How long did it take you to finish CCNP?

I was just wondering. I'm projecting about a year and half will do it for me. However, because I don't have much understanding yet of the breadth or depth of the subjects I have to take on, it could change.

For those who have their CCNP, how long did it take you? What's your previous background prior to embarking on the track? What are the circumstances under which you had to undergo while running for CCNP (ie full time student, full time worker, family, etc)?

I do plan to remain consistent with my previous study plan when I did CCNA. That is, study about 20 hours a week, minimum. I don't get any experience at work since I touch mostly desktops and servers so experience-wise it'll all have to be done on the home lab. I figure, if I spend 4 months per exam, putting in a minimum of 80 hours of studying a month, that should do it for me. What do you guys think?

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Comments

scheistermeister

I do not have my CCNP yet, but am halfway through the tests. I went over all of the material for CCNP in 3 quarters for school while being a full-time student. I plan to re-read the BSCI and ISCW sections in the next few weeks and take the tests for them both by the end of the month. If I was smart I would have taken the tests right after I finished them the first time, but I was dumb and put them off. ONT was the shortest and easiest to my by far with BCMSN not to far behind. BSCO and ISCW, to me, are the longest and hardest.

nice343

7 months for CCNP

I am currently doing my CCVP and I want to do it within 5 months but this seems to be more intensive than the CCNP in my opinion.

CCIEWANNABE

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

my brother did it in 4 months.

i plan on doing it in 1 year.

i guess it all depends on how much study time you got!!

astorrs

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

Wild guess he had a background in Cisco networking already?

ironlung

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

my brother did it in 4 months.

i plan on doing it in 1 year.

i guess it all depends on how much study time you got!!

12 days he must have a lot of experience.

tomset

I've been studying pretty regularly since Sept. '07 and I'm almost done with the BCMSN. I've already passed the BSCI. I figure I'll be done by Feb. '09. So it'll probably take me a year and a half.

Cucumber

1 year

dynamik

astorrs wrote:

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

Wild guess he had a background in Cisco networking already?

That's one scenario

I obviously don't know the guy; just take stories like that with a grain of salt.

astorrs

dynamik wrote:

astorrs wrote:

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

Wild guess he had a background in Cisco networking already?

That's one scenario

I obviously don't know the guy; just take stories like that with a grain of salt.

Hey now remember I did the MCSA in 10 days so I could believe it if you had a heavy background in the stuff.

dynamik

That's why I only said to take it with a grain of salt.

And just FYI, MCSA != CCNP

astorrs

dynamik wrote:

And just FYI, MCSA != CCNP

Sheesh, Would an MCSE=CCNP in your books... I would have written those last 2 MCSE exams the day after if that would have made you happier; you're worse than my wife. :P

dynamik

No.

GT-Rob

about 9months total.

For the record, I have done MCSA and CCNP, and IMO MCSA=1 CCNP exam.

astorrs

GT-Rob wrote:

For the record, I have done MCSA and CCNP, and IMO MCSA=1 CCNP exam.

Fair enough. I'll let you know in a year or two what I think...

gojericho0

It all depends on the experience you have. However I don't know anyone who works with ALL the technologies in a single CCNP exam on a regular basis. I think based on your study plan you could knock it out in your timeframe. If you get some production experience even less.

I just knocked out the routing exam and it took me about 3 months and I have just over a year of solid (every day) networking experience under my belt

aragoen_celtdra

OK, so I think in general between 12months and 16 months is a decent timeframe. I'm not even going to consider the 6 month or less time frame. Even one year would be pushing it for my case. You would really have to have at least 2-3 years of solid Cisco experience in order to pull that off.

I have no doubt that anyone can pull it off in a month -or 12 days for that matter-if you really devote all the time to studying. But one has to wonder how much practical application you can learn and be able to translate into real world productivity by doing that. In essence you're really only studying to pass a test and not to train for your craft. I believe some people who have been in the industry for years but don't have their certs go this route. And that's ok. Too bad most of us don't get that opportunity. So the only thing we can rely on is the persistence and determination to train for a long period. And hope that our persistence is paid off by getting the chance to work in a real "dream network"

Hey, thanks guys and good luck to everyone! Easy on the firecrackers

GT-Rob

I think a year of pretty dedicated study is a fair estimate. You can do it shorter if you put more hours in, spend more weekends in a book. Also helps to have access to racks and not having to wait for them or recable 1000 times.

darkuser

6 months

mgeorge

I spent about 5 months on obtaining the cert. Experince plays a major roll in studies.

