CCNP SP experience

I passed the SPCORE exam yesterday which rounds off the CCNP SP for me! Pretty decent exam, a lot harder than I remember the CCIP QoS exam being, especially as the SPCORE exam is now essentially the old QoS exam + IOS XR + MPLS TE. QoS is about 70% of the exam blue print so make sure you know how to do QoS really well in IOS and it won't be a problem at all in IOS XR as the commands look pretty much the same anyway.

Other than probably about 50-60 hours on the INE SP racks, I don't have a lot of exposure to IOS XR. Thankfully most of my job is in Junos so the translation didn't see that too hard to me (especially with remembering to commit!). I went through the INE SP workbook probably 2 to 3 times on sections such as MPLS TE, Inter-AS VPNs, and MPLS QoS to make sure I was comfortable with IOS XR before I jumped into the exam.

For anyone out there wanting to study for SPCORE, SPEDGE, I used the following materials:
1. IOS XR Fundamentals - an absolute MUST if you haven't played with IOS XR before
2. MPLS Fundamentals - excellent intro to MPLS, AToM, VPLS, and TE
3. MPLS VPN Architectures Vol1 - was okay, I didn't read all of it but the bits that I did read weren't too bad
4. INE SP ATC videos - excellent instructor went through how to do pretty much everything MPLS in IOS XR
5. QoS exam cert guide - great book on QoS
6. QoS-enabled networks - I haven't finished it yet but from what I've read it's really solid - thanks reaper81!

Good luck to anyone going for this cert, it was tough but well worth the learning experience. Happy to answer anything about my preparation for the exam.

Back to studying for R&S lab now..

Edit: and thanks to srg for answering all my questions about the exams!

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Comments

srg

Awesome, congrats!

Another recommendation when going for the SPCORE is the Ciscopress book QoS for IP/MPLS Networks which basically covers QoS and MPLS-TE in a SP Core with both IOS and XR examples, great resource.

Master Of Puppets

Congrats!

networker050184

Congrats!

wintermute000

Would you recommend studying/going for CORE or EDGE first?

I'm aiming to do ADVROUTE over the next few months then undecided on which way to attack it. Ideally I was thinking edge as the MPLSVPN stuff ties neatly into the advanced BGP in ADVROUTE but it seems a bit backward to tackle the edge instead of the core?

lrb

I cut over my CCIP to CCNP SP so I'm not really sure about SPROUTE and ADVROUTE, but I would say SPEDGE before SPCORE because I don't like QoS

If you look at any of the training vendors the "normal" path is SPROUTE>ADVROUTE>SPCORE>SPEDGE as I'm guessing there is more MPLS basics in SPCORE like LDP, LIB, LFIB, etc, whereas SPEDGE has Inter-AS VPNs and CsC, AToM and VPLS.

I like MPLS VPNs so I went SPEDGE first. Another good resource I don't think I mentioned was the ME3400 config guide on cisco.com, especially the QinQ section.

wintermute000

Thanks for your input. Core it is.
ADVROUTE is an obvious 'easy win' coming from a R&S background, not that I'm that advanced LOL but I do know BGP fairly well (at least better than most enterprise R&S techs).

RICARDOADRIANO3X

Really usefull. Thanks!

wintermute000

re: the INE SP workbook, are you referring ot the CCIE workbook?
I asked and there is no CCNP SP workbook.
I don't plan on going CCIE in the SP track so wouldn't the CCIE workbook be overkill? I want to get SP knocked over quickly so I can concentrate on CCIE R&S. (i'm viewing SP as a 'lite' R&S IE, focus on my weak spots like complex BGP, MPLS, multicast).

lrb

Yeah i meant the CCIE SP workbook. I found the workbook for the SP track had a lot less "meat" in it then the R&S workbook (only referring to Vol1) so it shouldn't take too long to go through if you concentrate on one exam and pick out the tasks in the SP worbkook that relate to it.

JeanM

congrats!