CCNP Madness

Well, it's official. I am off to the CCNP journey! I have actually already briefly skimmed some of the material in the previous months when getting bored of the CCNA Security material. I am starting first with ROUTE to knock out the test I have the least knowledge on. My materials are:

-The Simplified books
-The Chris Bryant vids (For depth)
-Cbt Nuggets (For Jeremy's energy)
-Lab manuals

I also purchased a a lab, switch exclusive, for around 450 total. It contains a 12U rack, mountable power strip, 3 2950s, a 3550 and a 3750, along with plenty of 3 ft prefab cables.

As of now, I have gotten through the CBT Nuggets vids on EIGRP AND OSPF. Did the labs, and am done with the EIGRP chapter and a third of OSPF in the Simplified book. I'll go for more labs this weekend. Starting WGU in the beginning of August, so I'm willing to bust out many hours to finish ROUTE before that time.

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Sounds like you are ploughing through the Switch my friend, keep going and your be passed in no time! Passed my Route a couple of weeks ago and started my Switch studies today. Bryant's stuff is excellent

So I finished the Chris Bryant vids today. Went over Wireless, voice and video, QoS, multicast, and AAA. By far, the voice I knew some of, but will be overviewing again when reading. I did not care for wireless, multicast, or QoS at all. Wireless was easy to get down (mainly because of the terminology) just dry; but, Multicast and QoS I will need to go over again. I have both the QoS certification guide and deploying IP multicast networks books (Overviewed RPF and pim sparse/dense modes yesterday. Pretty interesting stuff after looking it over a couple times, just new to me), but is there any good videos on these two topics that I should watch? AAA was a refresh from the CCNA Security, so I'm covered on that. Reading up on QoS and voice again tonight and tomorrow. For some reason though the Simplified book doesn't have any Multicast in it. Does anyone know if the OCG or FLG covered it? It very briefly covered IGMP, but that was about it.

Well, setup my lab today after the last couple of days finishing up the remaining material. Picture is posted. Unfortunately, I had a couple issues on initial setup. Mainly, I wanted to access the routers over wifi, so I hooked them up to my router, which is supposed to have VLAN support, but I can only get VLAN 1 to work for SVIs to have reachability to the router. I had to upgrade it with DD-WRT firmware and I'm completely new to the program, so I'll get back to fixing that later. For now, just wanna let everyone know I shouldn't be using VLAN 1 as both my native and management VLAN, but it's how it'll be for this lab for now.

Here is my design and layout:
S1: L3 3560 | 192.168.1.10 | VTP mode server
S2: L3 3750 | 192.168.1.20 | VTP mode client
S3: L2 3550 | 192.168.1.30 | VTP mode client
S4: L2 2950 | 192.168.1.40 | VTP mode client (I will be changing them to transparent when doing a PVLAN lab)
VLAN design:

25
User
192.168.2.0/24
Active

35
Printer
192.168.3.0/24
Active

45
Administrator
10.0.1.0/24
Active

60
Server Farm
10.0.2.0/24
Active

75
Voice
172.16.1.0/24
Active

1
Management/Native
192.168.0.0/24
Active

200
Dead
N/A
Suspend

Spanning Tree mode
Rapid PVST

VTP Version
2

VTP password
SWITCH

VTP domain
OfWolfAndMan

Login type
SSH/Telnet

Default gateway
192.168.1.10

DHCP Snooping
Vlan 25

ARP Inspection
Vlan 25

UDLD aggressive
Trunk ports

BPDUguard
User Ports

Switchport nonegotiate
All ports

Portfast
All user ports

Port security sticky
All user ports

Port security aging type/time
Inactivity/60

Source Guard
Access ports

More commands to come soon. Gonna turn the switches off for a little bit though. Can't leave it running all day

I'll be doing a lot of play with advanced STP tonight. Also if you notice in the topology I am running an LACP etherchannel. FHRPs are not going to be configured on here for now as I want to do it in GNS3 first. I do have an additional port on the back of my router so I could always hook the 3750 in and do some track interfaces and preemption for resiliency to the router. 802.1x commands coming soon as well.