Everyday on the job is great experince.

CCIEWANNABE

JUAN1984 wrote:

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

my brother did it in 4 months.

i plan on doing it in 1 year.

i guess it all depends on how much study time you got!!

12 days he must have a lot of experience.

he obtained it through a ccnp bootcamp. the bootcamp was 12 days long. 3 days covering all the material for each exam, then they had the option to test after every 3 days and he passed all 4 exams. it took him 3 times doing the ccie r&s lab, but he finally got it done. he was a pretty smart guy. i worked with him up in anchorage alaska. we both worked for GCI, which is Anchorage's largest ISP.

EdTheLad

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

It would take 12 days to figure out the entire content of the exam.So he spent 3 days per course content.This would be possible if he were a cisco instructor, but if he were, he would already have the exams.Even someone with alot of experience would need about 1 month as its not possible to work on everything to keep ram updated.
Ah but then we have our good friend Mr ****.

jbaello

12 days on CCNP, I have already spent 4 months on 70-236 Exchange :P

Well that is an average of 3 - 4 hours of study/lab everyday for me...

ccie_in_the_making

6 months........experience helps

Sepiraph

EdTheLad wrote:

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

It would take 12 days to figure out the entire content of the exam.So he spent 3 days per course content.This would be possible if he were a cisco instructor, but if he were, he would already have the exams.Even someone with alot of experience would need about 1 month as its not possible to work on everything to keep ram updated.
Ah but then we have our good friend Mr ****.

Exactly, anyone with a decent memory can remember the exam answers. I just hope he'd never get past the interview. Then again, we had a 'network designer' who put a new switch it without configuring it in vtp transparent mode (basic CCNA stuff) and ended up costing hours of outage, not to mention shitload of work for our team.

dynamik

Let's not jump to conclusions. That's why I added "with a grain of salt" to my post. He could have been prepping for two years, and just did the boot camp as review before the exams.

The point I'm trying to make is that simply saying "CCNP is 12 days" makes it sound suspicious.

scheistermeister

Sepiraph wrote:

Then again, we had a 'network designer' who put a new switch it without configuring it in vtp transparent mode (basic CCNA stuff) and ended up costing hours of outage, not to mention shitload of work for our team.

I am sure doing a bonehead move like that will knock someone's ego down a few notches...

Paul Boz

9 months, via the composite route. I got pretty high scores (2978/3000 over all) so I could have done it in less time but I was thorough.

jamesp1983

I'm projecting a year. My boss did it in two weeks.

CCIEWANNABE

Sepiraph wrote:

EdTheLad wrote:

CCNPWANNABE wrote:

i know a guy who did it in 12 days.

It would take 12 days to figure out the entire content of the exam.So he spent 3 days per course content.This would be possible if he were a cisco instructor, but if he were, he would already have the exams.Even someone with alot of experience would need about 1 month as its not possible to work on everything to keep ram updated.
Ah but then we have our good friend Mr ****.

Exactly, anyone with a decent memory can remember the exam answers. I just hope he'd never get past the interview. Then again, we had a 'network designer' who put a new switch it without configuring it in vtp transparent mode (basic CCNA stuff) and ended up costing hours of outage, not to mention shitload of work for our team.

what? he's a CCIE now. passed the interview? he was already a lead network engineer and the company paid for him to go take the test. whats with all the hatin? you know, some people are just extremely intelligent. so i wouldn't say he "dumped" the information if you have never met him. that's all.

buulam

12 days sounds reasonable considering your description of the fellow.

I know of folks who have done similar. Typically people working as technical consultants for Cisco Partners or engineers at service providers.

Suspicious would be people who are systems admins mainly working on Windows Servers and have a single layer 2 Cisco switch at their work that they never need to touch yet have somehow scored 990/1000's on their CCNP exams... a bit scary and makes one who studied hard feel cheated but rest assure those types will never get CCIE