Passed - 640-802
Today I took and passed 640-802 with an 898. Here's my thoughts on the prep, exam, labs, etc...:
Background
I was recently asked by a company that I do some work with to audit their standard CCNA class. This is a large training company that is a well known Cisco Learning Partner. About two weeks ago I attended their 5-day class, which ran from 8am to 8pm, M-F. I decided that I would do this from the perspective of a real student who was intending to take and pass the exam.
My Networking Background
I do not claim to have tons of specific networking experience; my career has mostly involved broad exposure to many aspects of IT, rather than specialization in one area. Although I do have a deep technical background that spans many areas, I would not in any way say that my experience is deepest in networking. However, I do have significant experience in networking, including:
- Operational support of SNA networks spanning from the late 80's to late 90's. For those of you who are unfamiliar, SNA is an IBM proprietary packet switched network that is common in mainframe environments.
- Operational support and design of Novell Netware LANs. I had prior experience in the early to mid 90's with Network 3.12 and Netware 4.x. This was at the time an "add-on" job responsibility, as LANs at the time were not exactly what they are today. I was a CNE in versions 3 and 4.
- Participation in a large project to transition a large SNA network to a primarily IP-based network in the mid-90's.
- Management of and participation in various other projects that involved, but were not exclusively dedicated to, aspects of networking.
- Two graduate-level networking classes at Harvard, within the last 7 years. These were primarily theory-based.
Perhaps more experience in this area than I generally take credit for, but my day-to-day experience is not and has not involved operational network administration.
My Preparation for the 640-802
I attended the aforementioned class, pretty much devoting an entire week to the material. This was not a **** class in any way. It involved mostly hands-on work for 12 hours each day, with some lectures sprinkled in.
I read the course material, which was complete and very helpful before the class. I spent 60+ hours working on the course material and labs. The course I attended also included some videos for self-paced learning that I was unable to use, as well as Kaplan self-test software that I never even opened.
The instructor that I had for the class was excellent.
I also read the Odom book that is for ICND1 and ICND2.
The class I attended included lab hours for use following the class, but I didn't use them, opting instead to configure a lab at home exactly like the one in class. I spent some time doing some regular routine activities with this lab.
All told I spent 1 full week in class doing nothing but this, a few days reading the Odom book, and part-time in the evenings 1 week labbing and doing follow-up reading.
My preference is to have a very intensive schedule vs. spreading it over a couple of months, which is how I did this. Total time, between 2 and 3 weeks.
What I knew going in
- General networking trivia - This was about 80% of the test IMO
- How to subnet - I can see where this would be a big problem if someone didn't know how to do this. My approach to subnetting is very graphical, and probably takes me longer than most people, but it works. Subnetting is a lot like riding a bike, once you know it you know it. I verified that I was still able to effectively subnet by going through about 20 questions at subnettingquestions.com . You simply can't be successful on this exam without knowing how to subnet.
My exam experience
The crappy Prometric place nearest me is also a crappy Vue place. I arrived this morning, signed in, and had my picture taken. The test started and the first question was a sim. I was a little worried because it took me a little over 10 minutes to do it.
Overall, I took all but 30 seconds of the allotted time to do the exam, which is typical for me on cert exams.
I expected there to be much more of a focus on things that I would think a junior-level network tech would do in their everyday work. Like lots of checking the status of things, maybe verifying some errors, etc.. It really wasn't that at all. There were some of these things, but it seemed to me that most of the questions were about knowing trivial things about networking.
Two of the sims I felt were very realistic in terms of what a CCNA-level person would be doing in their job. However, one of the sims was completely off the mark in terms of reality, and I think encouraged bad practice in terms of security. I can't say more because of the NDA, but I think they really need to rethink some of this and align it a little better with reality.
One Exam or Two Exam Approach?
I had a voucher and it didn't matter whether I passed or failed, so I opted for the one exam approach. I'm glad I did.
Honestly, based on what I've read here I was expecting something much more difficult. It was actually a fairly easy exam, if you are adequately prepared.
I can't imagine what would be the point of breaking this into two exams, and I would recommend that anyone considering getting the CCNA go for the one exam approach and just get it over with. Seems to me that all the two exam approach does is prolong the pain.
Labs
Most of the lab that are described and asked about here are way overkill for this exam. I think you guys would do yourselves a favor by focusing your labs on what you really need to know. Having practical experience is what you want most, and I can definitely see having a tricked out lab for that, but for the most part it's best to focus your exam activities on what you need to get through the exam. Scope control.
In class we had a lab that had 2 switches, 3 routers and a terminal server. The switches were 2950's and the routers were 2610xm's.
I've gathered a ton of equipment over the years, so at home I configured a setup exactly like we had in class. I used:
-1 2511
-3x2620xm's
-2 2950 12's
-A couple of spare pc's.
Seriously, if you're doing the CCNA do yourself a favor and make your lab as simple as possible. I wouldn't worry too much about specific IOS's or the amount of memory etc.., just get relatively recent gear with a relatively recent IOS and go from there. I wouldn't even worry about Frame Relay. I also would look to get 12 port switches vs 24 or 48 port models.
My recommendation to others is that you actually get the physical equipment vs. using an emulator. There's nothing quite like actually touching the equipment. However, keep in mind that the CCNA can be done with a very limited set of equipment if necessary. In fact, I think this could be minimally done with one switch and one router.
How I scored
I did worst on NAT and ACLs. Since I only lightly practiced this, I was really working hard to pull that stuff from memory.
How this exam compares to other exams
The key to this exam is adequate preparation. With adequate preparation it seems straightforward and easy. IMO, this was much easier than many exams I've taken, but, without spending the time to prepare it would have been impossible.
Next Steps
I'm thinking that the work I did to knock out the CCNA would prepare me for the CCDA. It's hard to tell, but I would have to think that the CCDA would be relatively easy to knock out after this...does anyone have any thoughts here?
I have no intention of moving into networking. I might pursue some additional Cisco certs, if it makes sense from an experience and time-commitment perspective, but I'm not sure at this point.
MS
