My CCNP Route thread

JeanM

Congrats! Sounds like you have a solid plan!

CodeBlox

I'm working on CCNP ROUTE too I'm currently on chapter 10 of OCG. I have the FLG but have not started reading that yet. You seem to be going at a fast pace... I hope you retain the info!

phoeneous

When are you taking the test?

Iristheangel

I haven't set a date for the test. Until I'm done with the two books and heavily labbing, I doubt I'll set a projected date. I'd rather learn the information.

Didn't update this last week because I was working on MSISA work all last week. Finishing Chapter 6 today

Iristheangel

Finished Chapter 6. Working on Chapter 7 tonight. Goal is to get done with Chapter 10 by the end of the week (halfway through the book)

Iristheangel

Halfway through Chapter 7 today and then onto 8 tomorrow. I finished a MSISA class last night as well and will finish another one by the end of the week. That leaves me with 3 classes and a Capstone until graduation.

Goal of the week: Finish another Master's class and finish chapter 10 of the OCG (official halfway point of the book)

phoeneous

How the heck are you retaining all of the book material? Please share your secret.

Ivanjam

@phoeneous - Iris is a speed-reading walking encyclopedia with a photographic memory

Iristheangel

phoeneous wrote: »

How the heck are you retaining all of the book material? Please share your secret.

I read two books while taking EXTENSIVE notes (OCG is what I'm reading now and FLG next). Going to then watch training videos (Trainsignal) and lab like crazy. This is my new home lab. I need to buy a rack:


My company was moving from a larger corporate office to a smaller one. We had to get rid of a TON of inventory for non-company standard models and old models of routers and switches. I snagged probably about 30 routers and 8 switches for free. I gave the lesser ones out to various friends working on their certifications but I kept the following for myself:
2651XM Router
3550 XL Switch
2x 3550 Switches
2821 Router
2x Pix-525 firewall
3845 Router
7200 Router
3725 Router

plus all the T1, DSU, and flash cards I could carry. Not bad for the price of free



After reading, videos, labbing and flashcards, I'll take the test.

Since I'm a network engineer now, I also try to check production configs and see stuff I'm working on in play

LinuxRacr

I want to say that I am in awe of what you are doing, and commend you on the EPIC adventure you have undertaken. With that being said, good luck!!

Iristheangel

Finished Chapter 7 yesterday. Just finished Chapter 8 before work. I'll start chipping away at Chapter 9 on my lunch but I suspect I won't get it done until tomorrow. I'm right on target for my goal of getting through Chapter 10 by the end of the week

snadam

Iristheangel wrote: »

This is my new home lab. I need to buy a rack:

How the heck did you get them to stick to the wall like that?

in all seriousness, I am very glad you started this thread. As one who is thinking about going the NP route when the time comes, its helpful to have documented experience like this.

You see a decent amount of CCIE blog/threads, but not so much on CCNP (at least lately). Keep up the good work, best of luck on exam day, and thanks for sharing the experience!

Iristheangel

snadam wrote: »

How the heck did you get them to stick to the wall like that?

Lots and lots of tape! Jking In all seriousness, I've never made a "progress" thread before but I went through a couple months of not studying or doing any homework so this was my way to get back on track. It was sort of weird to not go home and study every night since I've been doing that for 5+ years EVERY day and I became a little complacent

Iristheangel

Finishing Chapter 9 today. IGP Redistribution - Actually review for me since I read Network Warrior already and this was brought up several times in it. I'll work on Chapter 10 tomorrow and probably take Sunday off to do laid back things.

Danielh22185

Iristheangel wrote: »

I read two books while taking EXTENSIVE notes (OCG is what I'm reading now and FLG next). Going to then watch training videos (Trainsignal) and lab like crazy. This is my new home lab. I need to buy a rack:


My company was moving from a larger corporate office to a smaller one. We had to get rid of a TON of inventory for non-company standard models and old models of routers and switches. I snagged probably about 30 routers and 8 switches for free. I gave the lesser ones out to various friends working on their certifications but I kept the following for myself:
2651XM Router
3550 XL Switch
2x 3550 Switches
2821 Router
2x Pix-525 firewall
3845 Router
7200 Router
3725 Router

plus all the T1, DSU, and flash cards I could carry. Not bad for the price of free



After reading, videos, labbing and flashcards, I'll take the test.

Since I'm a network engineer now, I also try to check production configs and see stuff I'm working on in play

I'm super jelly! Wish my company as big as it is would offer things like this to their NOC engineers. I am sure a lot of my colleges and myself would learn a lot having access to retired / end of life equipment.

Iristheangel

Didn't get to finish up Chapter 10 over the weekend as planned so nailing that today. Progress is ongoing My goal is to have this book done by the first week of August and then start tackling FLG. If all goes well, I'll be ready to take the exam by October

Iristheangel

Finished Chapter 10 and 11 today. Tomorrow is all about Chapter 12. Almost caught up with my MSISA work as well

Iristheangel

Finishing Chapter 12 today. It's nice to finally dive into BGP. I've configured it but I didn't really know much except that basics so I'm excited to learn a little more. I ordered the CCNP Route Simplified book last night just in case I need something for review. Wendell Odom was a GREAT read for my CCNA but I find him really dry for the CCNP for some reason. I still have the FLG to read, about 150 pages of someone else's notes to read, the lab manual to go through, Trainsignal videos to watch and a bunch of other resources so the CCNP Simplified book may end up going to waste but who knows... Routing is one of my weaker areas because I don't get the opportunity to do very complex things with it daily and it's been almost 2 years since I received my CCNA so there is some knowledge fade there. Some projects are coming up soon (network refresh, new datacenter being added, etc) that I'll be able to exercise some complex routing so I'd like to be ready for them.


