ONT Down, New Job, Studying ISCW!!!

I’ve neglected my humble little blog lately and I’m sorry I have.   Since I have been gone, I have successfully passed my ONT exam, making me 1/4 of the way to my CCNP.     I really have to say that this exam is much more focused on theory than practice than many of the Cisco exams I’ve taken and a lot of the material just isn’t possible to recreate in a home lab.  Here’s what I used to study and pass:

CBT Nuggets – These are entertaining and great for getting a basic grasp of exam concepts.  I felt that they really helped with making information “stick.”

Trainsignal Videos – These are a little drier than the CBT Nuggets, but have much more detail to them along with some information that may not be covered by the exam, but is good to know for real life.  I credit these with being the most helpful towards passing my exam of all my study resources, but I’d recommend you use them after you have used the other resources you plan on studying as they can be overwhelming to just dive into.

Cisco Press Exam Guide – This book alone wouldn’t have given me a passing score and didn’t on my first exam attempt, but I think they are still necessary to read and should definitely be a part of anyone’s library studying for a CCNP exam.

The Cisco website, on the job hands-on with QoS, and some work wih the NetworkSims simulator and a 1710 router.  Like I said, it’s not really feasible to recreate some of the objectives in a home lab, but I found that the simulator I used was pretty good for the price and helped me practice.   My 1710 gave me some good hands-on time with both the MQC and the SDM interfaces.

Now I’m studying for the ISCW and plan to have a study guide posted for that as well as soon as I’ve gotten deeper into my reading.   My strategy for this one is as follows…

1.  Watch the CBT nuggets for an exam objective, for example, watch all the nuggets for MPLS.
2.  Read the Cisco Exam Guide chapters relating to that objective, so here that would be all the chapters relating to MPLS.
3.  Once I’ve made it through the Exam Guide and Nuggets, watch each objective in the Train Signal series one at a time.
4.  After watching each Train Signal video, get some hands-on lab practice as well.
5.  Take a practice exam and repeat until scoring in the 90%’s for every objective!

In somewhat related news, I start a new job in 2 weeks as a full-blown Network Engineer!!!!   Woo-HOO!  I’m very excited to be officially doing what I was unofficially doing and have a permanent home rather than remaining a contractor. 

Promotion! (If only it was at work!)

I’m proud and happy to announce that I’ve taken on the position of moderator at www.proprofs.com, a great site for those collaboratively studying for certifications.  The community there was incredibly supportive and helpful as I worked on my Network+ and CCNA certs as well as my Microsoft studies, so I’m flattered that they considered me worthy of joining the moderation team.  I hope to help grow the Cisco and other networking forums and help others work their way into the networking field.

My Tax Refund = 1 Pug Puppy + 4 New Tires + 1 Cisco Book

My tax refund came at the end of last week, bringing me a wonderful influx of income. For the most part, we did well at keeping things practical, like maintenance for our 1 vehicle, paying off some of the loan for my certs and such. My 2 frivolous purchases? An adorable pug puppy named Clyde and the (in)famous Cisco book, Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1. I know it may sound a little geeky, but I can’t wait to crack this one open and dig in. From all accounts, this plus it’s parasitic twin, Volume 2, are the most definitive guide on TCP/IP routing out there and a must-read for anyone studying Cisco.

I’m still waiting to hear back on the proposal I made to the company I am contracting for. With the encouragement of my supervisor and coworkers, I wrote up a proposal for them to pay for my CCNP exams should I pass them and purchase books for my studies with the stipulation that following attaining my NP I would stay here and work for at least a year. I am really hoping they accept as it would be a great help to me taking the next step in my studies, but only time will tell. In this economic climate, I can’t help but feel fortunate that my contract has been extended and I’m not job hunting! I chose the CCNP over the CCSP for my proposal because it seemed to fit the company’s needs better. It would mean taking a break from some of my other studies, but I had hoped to go for m CCNP at some point anyway and I know it would add value here.

CCNA Study Methods – Hardware or Sims?

