My CCNP Route thread

Iristheangel

Hello All!

I have returned from my great and mighty journey doing everything and nothing at the same time!

By everything, I did the following in the last few months:
Broke up with someone
Met someone new (a hot IT nerd girl!)
Got engaged
Got offered a job at Cisco
Turned the job at Cisco down
Got offered FTE at my current job
Accepted the job with a $15K raise from what they were paying me as a consultant

By nothing, I mean jack in terms of studying and schoolwork
So here I am getting myself ramped up to get Route out of the way. I've got the OCG and FLG guy that I'll be reading as well as a Trainsignal membership. I've started this thread to map my progress and keep the momentum going so pardon my spam.

Yesterday, I read chapter 1 & 2 of OCG. Today's goal: Chapter 3 (50 pages)

dover

Welcome back Iris!

In order:
Broke up with someone
--Sorry

Met someone new (a hot IT nerd girl!)
--Sweet!

Got engaged
--What?!

Got offered a job at Cisco
--Awesome

Turned the job at Cisco down
--Probably for the best

Got offered FTE at my current job Accepted the job with a $15K raise
--Hell yea!

Look forward to the progress. I'm waiting on CISA exam results then I plan to hit ROUTE/SWITCH/TSHOOT.

I've still got your SWITCH notes...maybe we can add ROUTE after you crush this exam?

Just curious, what tipped the scales in favor of Trainsignal over CBTNuggets? Been thinking about subscribing to one or the other but had been leaning towards CBTNuggets.

Iristheangel

Hahahaha. Yep. The engagement one was a bit of a shocker but in a good way. When it's right, it's right. We're opting for a long engagement so it's not like we're jumping in a car and going through a drive-thru wedding chapel to be married by Elvis or anything.

I am compiling notes as I go on CCNP Route so I definitely will have notes to share after. I'll post them when I'm done.

As far as Trainsignal vs. CBT, I've tried CBT before. They were ok but I liked Trainsignal a little better. It's not a quality thing but the personality of the trainer. I found the Trainsignal videos easier to listen to. I also tried INE but the lecturer was dry as hell

JustFred

Awesome, congrats. Keep up the good work and have a great time.

I also turned to like Trainsignal over CBT. The Trainsignal instructor knows how to pull in and i enjoy it way more than say CBT where i usually get bored quickly and just go back to reading instead. Depends on whos teaching i think.

Iristheangel

Finished chapter 3 this morning before work.
Goal of today/tomorrow (because I'm balancing schoolwork too): Chapter 4. After that, I leave EIGRPLand and head to OSPFLand. Weeeeee!

krjay

Good luck and congrats. I hope to pass the CCNA by the end of the month and begin the CCNP track right away. I find it interesting you thought trainsignal videos were better than CBT. With CCNA I found Jeremy's videos on CBT to be fantastic, and I would turn on the trainsignal videos only if I was having trouble falling asleep at night. I'll reevaluate trainsignal when I begin the CCNP track.

Iristheangel

@Krjay - It's not a quality thing IMHO. It's more of a personality thing. Some people's voices and personalities start to get mentally tuned out by me. Both are GREAT and go into excellent detail. Hell... if you want the MOST detail, go with the INE videos. They are EXTREMELY detailed but I just cannot STAND the guy's monotone voice in those videos so I cancelled my membership almost immediately. From what I have heard from friends, INE is one of the best resources for CCIE labs and videos so I may renew it when I get to that point.

Kelkin

haha! You are right about the INE Videos.. I tend to use them more for reference and/or in small doses or else I will totally fall asleep.. What I did through the NP track was read a topic, watch the topic, lab the topic and repeat.

Sounds like you've been busy

instant000

I found ROUTE to be more straightforward than SWITCH.

I'd recommend understanding the guide completely, and knowing the ins and outs of the free LAB manuals:

CCNP ROUTE Lab Manual:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/se...06.0%20SLM.pdf

CCNP SWITCH Lab Manual:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/se...06.0%20SLM.pdf

CCNP TSHOOT Lab Manual:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/se...06.0%20SLM.pdf

I realize now that I need to revise my signature, because I passed route in 5/2012, but I actually studied for it off and on for many months prior, so the timeline doesn't look right in the signature.

FloOz

Goodluck in your studies Iris and welcome back! I also am studying for Route and hope to take the exam in 2-3 weeks. I am definitely going to be using your Switch notes in the future

Iristheangel

Thanks, Instant. I saved those to my desktop. I'm using a plethora of resources right now. It's not that Route is particularly hard. It's just balancing it with schoolwork and work as well as the amount of study which has been proving challenging lately.

I'm hoping that keeping a thread open, tracking my progress and keeping myself accountable will keep the ball rolling

Iristheangel

Chapter 3 finished last night. Working on Chapter 4 today. Last chapter of EIGRP and about 30 pages so I should be done before I get off work today if I utilize my breaks and lunch correctly. I'll probably leave the book at work and just work on Master's work for the rest of the weekend.