Also finished up another MSISA class last night. I have exactly 2 classes and a Capstone until graduation. Can't wait to be done with this exhausting degree.

Danielh22185

Keep going! I love reading about your study efforts. It's inspiring to myself!

phoeneous

Any chance you can do a comparison review of ocg vs flg? I skipped on reading either book and went with Chris Bryants ccnp bootcamp and How to Master CCNP Route by Renee Molenaar (the guy who hosts gns3 vault). Both are great material. I just can't handle Cisco press books anymore, too boring.

NetworkVeteran

Any chance you can do a comparison review of ocg vs flg?

Well, on Amazon you can find ~20 reviews for each book with the FLG scoring 4.5 stars and the OCG scoring 3.5 stars. That sums it up, in a nutshell, and you can read the actual reviews if you want the details.

I adore the ROUTE FLG. It's one of the better networking books.

phoeneous

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

Well, on Amazon you can find ~20 reviews for each book with the FLG scoring 4.5 stars and the OCG scoring 3.5 stars. That sums it up, in a nutshell, and you can read the actual reviews if you want the details.

I adore the ROUTE FLG. It's one of the better networking books.

I don't trust amazon reviews. Only reviews I take into consideration are newegg.

FloOz

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

Well, on Amazon you can find ~20 reviews for each book with the FLG scoring 4.5 stars and the OCG scoring 3.5 stars. That sums it up, in a nutshell, and you can read the actual reviews if you want the details.

I adore the ROUTE FLG. It's one of the better networking books.

I agree Route FLG is a great read. It gives you a ton more information than you need for the Route exam which I personally like. Great reference book as well.

Iristheangel

Finishing Chapter 13 today - External BGP. Fun chapter so far. I've always wanted to have a better understanding of BGP beyond the copy & paste of commands that I currently do for our MPLS cloud. Tomorrow I'll get through Chapter 14 and break for the weekend. <nerd> I am participating in Star Trek Iron Man this weekend which will probably result in my staying awake from 24+ hours so I doubt I would have had much opportunity to study anyways. </nerd>

At this pace of "1 Chapter per day," I'll have the OCG completed on Friday of next week. I'm really excited for reading the FLG thanks to all of your reviews of it. It's a much larger book and it's only really split up by 6 chapters so I doubt my "1 chapter per day" method could work. I need to find a way to logically break up the book so I can have achievable milestones every day and make progress. Since I'll be ending my MSISA semester soon so I'll have more time. I think I might try "1 Chapter a week" (starting at Chapter 2) on the FLG and commit to studying for the three hours in the morning that I arrive early at work for and then work on the CCNP Route Simplified book at home in the evenings. I think if I do that, I could realistically have both books completed in 4-5 weeks. I'll probably spend the following weeks just labbing from notes and using flashcards. I could probably be ready for the CCNP Route exam by the end of September or early October. Then I'll just have TSHOOT left. From everything I've read on here, it's the easiest of all three exams and requires little-to-no study time. Am I correct in this?

gorebrush

The inherent problem with TSHOOT is that I can't just teach you how to troubleshoot. It all comes down to your methodology for fixing apparent broken things...

Sure there are techniques, but I really think it is down to an individual if they are a good troubleshooter or not. I've met some really smart people struggle at trouble shooting because they end up wasting time down the wrong path for hours...

Iristheangel

My understanding of TSHOOT is that it just goes through the common issues and errors with routing and switching which is mentioned in the other OCG guides so it's just redundancy. I'll still read the book but there's not really much labbing to be done... It's not like I'm going to be learning any new protocols. I suppose I can run through the Sims on Boson where I have to troubleshoot an existing environment which is fine but it won't be as extensive of labbing as Route and Switch obviously

iamme4eva

I did TSHOOT a week after switch. I downloaded the official topology from cisco, built it, flicked through the book and did the exam. As long as you know everything from the other two exams, TSHOOT is pretty straight forward. Does help that I'm pretty good at troubleshooting - it's been my job with various companies for 8 years. Look up the bullseye tshoot exam tips on youtube.

gorebrush

Well I listened to a very interesting tip the other day, I believe it came from Keith Barker - who was helping Anthony Sequeria - he says grade yourself on a topic from 1-5 (granted this was CCIE)

1 - basic high level
2 - seen some videos on it
3 - written exam level
4 - you can configure it
5 - you can troubleshoot it

When you can truly troubleshoot something - then you are damn good at that area.

Iristheangel

Reading through Chapter 15 today (BGP Path Control). I should be done with OCG by the end of the week. I also received CCNP Route Simplified in the mail on Friday and have started on that at home. It's a pretty easy read so far. I've started taking notes from that book as well so I'm going to have a TON of notes to share when I'm done with my Route journey

Mrock4

Keep it up at this rate you'll be a CCIE in no time!