CCSA NGX

nanga · March 2008

Hi Guys,
I am doing an intership whcich involves a bit of everthing ,risk management, network documentation. I am CCNA, Security+, Network+ ..appearing for SSCP.

I was planning on studying for the CCSA NGX just as to have a fell of firewall technology and bolster my skills for a full time job....basically targetting as a seurity analyst/information security analyst and thought having CCSA NGX wont b a bad idea.

I would b thankful if you guide me in
1) books and materials for this certifcation
2) difficultty level considering i am just a college grad with no big experince in admin
3) any suggestions you woud like to help me with.

Thanks in advance

dynamik · March 2008

It might be kind of difficult without getting any hands-on experience with the equipment. Do you have access to any?

When I looked at this, I really felt like they wanted you to take their courses.

Also, you might want to check out Cisco's firewall specialist: http://cisco.com/web/learning/le3/le2/le41/le85/le56/learning_certification_type_home_extra_level.html

It consists of two of the five CCSP exams.

sprkymrk · March 2008

nanga wrote:

appearing for SSCP

nanga wrote:

difficultty level considering i am just a college grad with no big experince in admin

Don't forget you are supposed to have a year of work related experience for the SSCP. Does your internship cover that?

https://www.isc2.org/cgi-bin/content.cgi?category=1192

nanga · March 2008

HI guys thanks for the reply...I am preparing to take the SSCP Associate. Again the for the CCSP track ... there is no concrete study material for SND ...checked out the cisco press book which I think is just the summary to their objectives

dynamik · March 2008

Cisco has a list of SND resources here: http://www.ciscopress.com/markets/detail.asp?st=44730

There's also CBT Nuggets and Transcender available. Just FYI.

Turgon · March 2008

nanga wrote:

Hi Guys,
I am doing an intership whcich involves a bit of everthing ,risk management, network documentation. I am CCNA, Security+, Network+ ..appearing for SSCP.

I was planning on studying for the CCSA NGX just as to have a fell of firewall technology and bolster my skills for a full time job....basically targetting as a seurity analyst/information security analyst and thought having CCSA NGX wont b a bad idea.

I would b thankful if you guide me in
1) books and materials for this certifcation
2) difficultty level considering i am just a college grad with no big experince in admin
3) any suggestions you woud like to help me with.

Thanks in advance

I have worked with Checkpoint a lot over the years, Nokia these days but I installed 4.1 on NT 4.0 back in the year 2000. We couldn't get it to work on Solaris in 2001. A big problem back then was the documentation as they were hardly cookbooks. Checkpoint certainly like to sell courses and they are not cheap. The documentation that comes with the product (at least the last time I looked at it) didn't train you up to admin a checkpoint firewall. The courses help there and failing that on the job experience. As for the exams, if you do the courses you should have what you need in the courseware to prepare for and pass the tests. If courses are not an option, look at the reviews on amazon for books and read as many PDFs on the Checkpoint site as you can. You will need to install and work on Checkpoint server to get plenty of hands on so you know how to configure things and see for yourself how it works. See if there is an evaluation you can download.

As for the exams themselves, I never took any but I believe they are difficult without the courseware so try and obtain some reputable practice tests after spending a few months working with an evaluation copy of checkpoint and reading multiple books and PDFs. Do read widely as a screw up on a corporate firewall can be costly!

Good luck.

CCSA NGX

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