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QuiteEasilyDone posted:Finished studying for the A+ Certification exam... Now onto security + or a CCNA (I should probably get my CCNA shouldn't I?) Please do not study for a cert if you don't plan on actually comprehending the BoK. You should be able to demonstrate passable understanding of basic concepts. We had a CCIE R&S interview last week that couldn't subnet a 10.x.x.x/20 address. He didn't know basic IOS commands. Today we interviewed an applicant for help desk with his Network+ that didn't know the purpose of a subnet mask. Your weaknesses will always be exposed by decent interviewers; don't get a cert just to get it. The certs themselves are meaningless -- the knowledge is what you want and if you don't plan on using the knowledge, study for something that you will use.
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Dec 28, 2012 02:21
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We didn't check because the interview ended fairly quickly. I'm not surprised because my company doesn't like to pay people what they're worth. We've been weeding through poor candidates for 6 months looking for a systems team lead. That being said, if you live near Boston and you know what different block sizes do in vSphere 4.x, I can probably get you a job because people looking for 6 figures in a team lead role don't know that.
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Dec 28, 2012 02:43
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I was presented with an awesome opportunity today! I work for a telco and I was told that I may be brought into the fold on a ground-floor SP MPLS network that we're designing. At worst, I'll be primarily responsible for the internal network while our current top guru gets pulled onto that project. Either way, it's a HUGE opportunity for me (not many people get to see an ISP built from day one). Needless to say, I need to learn a whole lot of information. I don't want to just get a piece of paper, I need to actually know the material because the people I work with are smart and they will call me on my bullshit without hesitation. Luckily, I have an engineering background, so networking just clicks for me. I sat down with our top guy for a few days, read Odom's books over the long weekend and crushed the new CCNA today. I took a cursory glance at CCNP ROUTE and the material doesn't look horrific. If my eventual goal is actual, comprehensive CCIE R&S/SP knowledge in an accelerated time frame -- is my next move CCNP R&S or CCNA SP? I want to have a better understanding of BGP as soon as possible since a huge part of this potential opportunity is going to involve serious poo poo w/r/t BGP. Just looking for some advice from Cisco guys; I'm young, ambitious and my company is behind me one-hundred percent. Classes I should take? Unrelated books to read? Best next body of knowledge to tackle?
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Jul 9, 2013 22:32
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Crushed the ROUTE today (988/1000). I really have no interest in studying for SWITCH, but I suppose it has to be done. Luckily the book is half as thick and I am already familiar with the material. Sigh.
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Jul 29, 2013 17:53
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Sickening posted:Teach how to be you protokoll, my route book laughs in my face on a daily basis. I just want to be a CCIE...these professional level exams are such a slog. That Odom book is pretty dry. I had better luck with the lab manual and then I watched the INE videos and read the key topics only in the Cisco Press book (if I didn't completely understand the feature described, I would read more). Took 3 weeks, but I had good working knowledge beforehand.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:58
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Tab8715 posted:Is this the old one or the new one? The old one; the new tests are 100-101, 200-101 and 200-120. The Cisco Press SWITCH OCG is abysmal. It is by far the worst reference text I have ever read. I've all but abandoned it in favor of labs and the INE videos. I have a question about TSHOOT -- is there any material that isn't covered in ROUTE/SWITCH that is tested on TSHOOT? If I have a good working knowledge of the material covered by the former exams, I shouldn't really need to study anything new, right?
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Aug 2, 2013 01:12
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MrBigglesworth posted:Anyway to the above, if you have a /53 you would take 53-48 leaving 5. Then take that result minus the original 16 bits so you have 11. 2 the power of 11 is 2048, and I've gone cross eyed. No one in their right mind is going to subnet IPv6 with a /53. If your ISP gives you a /48 prefix (common), you will almost always use 16 subnet bits, giving you a /64 and you can use EUI-64/SLAAC/Stateful DHCP to derive your least significant 64 bits for the interface ID. If, for some reason they give you a /53 on the test, you can easily work it out if you know how to maneuver with hex conversions (which you want to know for stupid multicast poo poo!). Take a prefix FE80:234D:69F1:4100::/53. If you're subnetting with that and your ISP gave you a /48, then your site prefix is FE80:234D:69F1::/48 and you have 5 bits to subnet with. That gives you 32 possible subnets with permutations belonging to the most significant bits not included in your site prefix. Count up to the 4th network and tada, that is the answer you're looking for. If you give an actual example question, we can probably walk you through it.