We get this question a lot on Proprofs and I pondered it quite a bit as well when I began studying for my CCNA.  For a Cisco newbie, trying to decide how to set up a decent study lab without going broke is a daunting task.  In my opinion, the answer to whether or not to spring for hardware depends a lot on why you are studying for the exam to begin with, your intentions after passing the exam, and also your financial situation.

If you are a system administrator, for example, and your main reason for wanting a CCNA is so that you can communicate better with your network team or grasp basic networking concepts and you really don’t plan on pursuing future Cisco certifications, then I would probably say you should opt for a good netsim, like the Boson netsim.  This would give you plenty of labs without investing in equipment and should be sufficient to pass the CCNA.  I bought mine online from a discount book seller for about $89, far cheaper than the cost of setting up a hardware lab.  If you intend on going further in Cisco, then things get a little murkier and I think more depends on your finances.  If you plan on working in networking long term and you can manage the cost, I’d say spring for the equipment.  Nothing beats the hands-on experience you get troubleshooting your own hardware to set up a lab.  Hardware never works quite as “neatly” as a Sim, so you will get to experience first hand some of the issues a person in the field might encounter and you’ll become more familiar with cabling and managing the devices.  You can find decent used hardware on ebay and build a lab for a few hundred dollars.

That’s great, but what if you are trying to break into networking, but you aren’t making a CCIE’s salary?  Then I suggest the route I took, which was a combination of hardware and a sturdy Sim.  You can get some good experience with the hardware by either borrowing or renting equipment for a short period of time.  There are many companies that will rent you a lab of real equipment you can access remotely for a period of time.  Some are even free.  You can also take a week-long class that uses hardware and pair that experience with longer hours spent with a Sim.  For me, this combination approach gave me some familiarity with the hardware as well as a sim that I didn’t have to troubleshoot and came loaded with dozens of labs to work through.

Either route you take, I’ve found that from most candidates I’ve spoken to, it’s the time you spend actually working in the IOS doing labs that really makes the difference between passing the exam(s) and failing.  (That plus being able to subnet in your head, of course!)  You just really have to feel comfortable with the commands and be able to quickly identify what you need to do in order to be able to meet that time limit.  In the end, though, if you love networking, it can be a fun time!

Insomnia!

One of the few downsides of working in networking is that you often have to work when everyone else isn’t.  That generally either means late nights or early mornings.  Since where I work is a little bit of a drive and I hate leaving home once I get there, I choose the early mornings to do any work that requires rebooting anything.  Today I need to be in at 6am for the second time this week.  I don’t mind so much the early hours, but the problem I’m having is that I keep going to bed earlier and then that leads to my body thinking it’s time to get up at some obscene hour…like 3am.  I guess my internal clock will need resetting this weekend!

Right now I’m working on 2 separate certifications.  On the one hand, I’m just wrapping up studies for Microsoft’s 70-291, the last of my core exams for my MCSA-Security.  It’s been difficult keeping my focus on this one, or any Microsoft exam for that matter.  I just don’t use the technology much as I used to and it’s so easy to get distracted by subjects that would be more directly applicable to my work.  I hope to be ready to take “the beast” in 2 weeks.  In the meantime, to help keep my sanity and balance my brain, I have been reading my new book for Cisco’s SNPA (Securing Networks with PIX and ASA).  The company I’m currently working a contract for has ASA’s throughout their organization and I just keep running into them when I’m troubleshooting, so I decided it was definitely worth it to study up on them.  It’s also pretty interesting material.  As soon as I finish my reading, I plan on typing up a study guide to post here and on proprofs.com to share before I dive into some lab work.  I’d really like to take the Cisco SND (Securing Network Devices) exam along with the SNPA this summer to complete the Cisco Firewall Specialist certification, the only problem is that I also need to complete my MCSA and possibly start on my MCSE exams.  I just find it hard to get my head back into Microsoft after working so intensely with Cisco.

Other than my studies, life has been good…chaotic, but good.  I survived the rest of the team being gone for Disaster Recovery exercises and even had a productive week.  I’m looking forward to resting up and studying this weekend and perhaps even doing a little “cube decoration” if I can scavenge the free time.  If I manage it, I’ll be sure to post some pictures here of the results.