ISCW down, 3 more to go - hello all

Wow, did I have an eye-opener!

I have not touched a router/switch in 8 years, and am unemployeed - good time to study up, right? I ran a small network (30 sites, 45 routers, 200 switches) for 5 years, so I am not a noob. It was a typical network - frame relay, hub/spoke, 2600 routers in the remote sites, 6509 switches with sup-III cards in the 5 main buildings, EIGRP and dual 20-mbit internet connections, 802.1Q vlans, maybe 3000 users. Not large at all, but good enough to cause me to think I know my sh1t. But I build the network without any training - I learned thru hands-on experience.

I bought the Cisco Press books, opened the biggest one (ISCW), took notes as I read it (2 weeks), then went and took the test.

Doh! Simulations? Complex questions? Not what I was prepared for... there were questions that are not covered by even one sentence in the darn book! Needless to say, got a 650.

I just took it again and passed this time. No thanks to Cisco Press though! I ended up thumbing thru the cisco website like mad, getting info on each topic.

I also am using an online rack rental company for practicing each concept. Between google, cisco website, and MODERATED, I have lots of lab scenarios to work thru. The rack rental time is key for me. 10 routers, 4 switches, a PIX, and a VPN concentrator allow me to work thru the scenarios no problem. I tested the Boson sim, and hated it big time. IMHO, there is no sim that is even close to a telent session with real equipment.

BTW - the Cisco press books - they are a good way to get basic info, but EACH CHAPTER/TOPIC needs lots of further online follow-up.

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Comments

cisco_trooper

Yeah, don't know what books you're reading but the ISCW is NOT the biggest......just saying'

mgeorge

Well congrats on the pass but get back out there

redwarrior

ISCW is one of the skinniest books in my exam guide stack. You are right, though...I had the same shock when I took the ONT the first time...and the same disappointing result. I went back, got down with the CBT nuggets, Trainsignal videos, Cisco's website, and some lab time and passed on the second try. I guess a lot of people need to be bitten once by these exams to get a good study strategy figured out. The way I look at it now, the exam guides are just a very broad overview of the topics...and merely a starting place for studies.

mikearama

Congrats on the pass... you're on your way.

And yep, hear ya on CiscoPress... never enough to study on alone. Shame you had to learn the hard way to venture out beyond cisco for study material.

networker050184

Congrats on the pass!

The Cisco Press books are great IMO but for the ONT and ISCW there are only exam cert guides and not study guides. The exam cert guides are more of a review rather than teaching the topics in depth. I would suggest you read both for the BSCI and BCMSN and for the ONT follow up like you did with plenty Doc reading. Good luck on the rest of the exams!

kingpinofdisks

cisco_trooper wrote:

Yeah, don't know what books you're reading but the ISCW is NOT the biggest......just saying'

http://www.bookpool.com/sm/158720178X

I bought the 4-book library. Of the 4 books, the ISCW is the thickest.

mikej412

kingpinofdisks wrote:

Between google, cisco website, and MODERATED

You may want to run that MODERATED site through the CertSearch over at CertGuard.com and see what they say about it (hint: BrainDump).

cisco_trooper

kingpinofdisks wrote:

cisco_trooper wrote:

Yeah, don't know what books you're reading but the ISCW is NOT the biggest......just saying'

http://www.bookpool.com/sm/158720178X

I bought the 4-book library. Of the 4 books, the ISCW is the thickest.

Me think you is crazy! I dunno man, I have that library in front of my although I have the ISCW book at home. I always thought of the BSCI and BCMSN books as being significantly larger than the rest. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Congrats on your pass man. Which one will be your next victim?

kingpinofdisks

mikej412 wrote:

kingpinofdisks wrote:

Between google, cisco website, and MODERATED

You may want to run that MODERATED site through the CertSearch over at CertGuard.com and see what they say about it (hint: BrainDump).

http://www.certificationzone.com/

That isn't a braindump site! The labs & tutorials are all original. I just was lazy in my typing - I didn't know there was such a thing as {moderated} until just now... cheating is for MODERATEDes...

though I just bought the 1-mo membership to certificationzone so I could save all the lab scenarios to my laptop for future use

I don't have the $$ to pay for their year membership

And I see a zillion cisco press books for study, but I can't afford them... I find it cheaper to use the 4 books I do have as a starting point for google searches on each subject... that way I can save my $$$ for lab rental time, which is the important part anyways..

kingpinofdisks

cisco_trooper wrote:

kingpinofdisks wrote:

cisco_trooper wrote:

Yeah, don't know what books you're reading but the ISCW is NOT the biggest......just saying'

http://www.bookpool.com/sm/158720178X

I bought the 4-book library. Of the 4 books, the ISCW is the thickest.