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Aug 6, 2013 23:41
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Passed SWITCH; exam seemed like it was written in English, translated into Japanese and then translated back into English. The wording on one question was so bad I actually left a comment in the exam asking them if they forgot a word or two. I'm probably going to sit for TSHOOT next weekend because I feel that I'm ready and I want to start poring over Routing TCP/IP and begin the unending climb toward the CCIE. Have no idea how I should even begin to prepare for TSHOOT, so I'm going to play video games instead.
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Aug 9, 2013 00:08
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Well, I'm officially a CCNP now. I feel underwhelmed; I thought I was going to pass the TSHOOT and feel infinitely better about myself because I had validated the fact that I knew |XXXX| much about networking. What I ended up realizing is that I actually know nothing in the grand scheme of things and I have so much work to do before I'm comfortable with my network knowledge. It doesn't help that my job is becoming more and more undefined. Data sales now reports to the CIO because the business realized that the 'pre-sales engineers' they hired actually know nothing about what they're selling -- "Oh, 140 branch offices with managed services? Yeah, we can do that!". Guess who has to design, implement, and maintain the solution?! Hooray! But in the next six months I will have my hands on everything from configuring VRFs/turning up circuits on ASR 9Ks to maintaining and expanding the Nexus infrastructure in our data center, to voice, to security, etc. I want to be an expert in all of the technologies I touch, but it's just not feasible. I'm at a crossroads where I either forsake everyone and everything I love for two years to get a 5 digit number, or I gently caress around with CCDP/CCNP Data Center/CCNP Security/CCNP SP. I need to draw up a development plan and have my director look it over, but he basically said don't go for your CCIE it's not worth it, so I think I know what he will want me to do. That being said, I'm going to start reading Routing TCP/IP because I hate myself.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:31
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Senturion posted:I'm trying to decide which certification to go for first. I'm interning with a company doing network engineering, and am going into my senior year of a B.S. in Management and Information Systems. I have been reading up on the Network+ exam, but it seems that a lot of people consider it less worthwhile than a CCNA? The company I work for is an all-Cisco company, so I was thinking about going for my CCENT, and then the CCNA right after. The N+ is somewhat like being given a 1000-piece puzzle, but the majority of the pieces are missing. They only gave you the corner and edge pieces in a plastic bag and you have no idea what you're building, but you can figure it out because, logically, there is only one way that the pieces interconnect. For me, learning the N+ material was not worth it, but it was required by my employer. Anything and everything you learn in the course of studying for the N+, you will learn ten times over studying for the CCNA. You will learn the OSI model, well know port numbers, a ton of classful concepts -- it's very much a trivia exam and it doesn't present complex scenarios that require you to apply concepts. For example, I taught a TCP/IP troubleshooting class to our help desk two weeks ago: all of them are N+ certified and not a single one of them knew that VLANs are a layer 2 concept. None of them actually know subnetting; they still convert to binary and try to borrow bits in their head and it never ends well. If you're planning on making a career out of networking because it interests you, absolutely just dive right into the teal pool. I will buck the trend and recommend studying for the new CCNA: the 200-120. The way Cisco breaks up the new exams, the ICND2 material is pretty much applying the ICND1 material to troubleshooting scenarios. It includes very few new topics (more advanced Spanning Tree concepts, Frame Relay, and EIGRP are the only new topic domains) and it is a natural extension of ICND1.
