My CCNP Route Thread

TBickle

In the spirit of CCNP threads, I thought I'd start my own.

Background info: I passed my CCNA back in January, and kinda took it easy up until June. Mostly because I had just started a new job, and didn't have time to study on top of learning the new network I was hired to work. Around June, I started studying for Switch and went about it the usual way,--alot of reading and memorization. I sat for the exam in early September and i barely squeaked by. Now that the Switch exam is behind me, I decided to start studying for Route.

I began studying for Route in mid September and up until this week, read the first three chapters. I don't feel like I've made enough progress, so I decided to switch things up. I plan on spending 80% of my study time on labbing and the other 20% on reading. I'll give each chapter a brief read and then I'll lab as often as I can. On top of that, I have CBT Nuggets in mp3 form on my iPhone, so I'll be listening to each section every time I walk my dogs, drive somewhere, or while I'm at work.

TBickle

Weekly progress:

I skimmed over EIGRP chapter in FLG, and have listened to the EIGRP videos at least 3 times each. I bought a 25 hour Cisco Learning Lab pass to access their labs, and spent 3 hours labbing yesterday and 1 hour today. The labs aren't that great, but they'll be a nice supplement to my home lab.
Also, I spent about 600 dollars this week on a new lab. I have (2) 2610xms, (2) 1841s, (1)3620 Frame Relay Router, (1)Avocent Terminal Access Server, and several Wic-1T cards and cables on their way. Those should all arrive later this week, which should give me a nice little project for the weekend. I already own (2) 2950s and (2)3550s, so the switches are taken care. The only other thing i'm thinking of ordering is a Skeletech Rack and possibly two additional 1841s. I'm not sure if I'll need more routers. Since I've never had an actual lab, I'm not sure if there is a point of diminishing returns.

I plan on spending the remainder of the week working on EIGRP labs. I'm shooting for 2 hours each day.

TBickle

My lab is finally starting to trickle in, so I haven't done much studying. Yesterday my two 2610xms, and my Avocent Cyclades ts3000 arrived in the mail, so I spent the majority of my evening making sure all of the equipment worked. What I learned from that experience is that you definitely need a crossover cable to connect two routers together. I was under the impression that a straight through cable would work just fine due to auto midix, but as I later found out, you definitely need a crossover cable to connect the routers back-to-back.

As for today, I did manage to get about 30 minutes of the Route Simplified book in, but then put it aside to hunt for more equipment on Ebay. What i'm learning is that the Simplified book is deep in detail but not without its own drawbacks. For example, the examples the authors provided for Administrative Distance and Feasible Distance were overly complicated compared to the ones provided in FLG and CBT Nuggets. However, it does seems to provide a lot detail on the topics--much more than is probably required for the actual exam.

After work I was hoping to get some labs done but didn't manage to finish configuring the Cyclades in time. I have literally spend all evening working on that damn box, and I still can't telnet into any of my devices. At this point, I'm considering returning it and instead spending the extra money on a Cisco 2511.