Calling all current CCNP SWITCH candidates....

There seem to be a pretty fair amount of us that are on the PATH to SWITCH right now and many have already passed ROUTE. Just wanted to start a common thread to see what study materials/methods everyone is using. What kind of lab are you using? If your lab doesn't support all the features you need, what are you doing to work around that? Also, if anyone that has taken SWITCH recently has any information they want to share that's within NDA, that would be helpful as well.

I am using the FLG, OCG and CBT Nuggets to study along with the CCNP SWITCH Cisco Net Academy LAB Manual.

I have been going in the following order (not 100% but most of the time)

1) Lab the topic
2) Watch CBT Nuggets and take notes
3) Read the FLG Chapter and make flashcards

I'm saving the OCG for final prep along with Boson EXSIM MAX.

My lab consists of 2x3550-24 (POE Model) and 2x2950-24. Anything I haven't been able to do on that lab i've been scheduling time at PacketLife for.

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Comments

martell1000

hey switch fellas, completed my SWITCH lab today on ebay. i now got 2x 3550 and 2x 2950. would you recommend getting an access server with this or is it woth the hassle of setting up telnet on every device and jumping around between them?

i also stumbled upon this here

Cisco 2509 2511 Octal NM-4A NM-8A NM-16A Console Cables | eBay

but that looks kinda like it wont work as you expect it to ;D

MrBrian

martell1000 wrote: »

hey switch fellas, completed my SWITCH lab today on ebay. i now got 2x 3550 and 2x 2950. would you recommend getting an access server with this or is it woth the hassle of setting up telnet on every device and jumping around between them?

i also stumbled upon this here

Cisco 2509 2511 Octal NM-4A NM-8A NM-16A Console Cables | eBay

but that looks kinda like it wont work as you expect it to ;D

Nice job on getting your equipment.. I love having my own equipment. I've had a 3550 and 2 2950's for some time, and just purchased another 3550 for my lab so I can follow the cisco lab manual more completely. I have a 2511 in my lab and love it. They can be rather pricey though. When I got mine it was good timing, found a sale on ebay for cheap and lucked out on winning the bid. I also use its serial ports for labs when I need em. Try jumping around with telnet, or moving the console cable around, and see if it bugs you.. maybe it won't be a biggie. For me it is lol.

As for that ebay item.. I've never seen one of those lol. I imagine it can work you probably have to configure it a little initially. I don't know if they sell ones with more console connections though. With the 2511 you can do up to 16 which is awesome.

martell1000

i was looking at a 2509 on ebay but its about 120€ without an octal cable ... and since i just spent 200 on equipment i dont know.

this ebay item seems to be an usb hub with four adapters and 4 console cables. i guess it will map 4 serial ports in your terminal software. i guess it might do the trick for 4 switches but i dont know about how much of pain it is setting this up - since adapters like that tend to be bitchy when it comes to driver installation specially under 64 bit systems ...

did you already start with the lab manual? i plan to start right away when my lab is finaly ready.

MrBrian

Yea I started going through some labs.. just some basic ones. Did vlans, vtp, basic stp, and setup some etherchannels. I think etherchannels are pretty cool. I've only read like 20 pages so far.. just wanting to lab a bit first so I can get my head back in the switching world. My head is still stuck in routing mode after spending 6 months on the Route exam.

vinbuck

Well I'm at 650 flash cards today!

They are a combination of OCG, FLG and miscellaneous material. I've still got about three chapters in the OCG to go through, so I may start nearing 1000 flashcards by the time it's all said and done. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the material. I've been through the LAB manual once and the FLG and OCG (almost) once, so it's all starting to sink in. I'll probably continue going through the flash cards daily and run through the LAB manual once more before I sit down and do Boson practice exams to identify my weak areas and get stronger on them.

I still have a ways to go and I don't know if I'll take it by March 13th, but I feel better about it now than I did a month ago.

vinbuck

MrBrian wrote: »

Yea I started going through some labs.. just some basic ones. Did vlans, vtp, basic stp, and setup some etherchannels. I think etherchannels are pretty cool. I've only read like 20 pages so far.. just wanting to lab a bit first so I can get my head back in the switching world. My head is still stuck in routing mode after spending 6 months on the Route exam.

I know the feeling. It takes a while to decompress from ROUTE

martell1000

started to lab vtp and vlans today with 2 switches and ordered the 2509 today, as plugging cables kills all the fun - even if you only have 2 devices.
i don`t wanna know what a pain in the ass it is doing labbing with 4 devices and just one console cable...

was an expensive decision but i am looking forward on completing the lab next week and get going

Roguetadhg

^ Having to swap console cables makes buying an access route worth every penny.

waragi

Is there a company where one can rent lab time for the suggested switch lab I.e 2x3550/60 and 2x2950?.

NetworkVeteran

waragi wrote: »

Is there a company where one can rent lab time for the suggested switch lab I.e 2x3550/60 and 2x2950?.

There are many, just Google "cisco rack rental". Most have more equipment than you need, and that's okay, as long as they include four switches of sufficient calibre and a good rate for 20 or so hours of lab time. Give a slight edge to racks with 3560s, since some SWITCH features (like private VLANs) can't be practice on 2950s or 3550s.

I paid $30 for 20 hours of access to (2) 2950s and (2) 3550s.

Roguetadhg

where was this?

gela

Try to google switch lab manual/router lab manual (I think it is V6.0) free download for switch and router respectively.

NetworkVeteran

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

I'm using:
How to Network's SWITCH Book for Kindle ($10)
Transcender practice questions ($109)
Boson NetSim 8.0 ($70/exam)

I passed after five intense days of study. These materials (plus 8-10 hours on real switches) were adequate. If I were to do it all again, I'd nix the Trascender tests (they were too optimistic and pricey to boot!) and spend more time on understanding troubleshooting/verification commands (the practice labs I did seemed overly configuration-centric).

Best of luck to anyone else studying for this exam.

vinbuck

Congrats man!! That's great. I'm scheduled to take mine on the 13th so we will see. Don't know if this is your first CCNP exam or not but when I took ROUTE, it really taught me the value of knowing your verification commands and expected output. As such, i've focused on command syntax and output of verification commands as one of my core study areas.

Again...well done!

vinbuck

After a bunch of reschedules, I think I'm finally on the way to taking SWITCH on March 22nd. I'm over 1000 flash cards now in Mnemosyne and scoring in the mid 80's on my first two boson practice tests. Gonna review my weak areas and hopefully hit near a 100% on the last Boson practice test. This week will probably be heavy review of notes and book material since I just finished a week worth of labbing. I'll probably do a mix of labbing and practice questions the week of the exam to stay sharp. I'm focusing heavily on the planning sections of the exam topics as these seem to be the biggest gripe post-mortem for SWITCH takers.

Kelkin

Good luck!!

pert

Really, labbing isn't the most important thing. Understanding the technology, logic, and how/why commands work the way they do is important. Copy/pasting the configuration commands from the OCG into a switch isn't going to help you, at all.

I recommend you guys do labs that are written in the same style as the switch exam, because the lab books where they say "setup private vlans using these names, setup dot1x in this way, etc" are not good prep for the exam. The exam is going to give you an objective and some rules, not tell you what technology to use, nor will it make it cut and dry. They are testing your understanding of the technologies in the lab, not just the configuration commands.