Tuesday, August 31, 2010

MPLS Exam Complete, CCIP Acquired!

Some more good news today, I passed the MPLS exam which completes the requirements for the CCIP certification.

I had actually taken the exam last week, but failed 780/1000 (passing score of 790 needed). I was actually quite shocked that I had failed since I considered the exam fairly easy by the time I had finished. Basically I spent a bit too much time on some questions that didn't matter, and ended up having to skip a simulation that they had stuck at question 48/50 since I was out of time (and it was related to a TDP configuration !?!?!).

I left the test center last week feeling quite cheated since I knew/know the material quite well and even skipping the TDP sim shouldn't have been an issue. Maybe I had a couple dyslexic moments, and of course there were the standard antiquated and/or grammar oriented questions that don't test your knowledge. I signed up immediately for the soonest available time which was today.

I had pretty much the exact same test, but this time I passed with a 100% with 30min to spare! Felt quite good to end the CCIP on that note.


Now that that chapter is finished, I figure I'll take the CVOICE exam (CCNA Voice) in the next two weeks (attended Global Knowledge class back in May), which shouldn't be any trouble. Then off to the CCIE races!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Passed the Cisco QoS Exam

Another one down! This one was fairly easy, a few 'Cisco centric' type questions which I know I didn't get right (why I scored below my goal of 900+ points), but overall was a decent exam. Simulations in this guy were very straightforward, no surprises there.

Onto the MPLS exam now (the last one remaining in my CCIP quest). Already scheduled it for 2 weeks out (August 25th), and don't expect many surprises there either (was in the MPLS Global Knowledge course last January, and even that class was mainly review for me). Main things to brush up on are MPLS-TE tunnels, VPNv4 configs, and more advanced Route Target/Imports in VRFs (ISP managed services, etc).