Anyone Studying for the CCIP?

Anyone studying for the CCIP? What is your lab setup? What routers are you using in real life or in GNS3? What switches are you using?

What are your favorite study materials for this exam?

How are your studies so far? Anything causing you problems?

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APA

best QoS book for the exam is easily the CCVP book by Odom and Cavanagh

Cisco QoS:Exam Certification Guide

Plus the usual online documentation and if you've done your CCNP via the old track perhaps revisit your ONT study...

burbankmarc

APA wrote: »

best QoS book for the exam is easily the CCVP book by Odom and Cavanagh

Cisco QoS:Exam Certification Guide

+1 to this. I recently passed the ol' 642-642 using only this book.

qplayed

yes got my NP via old track... thanks
I'll get the Cert GUide ordered.

Allthingscisco

burbankmarc wrote: »

+1 to this. I recently passed the ol' 642-642 using only this book.

Hey, Just looking at ordering books for CCIP and CCIE, where can I find the book your currently reading: "TCP/IP Vol II" - how you finding it- still valid for todays technologies

Cheers

j4s

As I have already written a few CCIP related posts in this thread I thought I would just update it to state that I passed the BGP exam just this morning.

My 4 reads of the Internet routing architectures book, 20 or so hours of BGP labs in GNS, and a good read of the latest command reference for BGP certainly helped.

Thought the exam was okay, had a number of simulations some of which I had managed to work through similar scenarios in the labs I did, one that took me a small amount of time to figure out.

So 75% of the way there, need to knock the QOS exam on the head in the next four months before my BSCI expires.

Onto Amazon to see what the QOS book by Mr Odom will cost me.

JC

networker050184

Congrats! I can't say I enjoyed studying for the QoS, but its good info.

peanutnoggin

j4s wrote: »

I passed the BGP exam just this morning.

Congrats...

pass exam + on a friday =

Good luck with your QoS studies!

wirerat

Congrats on the pass!

mikej412

j4s wrote: »

passed the BGP exam

Congratulations!!

earweed

Congrats!

jovan88

j4s wrote: »

As I have already written a few CCIP related posts in this thread I thought I would just update it to state that I passed the BGP exam just this morning.

My 4 reads of the Internet routing architectures book, 20 or so hours of BGP labs in GNS, and a good read of the latest command reference for BGP certainly helped.

Congrats j4s, I'm hoping to sit and pass this exam very soon. I'm going through the IRA book and finding it very interesting but very different from all the Cisco Press books I've read for other exams.

I don't know what to expect in this exam, but from what I can see there are so many ways to do the same thing in BGP. I'm expecting countless ACLs, prefix-lists and route-maps to try and throw me off. Staring at a whole bunch of numbers in a time-sensitive exam can really get the adrenaline going!

Forsaken_GA

jovan88 wrote: »

Congrats j4s, I'm hoping to sit and pass this exam very soon. I'm going through the IRA book and finding it very interesting but very different from all the Cisco Press books I've read for other exams.

I don't know what to expect in this exam, but from what I can see there are so many ways to do the same thing in BGP. I'm expecting countless ACLs, prefix-lists and route-maps to try and throw me off. Staring at a whole bunch of numbers in a time-sensitive exam can really get the adrenaline going!

BGP's not that bad if you've put in the labtime.

I will warn you that Halabi's book does not cover everything you're likely to see on the exam. I sincerely recommend picking up a copy of the BGP-4 Configuration Guide, and paying close attention to any command you're not familiar with from working through IRA, it may save you a couple questions on the exam.

j4s

I took QOS exam today, the final exam required to get my CCIP, and I am glad to say that I passed.

I have to say that after three reads of the QOS book by Mr Odom, GNS labbing, and various other study resources I was hoping to get this out of the way first go.

Had quite a few simulations on this exam, and the lowest number of total questions that I have ever taken to pass a Cisco exam. When I saw the number I was thinking this would take me all of 45 minutes, but a few questions had me sitting there racking the brain cells, and a simulation right at the end dragged me back to reality.

Glad it's over. Think I'm going to take a break from study for a while and see what I fancy doing next later in the year.

Jas

networker050184

Congrats!

wirerat

Congrats on the pass!

tomaifauchai

Congrats on the pass! I plan to sit it before the february 28th deadline for NP voice.

mikej412

j4s wrote: »

passed

Congratulations!!

