Well I'm not sure how 'hot-off-the-press' this actually is, but I received an automated email from Cisco that the new Cisco Product Quick Reference Guide for 2010 (August) has been released. It can be downloaded for free here (of course after signing up through another form): http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/qrg/index.html.
According to the PDF details it was last modified on October 22, so its release is certainly 'new'.
As for the content, its pretty much standard for Cisco. Nothing really special to note, except for the addition of the relatively new ISR G2 series routers, and the CRS-3 carrier router (but honestly who really cares about the CRS-3 being in the 'quick reference guide', not like anyone seriously considering buying one would even look in this guide for it, hah).
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Passed the CCIE RS Written!
Well I've got some great news from yesterday, I passed the CCIE Routing and Switching written exam on the first attempt! I spent pretty much the entire past month constantly reading whenever I had the chance, including most of my free time on the weekends, and it paid off!
I have to say though, about a third of the way through the exam I felt like I was bombarded with these strange L2 switching troubleshooting scenarios, and was sure I wasn't going to pass. I kept reminding myself to keep pounding through it though, and it worked. I was a bit surprised with the range of question topics, as I was expecting questions about several other protocols/configurations that were never asked.
Overall it was a decent test, but there were a few questions based on images that were so small and low quality that the text in them was incomprehensible. Fortunately, those questions didn't really focus on the image text and more so about the topology.
To study for the exam I used the following materials:
- INE Written Bootcamp Class-on-Demand
- Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1, by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll
- CCIE R&S Exam Certification Guide 4th Edition, by Wendell Odom
- CCIE RS Short Notes, by Ruhann du Plessis (http://routing-bits.com/ccie-rs-short-notes-v4/)
To rate the effectiveness of each, I would have to give Wendell Odom's 4th Edition Exam Certification Guide and the CCIE RS Short Notes by Ruhann the best bang for the buck. Wendell's guide had particularly great detailed explanations of OSPF, EIGRP, and Multicast. Ruhann's Short Notes also provided an excellent quick reference guide for everything as well, and is very reasonably priced. Jeff Doyle's Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1 has a great explanation of IPv6 and lots of background information, but also a lot of extra information not needed for the exam (definitely not bad to have the extra, useful information, but if you're in a rush, it's not the best use of time). No content on switching in Doyle's book either, which there were quite a few switching questions on the exam (not that that is a pitfall about the book). INE's CoD material I have to rate not-so-great as it just covers the broad basics of all the technologies in the blueprint, and at $300+ with a 30% discount is not that great of a deal. Most of the exam questions were beyond the scope of INE's CoD.
Now that the Written exam is complete, I have 18 months to get my Lab attempt in, hopefully much sooner than that. My next goal is to have my first Lab attempt in 6-8 months. Based off of a few friends who have their CCIE numbers already, they recommended the INE workbooks, and is what I plan on using in the upcoming months to prepare. A buddy of mine said that he practiced their workbooks for 3 months straight, knew them front and back, and passed the Lab on his first attempt. I won't have the time to study that much in 3 months as he did, but 6 months I believe is a reasonable goal.
I have to say though, about a third of the way through the exam I felt like I was bombarded with these strange L2 switching troubleshooting scenarios, and was sure I wasn't going to pass. I kept reminding myself to keep pounding through it though, and it worked. I was a bit surprised with the range of question topics, as I was expecting questions about several other protocols/configurations that were never asked.
Overall it was a decent test, but there were a few questions based on images that were so small and low quality that the text in them was incomprehensible. Fortunately, those questions didn't really focus on the image text and more so about the topology.
To study for the exam I used the following materials:
- INE Written Bootcamp Class-on-Demand
- Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1, by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll
- CCIE R&S Exam Certification Guide 4th Edition, by Wendell Odom
- CCIE RS Short Notes, by Ruhann du Plessis (http://routing-bits.com/ccie-rs-short-notes-v4/)
To rate the effectiveness of each, I would have to give Wendell Odom's 4th Edition Exam Certification Guide and the CCIE RS Short Notes by Ruhann the best bang for the buck. Wendell's guide had particularly great detailed explanations of OSPF, EIGRP, and Multicast. Ruhann's Short Notes also provided an excellent quick reference guide for everything as well, and is very reasonably priced. Jeff Doyle's Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1 has a great explanation of IPv6 and lots of background information, but also a lot of extra information not needed for the exam (definitely not bad to have the extra, useful information, but if you're in a rush, it's not the best use of time). No content on switching in Doyle's book either, which there were quite a few switching questions on the exam (not that that is a pitfall about the book). INE's CoD material I have to rate not-so-great as it just covers the broad basics of all the technologies in the blueprint, and at $300+ with a 30% discount is not that great of a deal. Most of the exam questions were beyond the scope of INE's CoD.