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Aug 15, 2013 01:22
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Senturion posted:Just to verify something, Subnetting is in essence layer 3 VLANS, and vice-versa? Not that they are the same, but the end goal of what they accomplish is basically the same, just using the different layers? Basically, I'll elaborate just to clarify, but you're on the right track and more study will help fill in the blanks. VLANs break-up broadcast domains at layer 2. What you commonly refer to as a network or subnetwork is a set of all nodes on a segment or series of network segments that listen to broadcasts sourced by any node (in the same VLAN!) on that network segment. This is easier to consider using IPv4 as a basis because IPv6 wasn't designed to use broadcasts (although the FF01::1 all-nodes local multicast address serves a similar function). Subnetting is chopping a larger network into smaller network to reduce the size of broadcast domains and reduce IP address waste, among other things. The best way to think about how it works is if you ping 255.255.255.255. Say you source a ping to all 255s; your frame gets forwarded to the access switch (lots of other stuff happens before this, but let's just focus on the basics), if your source MAC address is not in the switch's CAM table then the switch will add your MAC address, source port, and VLAN (and mark it as DYNAMIC). Then, since it is a broadcast, it will flood the frame to all ports except the source port that are in the same VLAN and all trunks that allow that VLAN, where the VLAN is active and where STP is in a forwarding state and VTP is not pruning. The only nodes that will hear your broadcast as those in the same VLAN, so you could visualize it as hosts not hearing your broadcast as being on a different network (though that isn't actually true all of the time). In essence, what you're saying is sort-of true -- both VLANs and subnets break-up broadcast domains, but they do that for different reasons, at different layers and the way you design, configure, verify, troubleshoot and secure them are totally different. Protokoll fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 02:30
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Cowboy Bobs Hep C posted:I'm taking classes through a community college and am almost confident enough to take the test for CompTIA. I asked my professor what I should go for next, and he said most people do CCNA. If I start working on this tomorrow, is it even feasible to finish before Cisco changes everything? I have a full time (and then some) job and hardly have time to study outside of class. In my opinion, there is no point in rushing to take the old CCNA. The new syllabus adds quite a few topic domains that enhance the value of studying for the new exams. Anything you've read about the new CCNA being infinitely more difficult than the old CCNA is completely false. Sure, there are more topics on the new CCNA, but most of the topics are useful and/or mandatory for getting by as an entry-level network admin. If you think you're going to cram a CCNA into 6 weeks, go into a technical interview for an entry-level position and be greeted by "what does a /25 mean?" then you are mistaken. You're doing yourself a disservice because when all is said and done the piece of paper means nothing, the knowledge that the paper represents is the important and marketable entity. That said, it depends on the person. If you know all of the material well, you can get a CCNA as quick as you can schedule a test. If you know nothing, it's not realistic to expect to go from TCP/IP layers to OSPFv3 troubleshooting in 6 weeks.
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Aug 16, 2013 22:15
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psydude posted:Cruising through the SWITCH book right now. I may actually schedule it in 2 weeks for shits and giggles, because most of this stuff is pretty familiar to me. FWIW, I thought SWITCH was much easier than ROUTE, but the questions on the test are not at all clear. Make sure you read each word to understand exactly what they're asking. Also, know the non-core stuff well -- particularly the security stuff that is all but 10 pages in the OCG. Edit: I just finished drafting my study plan for the R&S Written. It's a cool 9,000 pages of material. I'm giving myself 6 months. Should be an interesting journey. Protokoll fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 19, 2013 22:27
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I'm basing my list on INE's recommended reading list and I added additional MPLS and QoS books. Are you reading all 20 'books' on Cisco's book list?
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Aug 20, 2013 02:29
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dotster posted:Taking the test again soon is key. I know tons of people that fail a test and the wait 6-8 months to take it again only to get a whole different test version and basically start over. The CCDE written is no joke. A triple CCIE consultant that I'm good friends with took the exam and bombed the written so hard that he said he will probably never be able to pass it no matter what he does. It's...a weird exam. That being said, a CCDE is my ultimate goal and I will hopefully have mine within 5 years, but there is probably a reason there are 25,000+ CCIE R&S and only 100-ish CCDE (even accounting for how long the CCDE has been out). But good luck!
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Sep 4, 2013 22:44
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Sorry, I didn't mean it to come out like that. I hope you nail the loving thing; tests are meant to be passed and/or to teach us lessons in the failing! I'm actually sitting my R&S written in a few months, so that will be a joy.
