CCNA Data Center

reloaded · February 2013

Anybody thinking about going after this guy? I have been looking into it a bit, though there isn't any "official" study material out there for it. Lammle is releasing a book in June for the 1st test, but I guess the UCS stuff can be covered through some of the older Cisco Press material. Since I've been thrown into our team's Cloud Architecture team, I figured I'd take a break from my current cert studies to rock it out, since it would be directly applicable. Thoughts?

instant000 · February 2013

I know a guy pursuing this track, but he already has his 'IE for R/S, so more than likely he'd go towards the 'IE for Data Center.

Since I'm not sure of what you mean by "current studies" I don't know what to tell you.

However, I do know that certifying in what you're doing kind of just "makes sense".

Hope this helps.

it_consultant · February 2013

From what I can tell the first test is a basic network rehash but the second test is where the meat is. FC zoning is a big deal in the datacenter, our SAN admin is a $100,000 a year employee. I would recommend some books on storage networking and looking into some materials from the Brocade track since they are the 'cisco' of the FC world.

QHalo · February 2013

My boss and I have already discussed the possible purchase of a UCS chassis for our lab later this year. Since we're already running Nexus in our Core, this is definitely on the radar.

Try these books in the meantime:

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) (Data Center): A Complete Reference Guide to the Cisco Data Center Virtualization Server Architecture (Networking Technology): Silvano Gai, Tommi Salli, Roger Andersson: 9781587141935: Amazon.com: Books
NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching: Next-Generation Data Center Architectures (Networking Technology): Kevin Corbin, Ron Fuller, David Jansen: 9781587058929: Amazon.com: Books
NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching: Next-Generation Data Center Architectures: Next-Generation Data Center Architectures (2nd Edition) (Networking Technology): Ron Fuller, David Jansen, Matthew McPherson: 9781587143045: Amazon.com: Books - out soon

it_consultant · February 2013

It is important to understand what is actually happening in the Nexus line of switches. In essence, they forked the operating system out of the MDS line of FC switches and put it atop a familiar ethernet chassis. The Nexus is more like a traditional FC switch than an ethernet switch. This allows the "convergence" of FC technology (in this case TRILL) on top of regular ethernet. When I design a network like this instead of rSTP or regular LACP trunks I get a SAN style of networking using ISLs - which is superior than traditional ethernet when you are sending traffic that needs ultra low latency and zero possibility of going down [storage] even something as quick at rSTP re-convergence is too slow.

UCS stuff is cool but most of the datacenters I know actually use their MDS/Nexus stuff with Dell or HP chassis since they are so much less expensive. The converged mezzanine cards for the UCS chassis are rebranded Emulex's which pop up in Dell and HP stuff so you are able to do the exact same thing through other providers that UCS offers. I only say this because I encourage you to learn the real meat of the technology instead of just say, the UCS platform, since the former will be much more useful.

Node Man · February 2013

Cisco is holding a webinar for the right data center cet for you on Feb 27th. here is the link to register:

https://vts.inxpo.com/scripts/Server.nxp

Mrock4 · February 2013

I will be sitting the CCNA DC (both exams) sometime in the next month if work allows. My work has asked that I get it, and since I've done nothing but data center work for the last 6 months, it shouldn't be too bad.

I plan on using a lot of Cisco docs, the UCS simulator, hands-on experience (40 hours a week of nexus), and a couple of older cisco press books. I'm also using Cisco Unified Computing System by Silvano Gai/Tommi Salli and Roger Anderson (printed in 2010).

A colleague of mine who passed both exams said the first exam was very similar to the CCNA, and the second really dove into detail, FWIW.

For the purposes of my work, we sell a boatload of UCS (and install/configure it), although I haven't had my hand in that portion yet.

CCNA Data Center

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