Goal today: Chapter 4
Goal Monday: Chapter 5

Kicking this ball down the road

RouteMyPacket

I am finding the Route OCG to be horrible as all hell...seriously one of my worst experiences so far reading topics. Doesn't matter, CH 2,3,4...it's a bunch of fluff garbage with the good stuff lightly sprinkled in. Ugh!

I'm hating it right now...what are your thoughts?

Iristheangel

Usually I enjoy reading Odom but it is a bit on the dry side. Hopefully FLG is a bit better. I plan on starting the FLG once I'm all caught up with my Master's work for the semester

bermovick

I found the FLG better as well, but ended up using both to make sure I really knew everything I needed to (or at least that I could remember out of the nearly 1500 pages between the two)

RouteMyPacket

I'm leaning toward pulling the trigger on the INE CCNP series. What I have seen is so much better than CBT

getitngo

I just started with the ccnp simplified series and so far so good. I bought the paperback and the kindle, the kindle version is like 5 bucks, you may want to check it out.

Iristheangel

@Getitngo - Thanks for the advice. I checked out the reviews on Amazon and it looks pretty good. After I read FLG and OCG, I might buy the book for some review. I love reading about networking so another book on the subject might be fun.

As far as progress: Got into Chapter 4 but didn't finish it on Friday like I planned. Had sort of a crazy busy weekend so I didn't even get as far as I wanted to on my Master's work. Sigh... Hoping to slam dunk Chapter 4 today. To be honest, I'm tired of reading about EIGRP and would like to move on already.

kohr-ah

Just hit the OSPF chapters myself
I try to add in some CBT Nugget time to help keep the dryness of the chapters a little more enjoyful.

Iristheangel

Chapter 4 completed. Leaving EIGRP in this book and heading into OSPF. Goal of the day: Chapter 5. I'm trying my best to swallow a chapter a day. Odom's book a dry which is surprising since I loved my CCNA books. Oh well... Hopefully the FLG is better. I'll start reading them both at the same time (morning/night rotations) once I get my Master's work caught up.

NetworkVeteran

The ROUTE Foundation Learning Guide is one of my favorite Cisco Press books, and the one I used for preparation, so it gets better from here. The important thing is you're making progress! Keep it up.

iamme4eva

I found the OCG was good for route, but simplified was better for switch.

I used a similar approach to kelkin - I watched a video (I find the video's are a good overview), then read the chapters, then labbed the hell out of it. I have a lab at home but I found myself using GNS3 more for the route, because it was convenient for lunch breaks, on the road, etc.

Sounds like you are doing well though, keep it up! Wouldn't want to be juggling that with a masters at the same time, rather you than me.

Nick.

NetworkVeteran

iamme4eva wrote: »

I found the OCG was good for route, but simplified was better for switch.

Agreed. I used SIMPLIFIED as my SWITCH book and it was very good. I didn't like their ROUTE book as much.

Iristheangel

I'm already past Switch thankfully. Route has been my Moby Dick because life got too crazy for a couple months there but I'm getting it done now. OCG is a little dry but I'm spicing it up with the Trainsignal videos. Right now (as I'm typing this), I'm walking around a data room with a wireless headset on and listening to the Trainsignal videos on my earpiece. I'm hoping to deep dive into FLG in the next week or two but I need to get Master's work done. I'm really bored by my MSISA studies, sadly, so I've been lacking motivation to get that done but I love networking so it's almost a motivation to get my homework done so I can study some more CCNP Route.

(Yes, I am a very twisted individual)

Kelkin

Not to de-rail your thread but how is the MSISA program.. ive been debating over it for awhile now.. been reading the forums and such..

You mentioned OCG and FLG.. let me also suggest TCP/IP V1 2nd ed. to go with it.. Really clears up some topics that I struggled through..

Iristheangel

The MSISA is pretty boring to be honest. I don't feel like I'm learning a lot in comparison to my undergrad degree. It could have been because I already worked in security or because I got my CISSP done so I was taught a lot of the fundamentals but it's been really hard to motivate myself to get the busy work done.

instant000

The main busy work is writing the papers to the rubric standard.

My papers always wound up being twice as long as their "recommendation".

Probably the busiest piece of busy work ahead of you will be the capstone. My best advice on the capstone is to start planning for that ahead of time. It will drag on you if you don't have a good plan and stick with it.

Iristheangel

Took yesterday off from studying to party. Back to the books today. Finished Chapter 5. Onto Chapter 6!

Mrock4

Glad to see you're back at it

JasonX

If you'd like, I have summarized notes for each chapter from the FLG. I can email it to you. Basically a copy/paste job of the book including diagrams, but it cuts the fluff out.

Danielh22185

Good luck with the studies! I actually found the OCG book a bit better broken up than the FLG however the FLG I feel is more in-depth. I totally agree with INE being dry but its really good information. I found it as a good resource regardless of its dry nature. I need to ramp myself back up for the last time. Just bought a house and the chaos that involves so my studies have been lacking pretty heavily to finish off Route. Keep up your momentum!