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Sep 5, 2013 00:55
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Martytoof posted:Uh, so can someone explain to me in english what exactly is happening with GNS3 now? Is it going to be a paid product or something? Or is it going to be free and only the people who ponied up on the kickstarter or whatever are going to get early access to the app? The latter. They are going to attempt to compete with CML (formerly VIRL) in the emulated routing/switching space next year. The program will be free, but they will sell premium modules (security, certification training labs, etc.) to turn a profit and fund further development/support. I love GNS3, so I donated a bunch of money to them. I think CML is going to be much more useful product for my actual job, especially if it emulates IOS-XR worth a drat. Still, I use GNS3 almost every day to confirm technology behavior before I propose production changes for peer review and for most of my training/fun troubleshooting labs.
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Nov 21, 2013 02:13
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Edward_Lapine posted:Okay, so this is my first time posting in this sub forum, and I apologize for asking a dumb question regarding CCENT/CCNA. All of OSPF except the "troubleshooting" portion (so, basically all of OSPF) is on the new ICND1. ACLs are definitely on ICND1. The only large topic domains that are on ICND2 that ARE NOT on ICND1 are Frame Relay, EIGRP and "advanced" STP. Oh, and IPv6 routing protocols, but they're basically the same as their v4 equivalent at the CCNA level. Look at the new blueprint.
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Dec 4, 2013 00:29
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Do you know everything on the blueprint? If so, take the test. If not, study what you don't know.
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Dec 5, 2013 04:16
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psydude posted:Okay, every guide for TSHOOT is bordering on insulting to one's intelligence. I'm guessing the labs are where the meat and potatoes are for this exam. There is no new material (other than some ITIL/PPDIOO basic questions). If you can solve all of the BGP/Troubleshooting labs on GNS3Vault you will probably get a perfect score. Just make sure you go in with a plan and stick to the same plan on every ticket.
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Jan 20, 2014 17:16
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My advice (as a guy who is about to take his written for Routing and Switching) is to not read books and take classes that are specifically geared to help you pass a test. If I could go back in time, I would have approached my certification path much differently and, using that wisdom, I would be much further along in my CCIE studies and I would know much more useful information than I do now. I'm just going to list basic advice that I am discovering/following that has helped me tremendously in the past year: - Practice the technologies Use GNS3Vault and start working your way through every single lab on the site. First try to figure out the solution using context-sensitive help within IOS and then move to the DOC-CD to locate the related Cisco documentation if you still can't solve that step. Finally, use Google to find the answer if all else fails. Make a note of the portion of the technology you didn't understand look for more labs/practical examples of that aspect and keep working with it. Read about that aspect of the technology until you know it. A week later, come back and do that lab again and you will be able to type everything in Notepad and not have to even use the CLI to solve the lab. This is your ultimate goal -- be able to look at a topology, identify all of the technologies, pinpoint any issues, form an implementation plan in your head and begin busting out the syntax in Notepad without even thinking about it. This is what happens when you know the underlying technology and how it works at the bit level and you're not just memorizing configuration commands. As you get better, move to rack rentals or more gear or harder/mock labs and keep pushing yourself. - Always be studying Download a flash card app on your phone and read about technologies when you're taking a poo poo. Take a 5 minute break every hour at work and do a regex crossword or two. Blog about the technologies. Try to teach the technologies to your coworkers, especially the ones that are smarter than you because they will help correct some of your assumptions and fill in knowledge gaps. Take notes about on-the-job applications and how you could improve your network and implement the new things you're learning. Read other people's blogs and interact on forums. Always be talking about your goals and how you can get there. Don't forget to keep a healthy work-life balance as well. You don't want to burn yourself out, so do this within reason. - Take the top-down approach This is the one thing I wish I would have figured out a while ago. Note that this differs from person to person and that it might not apply to you, but it works wonders for me. Rather than start with simple technology and build my way up, I now start with the most difficult lab/reading I can possible find and as I am working my way through it, I take notes and read further about some of the more basic stuff, and anything in the extended reading that I don't understand, I will read about that until I understand everything about that portion of the technology. This helps me learn more in a shorter amount of time because I'm not overlapping as much by reading stuff I already know well and picking up a few bits and pieces here and there. For example if I'm reading about using BGP communities to set