) cover every single thing you will see in the real lab. I think on average I ended up doing all the mini-labs about 4 times each, the super-lab twice, and their graded mock-lab once. And I was doing a lot of hit'n'run labbing on my own setup. It wasn't based on a set count I had preconceived but what it took to pretty much make the config muscle memory, to where I didn't need to check the docs for anything anymore and could do all the tasks as fast as I could type. But remember you should be studying the tech not the lab, so the workbook should only be there to reinforce and speed-practice the theory, it's very easy to lose sight of that and just study the workbook itself.

dark_15

Ahriakin, I've been reading this thread with much interest since last year. Congratulations on the JNCIE and welcome to the club


- Clay

Essendon

I'm waaay late to the party mate, but a HUGE congrats to you!! I've followed this thread along most of the way and it's been a great read. Nice work once again!

hamza_b

Thanks for the information. One last concern constantly running on my mind is that I only have branch office firewalls to play around with. I get worry that I cannot work with some of the features supported only in High end SRX e.g. the new AppFW features i.e. AppDDoS and AppQoS.Not sure if you will share this info but does the exam revolve around Branch SRX platforms only or does it also have the High end fws?

Ahriakin

@hamza_b
Well I can't discuss the actual lab topology. I can tell you that with the current topic-blueprint on 11.1 I was fine with my own lab of 3 branch series (2x100s, 1x210h), and that InetZero is running 8xSRX240s. Now that said if the JunOS version changes then it's likely the functions being tested will also.

Dark_15/Essendon - many thanks, hope I didn't bore you to tears along the way .