Rewriting my notes today from my notebook to a new, more permanent notebook for refreshing all the info and I also decided to give in and get the all access pass for a month at INE and watch the CCIE R&S vids for the topics in the CCNP SWITCH, especially the ones I need to get a few more details out of and verify what I didn't catch the first time. Downloaded Chris Bryant's Mp3 files and listen to them when driving and even when I go to the gym (Unless I'm running or on my top set). Going to do some more labbing with PVLANs, basic multicast and QoS and run an MST instance tonight and tomorrow. If I feel I have those topics down, I will be scheduling my exam for the 26th. Additional labbing near the middle of the week will consist of FHRPs again, SLB, IP SLA, and basic AAA/802.1x setup. Any other lab topics suggested in labbing would be highly appreciated.

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

Any other lab topics suggested in labbing would be highly appreciated.

All the security features; dynamic ARP inspection, dhcp snooping, vlan ACLs, ip source guard, port security, etc.

Thanks Fredrik. I already labbed all of those with the exception of the VACLs. I'll throw that in there as well. Probably gonna try to use the show commands for those features a couple more times and run a debug. I deal with port security on a daily basis, so I'm not too worried about that one.

Redid most of the rest of my notes, while adding some small details that I missed from the book the first time around. SPAN was not in the Simplified SWITCH book FYI. Either supplement with the FLG or CB's vids (Or INE). I did a little more browsing of the INE videos, and have done a little more labbing. For the last two topics in my notes (Multicast and QoS) I will be going through the QoS exam guide and the deploying IP multicast networks briefly to get an in depth understanding.

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

Thanks Fredrik. I already labbed all of those with the exception of the VACLs. I'll throw that in there as well. Probably gonna try to use the show commands for those features a couple more times and run a debug. I deal with port security on a daily basis, so I'm not too worried about that one.

VACLS would be a nice addition

I didn't see Multicast in the OCG, in fact, out of all the resources, Chris' was the only one covering multicast. For the exam, you should really know the 4 step process:

1) Elect a root bridge
2) Non root bridges: Elect a root port
3) Elect designated ports
4) Ports that are neither a root port or a designated port go into BLK mode

That kind of stuff. The SIMs you can tackle pretty easily. Just know the (R)STP and FHRP concepts cold and you'll be fine.

Looks like you and I have very similar goals and are working on the same stuff right now. Let me know if you want to ping questions off eachother. TomTom and I did that and I found it helpful. I will be sitting for the exam about the same time as well.

Thanks TomTom! Daniel, I will definitely hit you up! I feel I may take the test a little early, though. Check your PM.

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

Thanks TomTom! Daniel, I will definitely hit you up! I feel I may take the test a little early, though. Check your PM.

Give me a go too, since I still need to pass TSHOOT

tomtom1 wrote: »

Give me a go too, since I still need to pass TSHOOT

Okay! I will shoot you a PM too.

Well guys, been deep into study and doing some labs. Making sure my MLS, VACLs, SWITCH security and playing with STP features and some PVLANs. I have also had plenty of quizzing from my buddy TomTom

(Testing him as well as he'll be taking the TSHOOT soon). Finishing up overviewing my notes today, and the test is tomorrow. Once I'm done with SWITCH though, I'm getting rid of a couple of the 2950s so I can setup other lab devices I.e. an ASA or maybe since I want a Junos router, one of those.

I hate that no matter how ready I feel for a test, I always walk in with that tension, but thankfully... I passed! Not the score I wanted, but I'll take it. 868. Since I have my WGU term starting next week, I'll probably read through most of the TSHOOT stuff this weekend (I have the FLG), and then will lab next week, depending on how much I'll need to put into class. I guess that NAT and DHCP configurations are good for a refresh? I am going to make a massive topology in the next few days. It's gonna be massive (It'll be like the one on the Cisco website, but maybe bigger). They'll be all the good stuff. Routing protocols, redistribution, MLS, IPSec tunnel, NAT, DHCP, Frame Relay, and some PBR. Any other advice would be appreciated!

Also, I know this is kind of random, but for any of those GNS3 noobs (Or people who want to get special features working), I have a powerpoint with setting up GNS3 from scratch, getting routers working, installing Junos, ASA, VPCS, Nexus 7000 with Virtualbox integration and running Wireshark captures all in one place. If anyone wants a copy of it, I'll be happy to post it here (Not a copy of the software though. You'll have to obtain that yourself).

Congrats mate, you should be happy with that score! Good luck for your T.Shoot.. although if you have smashed the Route + Switch you should have no problems!

Congratulations!