Forsaken_GA

j4s wrote: »

Had quite a few simulations on this exam, and the lowest number of total questions that I have ever taken to pass a Cisco exam. When I saw the number I was thinking this would take me all of 45 minutes, but a few questions had me sitting there racking the brain cells, and a simulation right at the end dragged me back to reality.

I think I know exaclty which sim you're talking about. It was one of those 'you sneaky bastards!' moments when I realized what was going on.

stuh84

I've got the QoS exam on the 24th, so two weekends of intensive studying and every night this week ahead!

notgoing2fail

I'm taking an unconventional route with CCIP.

I do play on getting CCIP but focusing on BGP right now because I've been working on a BGP problem.

I wasn't much of a fan of GNS3 but it has saved my butt so I'm going to continue using it for BGP studies.

I also have the Internet Routing and Architecture book that everyone speaks of, and plan to get BGP by O'Reilly (for a different POV from Cisco Press) and probably 1-2 more books on the topic.

Then take the exam while the iron is hot......

Then go back and focus on finishing up CCNP. There's no rule that says you have to take any exams in specific order.

jovan88

I need to pass MPLS to get through the CCIP, it must be my laziness but I'm finding MPLS a very dry topic. I'm an MPLS noob so I'm reading MPLS Fundamentals - I just need to muscle my way through the theory and new concepts and get into some labs.

Sett

Today I had my revenge on the QoS exam and this time I managed to clear it! With that my CCIP is complete and I am off to the Juniper's Service Provider track now.

networker050184

Sett wrote: »

Today I had my revenge on the QoS exam and this time I managed to clear it! With that my CCIP is complete and I am off to the Juniper's Service Provider track now.

I'm thinking about heading that direction also. Well, at least the JNCIS-SP, not sure about any further.

Do you have any plans for study material yet? That is the only thing that is really holding me back right now. Juniper better get on the ball with material if they want their certifications to take off. I might get work to shell out for some of the official courses down the road. Just no time for it now.

Oh, and congrats on the CCIP!

mikej412

Sett wrote: »

I had my revenge

Congratulations on the QoS Pass

and the CCIP!!

Sett

networker050184 wrote: »

Do you have any plans for study material yet?

I think I will be able to get the JNCIA relatively easy with the materials by the Fast Track program. As to the JNCIS:SP I don't know...By looking at the exam objectives I hope that the old JNCIS study guide + Junos Enterprise switching + some on job experience might prove enough. That is if Juniper doesn't publish some new materials until then. For now I am focused on the first step - JNCIA.
Anyway, sorry for the offtopic

vinbuck

I'm currently working on the CCNP right now, but the CCIP is on my radar. I work for a telco/service provider so I use BGP, MPLS and QoS on a daily basis and would like to dig deeper into each subject. You can do some really neat stuff with MPLS. We use layer 2 xconnects to all kinds of neat LAN stuff across a WAN.

How long after the CCNP did it take you guys to do the CCIP? I'm immersed in this stuff every day so i'm hoping to be able to knock it out within 6 months of passing TSHOOT.

Forsaken_GA

Longer than it should have, because I'm a procrastinatin sumbitch

If you've already got a solid grounding in the technologies, 6 months is reasonable

networker050184

It took me a little over a year I think but like Forsaken, I procrastinated heavily. New job, moved, family life etc.

Six months is definitely possible though. I work for a provider also and the exposure to the technologies on a daily basis will definitely makes things easier to grasp when you've seen them work in the real world.

Good luck!

tomaifauchai

Congrats Sett on the QoS exam!
How was the exam? I plan to sit it before Feb 28! Cert book is enough?

I had some hands-on labs in school, but all the frame relay stuff and best practices wasn't included, so i bought the book to fill the gap

Tom

Heero

Thought I would post in here since I'm going for the CCIP currenty. I plan to take the BGP+MPLS exam within a month or two. I'm about 95% done with BGP and 50% done with MPLS.

All I can say is that I LOVE dynamips. It is great for the CCIP certification. I have my desktop at home with a 6-core processor and 8 Gigs of ram. I run a VM of ubuntu 64-bit. Give it 4 cores and 5.5 Gigs of ram and it can run an 18 router BGP lab with all 7200 routers like a champ. I just ssh in from wherever I am and use the screen command for multiple command lines.