Free Brocade Certification Exam Voucher

Sounds Good

So I was scheduled for the BCNE today and I passed the test with a score of 73%.

Here is the breakdown of my score

Layer1/Hardware Concepts - 100%
Brocade Hardware Platforms - 40%
Layer 2 Switching and Protocols - 82%
General Layer 2/Layer 3 Concepts - 100%
Routing Concepts - 70%
ACL Concepts - 75%
QOS Concepts - 67%
Network Security, Management and Monitoring - 50%
Troubleshooting - 78%

Difficulty - 5/10

The test has a passing score of 58% and the material covered is not large when compared to CCNA. I'd say the test covers 65% general networking concepts and 35% Brocade specific. Prior to registering for the BCNE, I was studying for the CCNA and was just done with my first run through of the material. The opportunity to take a free exam that is equivalent to the CCNA was just too good to pass up and I pushed my CCNA exam back several weeks to prepare for the BCNE.

During this time, I intended to study for the BCNE, but didn't as I became side-tracked with videogames and television. The last week arrives and I told myself I would study everyday, but didn't (Found the television series Spartacus and can not stop watching!). And so comes the day of the exam (today), and I haven't studied one bit for the BCNE nor any networking material from CCNA since about 3 weeks prior. I wake up and begin studying the BCNE in a nutshell exam guide at 11am. My test was scheduled for 4pm and I had to leave my house at 3pm to get to the testing center. That leaves me 4 hours to study roughly 60 pages of material (less when we factor in eating and general activities).

I finish going over all the material just in time and go and take the test. Throughout the test, I was surprised at how easy it was and was confident that I scored over a 58%. Some questions were difficult and some even poorly worded (or maybe I just didn't understand it), but it took me just under an hour for 60 questions and I was glad that I passed. This is a nice certification to add to my resume and will assist me in getting into the network engineering side of IT when I also add the CCNA into the mix.

For prospective BCNE takers, if you ONLY study the BCNE in a nutshell guide, you WILL be able to pass. Almost everything that was covered in the test is in that guide, however there were at most 5 questions on the test that wasn't covered directly in the guide.

Good luck to all and if any of what I said breaches the NDA, please let me know and I will edit it.

SG

bsimpson

Thank you so much for the information!!!

vCole

Aw man, bummed I missed out on this!

NetworkVeteran

vCole wrote: »

Aw man, bummed I missed out on this!

Why? Their basic certification is the BCNE, and that voucher's a long-term deal not impacted by this promotion.

bsimpson

Sounds Good wrote: »

So I was scheduled for the BCNE today and I passed the test with a score of 73%.

Here is the breakdown of my score

Layer1/Hardware Concepts - 100%
Brocade Hardware Platforms - 40%
Layer 2 Switching and Protocols - 82%
General Layer 2/Layer 3 Concepts - 100%
Routing Concepts - 70%
ACL Concepts - 75%
QOS Concepts - 67%
Network Security, Management and Monitoring - 50%
Troubleshooting - 78%

Difficulty - 5/10

The test has a passing score of 58% and the material covered is not large when compared to CCNA. I'd say the test covers 65% general networking concepts and 35% Brocade specific. Prior to registering for the BCNE, I was studying for the CCNA and was just done with my first run through of the material. The opportunity to take a free exam that is equivalent to the CCNA was just too good to pass up and I pushed my CCNA exam back several weeks to prepare for the BCNE.

During this time, I intended to study for the BCNE, but didn't as I became side-tracked with videogames and television. The last week arrives and I told myself I would study everyday, but didn't (Found the television series Spartacus and can not stop watching!). And so comes the day of the exam (today), and I haven't studied one bit for the BCNE nor any networking material from CCNA since about 3 weeks prior. I wake up and begin studying the BCNE in a nutshell exam guide at 11am. My test was scheduled for 4pm and I had to leave my house at 3pm to get to the testing center. That leaves me 4 hours to study roughly 60 pages of material (less when we factor in eating and general activities).

I finish going over all the material just in time and go and take the test. Throughout the test, I was surprised at how easy it was and was confident that I scored over a 58%. Some questions were difficult and some even poorly worded (or maybe I just didn't understand it), but it took me just under an hour for 60 questions and I was glad that I passed. This is a nice certification to add to my resume and will assist me in getting into the network engineering side of IT when I also add the CCNA into the mix.