BGP PA and I don't know that much about that specific PA, I will read about it. That will lead to default values for the PA, how to manipulate it using route-maps and other tools, regex practice, etc. If I didn't know what a PA was, I would read about the BGP best-route selection process and if I didn't know exactly how BGP populated its BGP table in the first place, I would read about that and neighborships, etc. This way you're not reading the same material 50 times. Note that this only works for some people and other people need the same information hammered over and over. See what works for you. - Don't study for a specific test If your goal is to know as much as you can about a specific realm of networking, then don't just read the CCNP ROUTE book (which is boring as gently caress, by the way) to pass the exam and then when someone asks you what the default value for some random variable is in 3 months you look at them sideways. Read the books that actually teach you the technology first. If you're interesting in R&S, you need to read Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1 (IGPs) and Vol. 2 (BGP/Multicast) and Halabi's Internet Routing Architectures (BGP Bible). If you read those books and practice the contents over and over, you will know how the technology works at a fundamental level and taking the ROUTE will be a joke. You will just realize one day that you can go take the test because anything that they can possible throw at you that has to do with routing, you already know. You don't just know the definition of BGP synchronization and what it's default is (basically what Odom's ROUTE book teaches you), you know exactly how it works, why if not every router in that AS is running BGP and you're not redistributing the BGP into the IGP for that non-BGP router to have a route to those networks, it will black hole you and then because of no synchronization at your egress BGP router, you're now propagating a black hole, etc. You will have seen it, understand it, know how it works and labbed it to oblivion. If your ultimate goal is to become an expert in networking, don't just read the certification books and then do the practice exams from the CD and take/pass the test. That's what I did and I can regurgitate all of the random poo poo I had to memorize in order to do it, but it wasn't until I started reading the more technical and advanced books that everything clicked for me: my troubleshooting improved dramatically, my ability to learn difficult concepts improved and I was able to make steady progress towards my CCIE. If you ignore all of this advice (which is fine, because it's just what works for me and it might not work for everyone), just make sure you're practicing and labbing all of the tech so that you're not someone that knows how it should work theoretically, but couldn't implement it to save his/her life.
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Jan 25, 2014 21:05
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Passed my RS written. What a weird loving test. Oh well, now the actual studying begins.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:59
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chestnut santabag posted:Well done! Do you think you'll manage to attempt the v4 lab before v5 replaces it? No, they're all sold out in the US. Cisco is looking at adding additional seats on the weekend, but I won't be prepared by then anyway. I just started doing full 8-hour labs. My written will carry over to the v5 lab. Probably going to throw an attempt in by the end of the year though.
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Feb 1, 2014 23:10
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H.R. Paperstacks posted:Having did some betas on v5, I am pumped for it. I have a feeling it will make a big impact on the number of new CCIE's each year with the incoming changes. I want the test to be gently caress-all difficult and impossible to cheat, I feel like that's what you should have to pass in order to be a CCIE. If it becomes nigh impossible to pass because Cisco hates you and wants you to die, well then that's going to demotivate me a bit.
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Feb 2, 2014 03:53
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psydude posted:Welp, the testing center here just started accepting appointments again, so I scheduled TSHOOT for the 28th. Any tips? I was considering trying out some of the GNS3vault labs. Do that. Also, know the topology. The topology for the routers is well known and published on Cisco's website. You should be familiar with which routers are running which routing protocols, which routers are running IPv4/IPv6, which router is NATing, which routers run OSPF/EIGRP, etc. Know it well. Design a methodology. Approach each ticket the same way, whether it's ping X and keep pinging until you see where the ping fails or something else, just make sure you approach each ticket the same way. Also, don't go all crazy and get into debug ip ospf adj and stuff before you've checked if the interface is up (show ip int br is your friend) and the interface is sending hellos (has an IP in the same subnet if OSPFv2, OSPF over frame relay network type that needs static neighbor statements, no passive-interface, etc.). Check the easy stuff first and you'll knock it out. I found it pretty easy.
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Feb 13, 2014 01:56
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psydude posted:Go do the GNS3vault OSPF troubleshooting lab if you're having issues learning OSPF. It'll fix them. The answer is always ip ospf network point-to-p. Stupid /32 loopback interface type ruining MPLS.
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Feb 16, 2014 14:50
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