Well done mate this is really impressive how fast you have got through the material. What have been your study hours and times per week? I struggle to find a balance at times. I will be starting CCNP new year as I'm starting a new job soon and figured with the new material I'd wait. I could definitely use that presentation on GNS3 if you have it still? I never used GNS for CCNA so no clue how to use it really yet. Good luck with TSHOOT!

I really hope I don't feel as lost on SWITCH when I read it after my ROUTE test as I do when I read your hurricane of a study/lab schedule! You are inspiring me, that's for sure.

@wallpaper01, GNS3 is such a fantastic program but it does take some configuring and time to get used to. Just don't give up on it if you get frustrated! It is so useful for CCNP ROUTE as you can lab basically anything in there. Absolutely possible to do the ROUTE test strictly with gns3. Good luck and I too am interested in that presentation. I would like to see what else I could learn.

Congrats on the pass Wolf! After the quickness you got through route and switch I'm sure tshoot won't be an issue for you!

Thank you everyone!

@wallpaper: My study hours on the weekday typically consist of anywhere between 2-4 hours. I usually separate the reading and videos from the labs, but when I'm labbing, I make sure I include as much detail as possible on my configurations. I typically do a 25 minutes on/5 minutes off X4 and then I will take a longer break after the fourth session. The weekends themselves can consist of anywhere from 4-8 hours of study time and typically include one or two cups of Starbucks coffee

ROUTE was much more difficult, not just for the amount of information, but the amounts of technology in the exam I have never touched. EIGRP, OSPF, static routing, authentication and several other topics were somewhat familiar to me, but BGP, PBR, route filtering, IPSec VPNs (The config. I learned some of the theory in CCNA Security), and several other topics were somewhat alien to me. As for SWITCH, I had more time to practice my skills as many of the features introduced in the SWITCH exam (To include RSTP, BPDUguard, UDLD, MLS, VTPv3, and several others) were somewhat familiar to me at the time. I'm glad I can inspire you! If you want to be quizzed, I'd be more than happy to shoot you a couple of questions! TomTom and I did that before I took the SWITCH exam, and it definitely helped.

I'll get the GNS3 tutorial up and advertised after I get off work. @Scorp6, GNS3 will help you through all of your ROUTE material, and even some of the basic SWITCH material if you put a 16ESW module on one of the routers.

Alright guys, here's the tutorial. Have fun!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0MMqHN75RpGQU1zaXdSMzRUWXM/edit?usp=sharing

Finished running through the FLG this weekend, along with enjoying a trip to Charlotte with the wife and a day of floating the river. Have the lab topology setup and have already been setting up a couple different scenarios. With the pace I'm going at, even though I am currently starting up my course material for WGU (CUV1. Web Design crap), I feel confident I can pass this before the middle of the month. Hopefully. I'll have to allocate my time for labbing/TSHOOT reading/CUV1 study appropriately. I purchased the Simplified book and I'll be looking through that to see what the FLG left out, as aside from a few new terms, it seems redundant from the ROUTE/SWITCH material.

Test is Monday! Confident with the material I've been covering and the labbing I've been doing. We'll see if the hard work pays off!

Well guys, I'd like to say that exam was much easier than expected. Passed the TSHOOT with a 945! Here's my input: Use the TSHOOT topology Cisco provides. Know the technologies, and if you have job experience, it'll definitely help. I used the TSHOOT FLG, and overviewed my SWITCH and ROUTE notes. Just remember that troubleshooting is not the same as configuration!

Yeaaaaaa buddy!!! Congrats on the pass man!! That has to feel so good!!

So here's the question that we always ask, what's next!?! You going to jump into the big CCIE?

Once again, congrats mate! Well done!!

Congrats Wolf, well deserved!!

Thank you guys!

Ninjaturtle, at this point in my studies/career, I want to focus on certain skills and knowledge. As I am school now, I will be working on that as I increase my understanding of certain networking technologies (Multicast, QoS, Cisco ISE, Junos, Nexus), while getting a foundation for things such as Windows server technologies, F5 load balancers, and an understanding of vsphere. I know that sounds like a lot for the next 4-6 months, but I'm willing to put in the time necessary. Thank you everyone and TechExams for supporting my endeavors!

It doesn't sound like a lot, it sounds like you really enjoy this stuff. That's the key!! More power to you!

im a bit late but congrats!!!

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