Planning on going for the JNCIE-ENT. Recommended study materials / lab setup

tim100 · November 2012

I am starting a new job for a consulting company that focuses primarily on Juniper technologies. I want to go for the JNCIE-ENT and would like some insight. Along with real world experience I'm looking for recommendations on workbooks and getting a lab setup. What "low cost" models of routers / switches are recommended for a lab setup? I hear GNS3 can be used but what are its limitations? Can a full blown lab be set up using GNS3 or another emulator? I'm pretty new to the Juniper realm so any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Corndork2 · November 2012

Im a big fan of bare metal hardware vs GNS 3. I know its more costly and bulky, but I like labbing on the exact stuff I'll be expected to work with.

That being said Id reccommend you look into the J series. I have gotten quite a few J2300's for $100 on eBay. There are also higher priced and more advanced models in the J series.

If you have a little cash to spend you could also look into an M10 chassis. Theyre suprisingly inexpensive given what they are, however be prepared to drop $500.

If youre set on virtualization, the "Olives" can be built in VMware or VirtualBox

tim100 · November 2012

I definitely want to use actual routers/switches. I did see that the SRX series is quite popular as well. I see that this is more of a security platform but does it have all the capabilities and features for enterprise routing as well as what is covered on the blueprint? Do the J series routers also have all of the features as well? As far as switches, I am looking at the EX series. I want to build a good lab without overspending but I also want to build a proper lab so if it does cost a bit I am willing to spend but I want to make the correct choice on hardware. As far as workbooks, I've heard some good reviews about iNET ZERO and wanted to get some opinions on them as well. Thanks.

Aldur · November 2012

I would stay away from purchasing J Series routers off of ebay and buy some SRX Series devices instead. Reason behind this is that the cheaper J's (J2300, J4500, J6500) won't do you much good, since you can't take them past 9.3, ( or maybe it was 9.5). You'll want to be on at least 10.x to study for the exam. Then, the new J's (j2320, j2350, j4550, j6550) are really expensive. You can pick up a srx100 for around $200 - $500 on ebay, which is going to be the cheapest you're going to pay for Juniper gear on ebay.

But you're still going to need to pick up some EX switches since the SRX doesn't support all the switching features you'll need to study, the smallest you can get there is some ex2200-c (the "c" stands for compact). But the EX stuff is going the most expensive unfortunately.

Another option in the future will be JunoSphere. They are working on getting a virtualized EX switch in that environment, right now routing isn't a problem, but there isn't any switching.

As for workbooks, I recommend checking out the JNCIE-ENT Bootcamp courseware that Juniper Education Services put out last year. If you don't have the time or money to attend a class you can buy the courseware/workbooks online. Let me know if you need help finding out where you can buy those. Also, I did quiet a bit of work on the JNCIE-ENT Bootcamp, so if you do go that route I would be interested in hearing what you thought of it.

open_port · December 2012

I have a lab that consists of 3 srx100H's, 1 srx210H, and 2 EX3200's. I've used this to prepare for the JNCIA, IS, and IP Enterprise exams. This set-up has served me very well up to this point. Now I'm starting to prepare for my IE. I bought the iNetZero workbook a while ago and I was hoping to use my home lab to go through the iNetZero workbook; however, at this point, I'm leaning toward using the iNetZero lab rental to go through the workbook, since it is set up to use 4 EX4200's and 4 SRX240's. I did set up the IGP iNetZero lab on my gear using VR’s, but it took far too long to get everything set up to look similar to the iNetZero topology.

One note about the iNetZero workbook: While I'm happy with this product thus far, I'll point out that I had a discussion on the Juniper forum with someone who used the INE workbook to prepare for their CCIE. This person had hoped that the iNetZero workbook would be like the INE material, but they were apparently very disappointed. At this point, the iNetZero workbook is essentially a series of practice labs broken down by blueprint topic/technology (and one final full lab simulation), followed by the solutions, which consists of a copy and paste of the correct 'set' commands needed to complete the tasks, an output of what the finished config should look like, and an output of a verification command(s) if pertinent. This workbook doesn't discuss theory or give any test taking tips, which is apparently what INE has done in their CCIE workbooks. So, impressions of this workbook seem to vary widely based on ones expectations.

One thing I wasn't sure about, based on your post, was if you were starting from scratch (i.e. you don't have your JNCIA,IS,IP yet)? Unlike the CCIE, you have to obtain all of the prerequisites before you can take the JNCIE.

So, I'll go into a little more detail on what I've used to this point, just to be thorough:

I used the free JNCIA-Junos and JNCIS-ENT Study guides to prepare for those tests. The JNCIA & JNCIS were fairly painless to study for, and pass, using free Juniper study material. For the JNCIP-ENT, I purchased the Advanced Juniper Enterprise Switching and Advanced Juniper Enterprise Routing courseware available at the Juniper Networks Education Services Courseware Store. I thought the JNCIP-ENT was a pretty challenging test. I went through the AJER/AJEX courseware twice and went through all of the included labs. I only passed the JNCIP by a few points and I used nearly all of the 120 minutes.

The Juniper courseware was pricey, but the AJEX came with a free written test voucher that I used to pay for my JNCIP-ENT exam, which offset the cost a bit. In addition, I was really impressed by the quality of the courseware and accompanying lab guides. The one time-consuming aspect of using the courseware lab guides is that you have to reverse engineer the initial lab configs (which would otherwise be provided to you when you attend the actual training) and set up various servers (like RADIUS) if you want to follow the labs as closely as possible. I also ended up re-drawing the network diagrams to reflect my topology more accurately. This was all time well-spent in my opinion, since I can now go through these labs whenever I want while I'm preparing for my IE, but it might not be ideal for everyone. The other nice thing about the Juniper courseware labs is that they can all be done with pretty minimal hardware. You could probably do 80-90% (maybe more) of the labs with just two srx100’s and two ex3200’s, since you can set up VR’s on both the ex’s and srx’s.

On that note, I’ll bring this overly long post to a close.

open_port · December 2012

Aldur,

I haven't been able to find the JNCIE-ENT Bootcamp Courseware in the onlinefulfillment store. Unless it's just the individual JER, JEX, AJER, and AJEX courseware? If there is an actual JNCIE-ENT bootcamp courseware, I would definitely be interested in purchasing it, if you could lead me to it.

Thanks,
Chris

Aldur · December 2012

Sorry open_port, but upon checking on it further, it appears that the bootcamp materials are not available on Onfulfillment. I really thought they were, but it appears that they aren't. I'll keep everybody apprised if anything changes on that front.

joe.login.new · July 2015

Please let me know if someone have availability for JNCIE-ENT Material.

Planning on going for the JNCIE-ENT. Recommended study materials / lab setup

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