Stopped studying SWITCH, changing gears...

I tried to get through the studies but I do nothing SWITCH related at work. I decided to move on to CCNP SPEDGE.

Anyone ever move on from an exam due to it not directly benefitting your day to day?

I will start to chronicle my studies for CCNP SPEDGE in the CCNP Service Provider forum.

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Comments

bobfromfpl

Nothing wrong with that, no sense in having a certification for the sake of having it. If you need to learn a specific topic then just research it separately. I checked out the SPEDGE but I dont deal with any of those technologies myself.

RouteMyPacket

I'm confused, you were working towards CCNP R/S and have changed gears and trying CCNP SP? What do you do at work?

aaron0011

SWITCH is critical to working in networking. If you don't fully understand Layer 2 then it will hurt your knowledge in Layer 3. I focus on Design/Voice and starting to get into Data Center but I am putting up with ROUTE because I feel CCNP R/S is essential. I'd stick with it if I were you.

filkenjitsu

I work at a cellular service provider dealing with MPLS, BGP, OSPF, QOS, Carrier Ethernet, Microwave Ethernet, T1s, etc. We have HSRP and VRRP in place, but rarely do I have to worry about them. QinQ, SVIs, Ether channel, LAG, and port channel are relevant to my work which is layer 2 stuff. I will be back for SWITCH in the future, but I am constantly surrounded by MPLS, LDP, RSVP, DiffServ, and other such topics that I need more depth on that I feel the layer 2 background I have now will suffice as it is a minor consideration in my day to day activities and troubleshooting.

shodown

every networking job doesn't require CCNP switch knowledge. When I worked for a large enterprise(400+ sites, 35K users) I was a WAN engineer and I would only setup a max of 2 switches. Everything else would go to the LAN team who would take care of the network. I had to have pretty extensive BGP/OSPF knowledge, but not so much on the Lan side of things..

filkenjitsu

My company's core network is handled by another team. This team supports all the 6500s and Nexus gear.