ONT... that was a surprise.

I thought I'd tackle this baby this morning. I've been studying for exactly 6 weeks, using the Cert Guide, the Lab Portfolio and the Chris Bryant material. "Wow" is about all I can say.

The level of detail expected was a surprise. I thought I had a handle on the roles of Gateways and Gatekeepers, but found myself guessing a lot. I thought I understand the interaction between DSCP's, IP Precendence bits, and MPLS EXP bits... nope. I thought I would fly through and questions on FXO / FXS ports, and call setup / teardown... but I was confused. I thought I owned the formula for the packetization of VOIP traffic... whatever. I especially thought I had a handle on reading and understanding the cli/mqc portion of a voip config, and could pull out the important details and answer a damn question when the answer's right in front of me... wrong again.

So, to finish with a 777 is regrettable... but hey, I got to see the exam, and now I know where to focus.

I thought after getting my a$$ handed to me on the BSCI that I wouldn't get surprised again... and sure enough, had no issues with the BCMSN or ISCW. I don't know why I underestimated this puppy. Oh well, try again next week.

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Comments

networker050184

Sorry to hear about the fail. I felt the need to rush the last exam a bit too. Its the feeling of just wanting to get done already!!

Good luck on the retake!

Slowhand

That's how they getcha, there's always some curve-ball that gets you when you least expect it. Hopefully, your next time around will bring happier news, good luck.

mikearama

Okay, here's one I'm confused about...

IntServ uses the RSVP protocol, while DiffServ doesn't.

And yet, CAC is enabled via RSVP, using the ip rsvp bandwidth command. So if I have a DiffServ deployment and I require CAC, is there some other way to deploy it? or have I just nullified the statement that DiffServ doesn't use RSVP?

Much obliged,
Mike

redwarrior

ONT policed me the first time around. I think part of it was that it was my first professional level exam and, despite all the warnings from others, I think a part of me still expected it to require as much study as the CCNA. I think another part of it comes from the fact that the ONT exam guide is the smallest book in the stack, which makes it seem like it should be a breeze compared to the others, but that book summarizes a lot of material that you end up having to dig into much, much deeper. I thought ISCW was a lot easier than ONT.

For the purposes of the exam, only IntServ uses RSVP to reserve bandwidth across the network, while DiffServ uses PHP (Per Hop Behavior) to handle prioritization of packets on a hop by hop basis. I'm not quite sure what this means for the real world as far as CAC in a DiffServ network is concerned (I don't have much real-world VoIP experience!), but I do know that for the purposes of the exam, it's important to keep those two separate. Perhaps one of our VoIP gurus can chime in here? What I'm thinking is perhaps the CAC is considered something separate that works as an overlay to whatever QoS scheme you are using, whereas using IntServ means that all QoS is performed using RSVP, but I could be wrong.

Met44

Sorry to hear, mikearama. It does require a lot of detailed knowledge, which will make victory more sweet. Good luck on your next attempt.

bighornsheep

Sorry to hear, but I can relate on how difficult this exam is.

As for CAC, at least in the ONT context, I studied H.323 gatekeepers as per exam objectives.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk1077/technologies_tech_note09186a00800c5e0d.shtml#funct

TMM3

Thanks for the warning!
And goodluck to you on your next shot.

Plazma

Yea.. the same thing happened to me too.. the BSCI made my brain jelly, the BCMSN annoyed the crap out of me, the ISCW was fun with a few twists and the ONT was "WTF?"

cdad2000

You'll get it the next time. Nice doc bighornsheep

jezg76

I still have nightmares about that damn ONT test....46% on the wireless and a 2-point pass...w...t...f...

mikej412

Okay, you guys have convinced me -- I will not think of the current CCNP anymore as the BSCI exam, the BCMSN exam, and the 2 Easy exams.

mikearama

Hmmm... can't update the thread title anymore?

Anyway, hit this one again at noon today. OH YEAH, BABY! OWNED IT!

Okay, 868 isn't exactly "owning" it, but hell, it's done. The last 5 days of review paid off.

And just FYI regarding the timeline... I wasn't fast, until this last one.

1) CCNA - July 16/07

2) BCMSN - Oct 1/07

3) BSCI - Aug 18/08

4) ISCW - Nov 24/08

5) ONT - Jan 7/09

So, NP is done... on to SP.

kpjungle

mikearama wrote: »

Hmmm... can't update the thread title anymore?

Anyway, hit this one again at noon today. OH YEAH, BABY! OWNED IT!

Okay, 868 isn't exactly "owning" it, but hell, it's done. The last 5 days of review paid off.

And just FYI regarding the timeline... I wasn't fast, until this last one.

1) CCNA - July 16/07

2) BCMSN - Oct 1/07

3) BSCI - Aug 18/08

4) ISCW - Nov 24/08

5) ONT - Jan 7/09

So, NP is done... on to SP.

Congratulations dude! Well done and deserved!

kalebksp

Congrats!

dynamik

Congratulations! It's going to take a bit to get used to your new avatar

mikej412

mikearama wrote: »

OH YEAH, BABY!

Congratulations!

mikearama wrote: »

NP is done

Time for the BIG Celebration!

mikearama

dynamik wrote: »

Congratulations! It's going to take a bit to get used to your new avatar

hehehe... you prefered Mr Smith, my young padawan?

networker050184

Congrats!

miller811

mikearama wrote: »

hehehe... you prefered Mr Smith, my young padawan?

Preferred is a strong word, comfortable with Mr Smith....

congrats...

cdad2000

Whoa!! Great job!

jamesp1983

congrats man!!

aragoen_celtdra

mikearama wrote: »

Hmmm... can't update the thread title anymore?

Anyway, hit this one again at noon today. OH YEAH, BABY! OWNED IT!

Okay, 868 isn't exactly "owning" it, but hell, it's done. The last 5 days of review paid off.

And just FYI regarding the timeline... I wasn't fast, until this last one.

1) CCNA - July 16/07

2) BCMSN - Oct 1/07

3) BSCI - Aug 18/08

4) ISCW - Nov 24/08

5) ONT - Jan 7/09

So, NP is done... on to SP.

So it took 3 months for you to pass BCMSN from the time you passed the CCNA, but you took 10 months to get to BSCI. Why the discrepancy? Just wondering...

Oh and congrats by the way

mikearama

aragoen_celtdra wrote: »

So it took 3 months for you to pass BCMSN from the time you passed the CCNA, but you took 10 months to get to BSCI. Why the discrepancy? Just wondering...

Oh and congrats by the way

Ah, good eye. While it took 10 months by the calender, it really didn't. Back in January I took a contract at a local university for a wireless project. They were a nortel shop, so I didn't bother to study one iota while I was there.

So it was mid-April before I had a chance to start the BSCI trek. On top of that, I failed the BSCI the first attempt at the end of July. So let's call it four solid months of study... maybe four and a half.