Here we go! CCNP R&S!

After a long debate with myself I decided I was going to go with CCNA Security. Then after watching a couple of the INE videos, I decided not to go that route.

So, after taking a week off, I am going full CCNP route and switch. Based on what I have read from Cisco's website my plan is to do the following:

-Switch
-Route
-TSHOOT.

I was going to go with Route first - only because I love routing. However, the Switch book is shorter, I understand the concepts, and the blueprint is much, much smaller.

I just started the INE series today and already got a few hours into it. I also bought the CCNP stuff on Udemy several weeks ago on one of their sales.

One of my friends gave me their CCNP (OCG) books to study from, which should be a huge help! Aaaaand I purchased the Chris Bryant books on Amazon earlier.

All in all, I think I'm all good to study very well for the exam, and hopefully pass with a good score. Wish me luck!

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PCTechLinc

Awesome!

Have you set a deadline for each exam attempt, or just see as you go?

MAC_Addy

In a way, yes. I think I'm going to try to tackle the Switch exam in 4 weeks. It just depends on what is going on, though. I have a full-time job, wife and two kids, and I do road cycling (I race). So my study time at night is around 1 - 2 hours. I can usually sneak in around 2 to 3 hours in at work. I work with switches all day long, so the material shouldn't be too bad.

Route on the other hand might take me longer, I just don't know yet. I'm going to tackle Switch first and see how I feel. I would like to be CCNP R&S by the end of the year.

PCTechLinc

Sounds like a good plan, especially since you work with switches at your job. I plan on hitting this after I finish my CCDA, but that is moving at a snail's pace right now due to my MBA studies. I'm giving myself to the end of the year for the CCDA anyway.

Can't wait to hear your progress!

hodgey87

Good luck man! I've been putting it off for a few months now ... INE are great, also found the LiveLessons videos are pretty good.

ande0255

The ROUTE exam is actually really fun to lab, I am about start the BGP section tonight which is completely new waters to charter, I am WAY excited to get into it.

Redistribution and Route-Map topics were way fun to learn for the first time and lab, I don't know why but I just eat up new material, people think I am absolutely crazy for the amount of time I study immediately after work

Good luck on beginning your journey, I am hoping to pass the ROUTE in May, so I can move onto SWITCH.

MAC_Addy

ande0255 wrote: »

The ROUTE exam is actually really fun to lab, I am about start the BGP section tonight which is completely new waters to charter, I am WAY excited to get into it.

Nice! I hear that ROUTE is a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to it, too. What are you using to study? With SWITCH, I just want to get it out of the way, as I don't enjoy it as much as routing.

MAC_Addy

Purchased the two books from Chris Bryant - only to find out that the sell was a scam account. So, I won't be getting the two books this week like I hoped. Now to fight with Amazon.

I'm 60 pages into the OCG now. Seems good so far!

PCTechLinc

You should send a message to Chris Bryant directly. I bought his CCNA Security course on Udemy, and although he's not the quickest to update his content (you should see all the flame posts), his content is excellent.

MAC_Addy

PCTechLinc wrote: »

You should send a message to Chris Bryant directly.

I've been watching his videos, they are really good. Also, thanks for the info. I just sent him an e-mail to let him know what's going on with Amazon.

ande0255

MAC_Addy wrote: »

Purchased the two books from Chris Bryant - only to find out that the sell was a scam account. So, I won't be getting the two books this week like I hoped. Now to fight with Amazon.

I'm 60 pages into the OCG now. Seems good so far!

That REALLY sucks on so many levels about grabbing the Bryant materials $:\$ I am going through Chris Bryants video course, and have his ebook for supplemental reading, I figure that should be a fairly quick read before the exam date I'm trying to make of 4/28 if I feel confident I know the material well enough.

I am debating the 4/28 date as I would juuuuust be finishing the Bryant videos and I have extensively labbed the topics and made notes of all labbing, but that would give me almost no time to re-lab and practice.

On the other hand if I pass hooray and I move onto SWITCH, but if I fail I at least have a general idea of the exam question formatting, and can then re-cover the topics that I fell flat on and hopefully nail it the second time.

Honestly though I just love learning the material, and it's getting a lot more relevant as I have customers moving to ISR routers instead of ASA's, it's not uncommon even for a medium sized business edge router to have 2-3 different protocols running and redistributing routes all over the place (with sub-interfaces and VRF instances galore).

So I am very torn on attempting 4/28 as if I pass that is great, but I feel I'd need to get on SWITCH asap, and I'm not quite ready to let the ROUTE go yet as odd as that may sound!

Speaking of studying, I have to get some BGP up in the old steel trap, I'll stop rambling on now - I hope you are able to get some Chris Bryant materials as it is extremely easy to digest. His dry sense of humor and real world advice make pushing through the videos soooooo much easier

MAC_Addy

Thank you! I have his video series and absolutely love his videos. If you can get on with INE - Keith's videos are great, too. Unfortunately I'm still at page 60 on the OCG

Hopefully I can read more today and this coming weekend.

ande0255

Yes I used Keith Barker for the DMVPN portion, as he has a whoooole section on it.

My coworker is going through ROUTE, and he is very high level skill wise, but said the OCG just destroys him after working all day.

I am hoping to kick it into high gear this weekend as BGP is starting to sink in a bit, really starting to want to make that 4/28 test date to see if I can end the struggle and redirect it to SWITCH myself

AntWrig

Good luck on your journey. I passed the switch exam on 4/21. The sense of accomplishment was overwhelming. Now, I am on to Route and then T-Shoot. I plan to have both done before September.

Once again. Good luck!

ande0255

One thing I would recommend that didn't translate from CCNA to CCNP, as I went from studing to exams with my CCNA with relative success, is that CCNP should be study / lab / practice test / repeat.

I've found on my first study through all the material, I got the foundations of how things work, but a practice exam minced my meat on protocol details. Having to regurgitate the exact syntax of a command given a specific situation really shows you how ready you really are.

I'd make sure you are killing those practice exams (from at least two different sources), to gauge how ready you are.

Good luck again, this level of detail is great to learn about, but you need to keep labbing until your fingers have the commands comitted to muscle memory just in case you draw a blank on exam day

shimasensei

Good luck MAC_Addy! I got my CCNP with the same test order also. My experience is similar with the others here, labbing these exams are fun!

ande0255

It's easy to let time slip with labbing, with troubleshooting my labbing sessions and googling around to find answers, its now 2:30am on a work night and I started at 10pm.

Once I get to labbing its like I don't even think about the time until I blink for the first time in 5 hours and it hurts, then I look at the time and say "ahhhh crap."

With that, I am going to recharge the brain for more labbing tomorrow, as the CCNP battle rages on !