Now that the Written exam is complete, I have 18 months to get my Lab attempt in, hopefully much sooner than that. My next goal is to have my first Lab attempt in 6-8 months. Based off of a few friends who have their CCIE numbers already, they recommended the INE workbooks, and is what I plan on using in the upcoming months to prepare. A buddy of mine said that he practiced their workbooks for 3 months straight, knew them front and back, and passed the Lab on his first attempt. I won't have the time to study that much in 3 months as he did, but 6 months I believe is a reasonable goal.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Current Status of My Certification Path
Well its been a month since I've posted here, but after I finished up my CCIP, I went ahead a took the CVOICE exam (for the CCNA Voice certification) and passed. Certainly some good news there, although nothing that great :P.
As for the past couple weeks now, I've been hittin the books hard for the CCIE R&S Written exam. I ended up purchasing the INE Written Video-On-Demand series to help speed up the studies, which has been pretty good so far. I was expecting a bit more detail in the material, but hopefully the level of detail I was expecting isn't actually on the written exam (fingers crosses, but who knows with some of those wacky Cisco exam questions they throw in there).
I hope to finish up with the INE VOD series by the end of this week, and we'll see how I feel about the exam from there. I feel like I'll need to brush up a bit more on topics I don't work with daily (IPv6, advanced STP, PfR, etc), but after that I may be ready to take the written. We shall see, maybe I'll be attempting it in a little over a week. Why not, it's only a $350 exam :P.
As for the past couple weeks now, I've been hittin the books hard for the CCIE R&S Written exam. I ended up purchasing the INE Written Video-On-Demand series to help speed up the studies, which has been pretty good so far. I was expecting a bit more detail in the material, but hopefully the level of detail I was expecting isn't actually on the written exam (fingers crosses, but who knows with some of those wacky Cisco exam questions they throw in there).
I hope to finish up with the INE VOD series by the end of this week, and we'll see how I feel about the exam from there. I feel like I'll need to brush up a bit more on topics I don't work with daily (IPv6, advanced STP, PfR, etc), but after that I may be ready to take the written. We shall see, maybe I'll be attempting it in a little over a week. Why not, it's only a $350 exam :P.
The Not-So-Surprising Federal IPv6 Mandate
It was just announced to day by Kundra, the new 'Federal CIO', that ALL Federal agencies have native IPv6 connectivity to public services, including Web, Email, DNS, and their Internet gateways. Equally interesting is the fact that the Federal agencies have 2 years to comply with the 'due date' of September 30, 2012.
Quite the game changer when it comes to IPv6 adoption, which has been painfully slow in the U.S. (non-North American areas are practically being forced to IPv6 because of the lack of IPv4 addresses for their country/region).
A very much needed push from the Federal government to get the commercial/private sector focused on the real business opportunities ahead for IPv6, and the real (and obvious to us network engineers) infrastructure upgrades that will be needed.
If you haven't been reading up on IPv6, now is certainly a good time.
Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/092810-ipv6-obama-plan.html
Quite the game changer when it comes to IPv6 adoption, which has been painfully slow in the U.S. (non-North American areas are practically being forced to IPv6 because of the lack of IPv4 addresses for their country/region).
A very much needed push from the Federal government to get the commercial/private sector focused on the real business opportunities ahead for IPv6, and the real (and obvious to us network engineers) infrastructure upgrades that will be needed.
If you haven't been reading up on IPv6, now is certainly a good time.
Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/092810-ipv6-obama-plan.html
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!
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).
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).
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Passed the Cisco BGP Exam
Well I just got back from taking the 'Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers' exam, and I passed! I attended the Global Knowledge class for this exam, and I used that material mainly for studying. The class and instructor (Al Friebe) were pretty good, however it was really just a basic review for my current knowledge level (filled in a few cracks here and there).
Overall the exam was decent, it wasn't too badly written, but not that great either. Several misspellings, and questions with answers that they try to trick you with grammar.
Most questions were ok, but one of the simulations was off-the-wall horrible. It was a scenario where you 'fix the broken config and verify', however the explanation of what was wrong itself was completely wrong. It was as if there was nothing to fix, as the 'verify by checking this' was true without any changes by myself!
Then of course they specified to clear the BGP session w/o resetting the session (after making an inbound routing config change), however none of the clear commands worked except the hard clear (soft inbound or route refresh). Very frustrating, and I ended up wasting too much time on it (lesson learned I guess). Because of the time spent on that simulation, I ran out of time right as I finished the last question, pheeewww!
Next up: the QoS exam. Already have it scheduled for August 11th. I figure it won't be too bad, likely very similar in difficultly to the BGP exam.
Overall the exam was decent, it wasn't too badly written, but not that great either. Several misspellings, and questions with answers that they try to trick you with grammar.
Most questions were ok, but one of the simulations was off-the-wall horrible. It was a scenario where you 'fix the broken config and verify', however the explanation of what was wrong itself was completely wrong. It was as if there was nothing to fix, as the 'verify by checking this' was true without any changes by myself!
Then of course they specified to clear the BGP session w/o resetting the session (after making an inbound routing config change), however none of the clear commands worked except the hard clear (soft inbound or route refresh). Very frustrating, and I ended up wasting too much time on it (lesson learned I guess). Because of the time spent on that simulation, I ran out of time right as I finished the last question, pheeewww!
Next up: the QoS exam. Already have it scheduled for August 11th. I figure it won't be too bad, likely very similar in difficultly to the BGP exam.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)