Me think you is crazy! I dunno man, I have that library in front of my although I have the ISCW book at home. I always thought of the BSCI and BCMSN books as being significantly larger than the rest. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Congrats on your pass man. Which one will be your next victim?

Currently working on BSCI - much easier than ISCW, but that is probably because I have experience with routing & switching, and had zero experience with the VPN, MPLS and firewall stuff.

PS - in the real world, the Cisco PIX kinda sucks. Why? Cause it is really expensive. I use OpenBSD (with PF and CARP) to make redundant firewalls out of old desktops. I setup a manufacturing company (250 users) with redundant firewalls using 2 of their old Intel Celeron desktops (1.2ghz, 512mb RAM, 40gb HD, quad 10/100 nics) - so $50 for hardware and software. I even threw on PPTP (using poptop) & made 2 static routes so they could have Windoze 2000/XP/Vista users make a VPN connection into the network.

The firewall would run <2% CPU under load. The load was a 6mbit internet connection and 7 VPN connections...

mikej412

kingpinofdisks wrote:

I just was lazy in my typing - I didn't know there was such a thing as {moderated} until just now...

You can't be lazy in your typing -- or your studies!! **** sites use all sorts of means to drive traffic to their sites, including "sound-a-like" or "similar" urls.

kingpinofdisks wrote:

cheating is for MODERATEDes...

While my Ex may be a MODERATED, she wouldn't ****, at least not on an exam -- but I understand the sentiment. We prefer the less misogynistic and more professional sounding **** are for Chumps (as found in TechExam user snadam's signature line).

Welcome to the forum!

The best books for the BSCI and BCMSN exams are probably the Self-Study Guides -- which are best used along with the Exam Certification Guides. The ISCW and ONT exams don't have the Self-Study Guides, so we usually suggest checking the exam blueprints and then hitting up the Cisco Documentation and White Papers for anything not covered in the Exam Certification Guides (or not covered in depth when compared to the exam blueprint).

There are suggested Cisco Documentation links in the CCNP FAQ that could be useful -- but no guarantees. Cisco can sneak in changes to the exam blueprint at any time, so always use that as your ultimate study guide for tasks and topics.

dynamik

mikej412 wrote:

While my Ex may be a MODERATED, she wouldn't ****, at least not on an exam -- but I understand the sentiment. We prefer the less misogynistic and more professional sounding **** are for Chumps (as found in TechExam user snadam's signature line).

Mike, I had no idea you could be so eloquent

_maurice

I too just failed the ISCW exam. I got the SYN bit and ACK bit mixed up. I probably got 5-10 questions about ACLs. Needless to say, I scored very low on the Implementing IOS Firewall section.

kingpinofdisks

_maurice wrote:

I too just failed the ISCW exam. I got the SYN bit and ACK bit mixed up. I probably got 5-10 questions about ACLs. Needless to say, I scored very low on the Implementing IOS Firewall section.

Keep at it! I just called it a practice test, and used it as my study guide for the 2nd one which I passed.

_maurice

thanks dude. i also ran out of time. I was struggling on one of the sims. wont happen again

_maurice

passed it

redwarrior

Also keep in mind that some of us do happen to be female.

Oh and, a medical fact - "The uterus is the strongest muscle in the human body, male or female."

RAWR!!!

_maurice

sorry dude

Mrock4

redwarrior wrote:

Also keep in mind that some of us do happen to be female.

Oh and, a medical fact - "The uterus is the strongest muscle in the human body, male or female."

RAWR!!!

Hah. Yeah, the ISCW is going to hurt. I envy all of you who can fly by it, but those of us with plenty of routing/switching experience and very little security..well...yeah..

nel

COngrats on the pass to all of you but takes mike's/snadams advice on the **** OP.

Can i ask though how the heck did you pass the exam with 650? surely its a higher mark than that? or have i misread the whole topic?

EDIT: oops just re-read it.

netwayne

Congrats to both passers!!!

aueddonline

redwarrior wrote:

Also keep in mind that some of us do happen to be female.

Oh and, a medical fact - "The uterus is the strongest muscle in the human body, male or female."

RAWR!!!

I didn't think there was a male uterus

kidding

mamono

aueddonline wrote:

redwarrior wrote:

Also keep in mind that some of us do happen to be female.
Oh and, a medical fact - "The uterus is the strongest muscle in the human body, male or female."
RAWR!!!

I didn't think there was a male uterus kidding

Not to thread jack, but its called a "man-gina"... *cough* j/k

Congrats to all those that passed... I can't imagine taking CCNP exams yet. Not looking forward to eating instant ramen to afford a CCNP home lab... >_<

redwarrior

I almost spurted coffee out my nose there...ok, I'm going to calm down now!