For prospective BCNE takers, if you ONLY study the BCNE in a nutshell guide, you WILL be able to pass. Almost everything that was covered in the test is in that guide, however there were at most 5 questions on the test that wasn't covered directly in the guide.

Good luck to all and if any of what I said breaches the NDA, please let me know and I will edit it.

SG

Finally made an appointment yesterday. You said that the nutshell guide is enough. Is it just enough because you learned everything else in your CCNA studies (generic concepts etc)??


Thanks!

zipolini

I took my BCNE exam 2 days ago and passed. I would say the nutshell guide maybe is enough just to pass if you have CCNA level knowledge, but for sure it's not enough to pass it with ~90%+. Brocade has many pdf's available for you to download for free, so why not to use them to prepare yourself and really ace the exam instead of just passing it with low score. Good luck with your exam bsimpson

bsimpson

Thanks for the reply zipolini!
I passed my ICND1 about 2 months ago and will go for the ICND2 in about 2 months, so I'm currently studying Cisco stuff anyway. I'm just a bit scared about the Brocade stuff as I have less Brocade-specific knowledge (hardware platforms, models, ...). Then again there are no sims and no frame relay sh** in Brocade I read at an other topic. I took the practise test at the Brocade side once but had a bad score, as there where questions about Brocade HBAs etc which I just didn't know (yet)


Thanks!

NetworkVeteran

bsimpson wrote: »

there where questions about Brocade HBAs etc which I just didn't know (yet)

I'm surprised they ask about HBAs on the BCNE exam.. that's more of a SAN / Data Center topic.

Sounds Good

bsimpson wrote: »

Finally made an appointment yesterday. You said that the nutshell guide is enough. Is it just enough because you learned everything else in your CCNA studies (generic concepts etc)??

Having CCNA knowledge did help with general concepts/troubleshooting. However, if you know the nutshell guide fully, you will do fine.

I'd say the difficulty of the test is in between ICND1 and 2 even though I haven't taken either of those tests. I'm going based off of what I've been studying.

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

I'm surprised they ask about HBAs on the BCNE exam.. that's more of a SAN / Data Center topic.

Not sure if I'm breaching NDA, but there was nothing on HBAs on the test.

bsimpson

Thanks for the posts!

On the practise test at the Brocade website, there was a question about which HBA has FC and Ethernet on one board and a couple of platform questions like which switches have PoE+ etc iirc.

I'm pretty sure that I don't break any NDAs because this is just from the PRACTISE test at the website which is free to take and open to everybody

NetworkVeteran

and a couple of platform questions like which switches have PoE+ etc iirc.

That seems like fair game. That's an important nuance in their FastIron product lines.

Sounds Good

bsimpson wrote: »

Thanks for the posts!

On the practise test at the Brocade website, there was a question about which HBA has FC and Ethernet on one board and a couple of platform questions like which switches have PoE+ etc iirc.

I'm pretty sure that I don't break any NDAs because this is just from the PRACTISE test at the website which is free to take and open to everybody

There are definitely platform questions as that is where I did poorly =/. Didn't want to waste brain space memorizing that stuff.

As for breaching NDA, that would be me if anyone since I'm the one saying what I personally didn't see on the REAL test. Which may or may not breach NDA.

Again, if I'm breaching NDA, let me know and I'll gladly edit my posts.

nicktornetta

Thank you Brocade for the free voucher.. I took the Brocade Certified Network Designer (BCND) exam yesterday and passed!

I would agree that much of what you need is in the study guide, but it is not good enough if you are starting cold. I found that my CCNA studies and network design from my actual job helped quite a bit.

This was a pretty fun exam and asked about current and relevant technology.

prtech

I thought the exam was pretty good. Not difficult but there were some good questions there. Much better than JNCIA.

bsimpson

nicktornetta wrote: »

Thank you Brocade for the free voucher.. I took the Brocade Certified Network Designer (BCND) exam yesterday and passed!

I would agree that much of what you need is in the study guide, but it is not good enough if you are starting cold. I found that my CCNA studies and network design from my actual job helped quite a bit.

This was a pretty fun exam and asked about current and relevant technology.

nicktornetta, could you please let us know what material you have used for studying? Is the nutshell guide enough as some people say for the BCNE?

Thanks!!!