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CCNP Voucher 1

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BTW, the BSCI seems to have been the hardest for most...I failed it the firs time, passed the second time and passed the other three tests the first time around with good scores.

Burt
 
yeah, i was half way through grinning because i thought i aced it, but they started asking a lot of BGP at the end and i knew something was up....adaptive.

CCNA, Network+
 
I am really starting to worry about BGP.. I don't believe that I have ever heard anyone say BGP is easy or I love working with BGP.

B Haines
CCNA R&S, ETA FOI
 
I think it is definitely interesting...what I do on an every day basis is deal with small time inter-office networking, and office to office as well---we're talking routing tables with no more than 30 entries...BGP kind of involves thousands of entries, how ISP's fill their routing tables for the entire internet. Don't you find some of the figures staggering and the overall picture interesting? I'm not too much into it as time does not allow my studies to continue very much right now...or maybe I'm just a dork like my wife says...

Burt
 
BGP is way complex. There is a ton you can do with it. It scared me too when I was going through the CCNP. I'm kind of like Burt where I'm dealing with a lot of small offices not needing much more than just some default/local routing. But my corporate head ends are BGP, so I do get a small taste of BGP...like a couple of times a year.

Last Feb when I was going through the CCIP material and BGP specifically, I was amazed at how many different ways you can manipulate routes with it. What I really took away is there are 2 ways to do BGP routing...keep it simple or overly complex.

I can't say that BGP is easy, especially at first, but it is fascinating, and I really like some of the visibility you get in and out of it.

BTW..just finished a downtime and got to make some changes/additions to BGP and VRF instances that was pretty cool.
 
I can't imagine taking an entire exam dedicated to BGP. I worked for an ISP about a year ago and i never got any hands on experience but the network engineer would always show me the configs and explain things. Now i am a network manager for about 700 users and i only deal with a campus LAN environment. it is doubtful i'll ever encounter BGP in the field.

CCNA, Network+
 
well..I can't imagine taking the exam either. So I took the combined BGP/MPLS exam. Was still a lot of BGP in all of it, but overall...it still wasn't the hardest test I've taken. But I think I've finally gotten a handle on figuring out what Cisco is wanting on some of the exams, and have had some great books recommended to me.
 
Lerdalt.. Would you mind posting the titles of those books?

B Haines
CCNA R&S, ETA FOI
 
No problem.
TCP/IP Volume II (first couple of chapters)
Internet Routing Architectures
MPLS Fundamentals

Think I'm forgetting one, so if I find it I'll post it.

BUT..if you are looking just for CCNP material...these are way overkill.

 
Oh yeah..I remembered...I had access to BGP Course online and the book for it.

Internet Routing Architectures was the best BGP reference I had though.
 
Awesome.. Thanks Lerdalt! Got 'em bookmarked.. Waiting on a book right now.. order one as soon as I finish one.. So next week.. LoL

B Haines
CCNA R&S, ETA FOI
 
Another book that I was previewing that I need to pick up a copy of is Wendell Odom's CCIE Routing And Switching Exam Cert Guide. From what I looked at it was really good. I'd consider using it for CCNP studies as well.

I've been learning to not let the titles scare me off of using them for other cert levels.
 
Thanks, I have been thinking the same thing.. In regard to not allowing titles to scare me.. Was looking at a CCIE Security Guide (2008) and a CCIE Security Lab Giude (2004) for my Security Studies... May be way overkill for CCNA Security but both have areas pertaining to IOS Firewall etc. that seem to be quite relevant!

B Haines
CCNA R&S, ETA FOI
 
Another good book I used when I was first starting out is from O'Reilly, Cisco IOS in A Nutshell. Don't think it's been updated for quite some time now, but I thought it was a great beginners guide to IOS.

I've been trying to make good use of the sample chapters from Ciscopress or if I'm lucky enough to find the book in a bookstore (which doesn't happen too often), but have rarely bought anything from there. Usually can find it cheaper other places online.

I even went contacted Jeff Doyle through his blog over at network world, and got a book recommendation from him. That's where MPLS Fundamentals came from.

 
Gotcha,
Thanks again Lerdalt! I am definitely buying MPLS Fundamentals when I reach that part of my studies!

B Haines
CCNA R&S, ETA FOI
 
well i have my second BSCI exam in a couple hours.... I think i might as well start studying for the 642-873. It is only one more exam since i have my BCMSN and about to pass the BSCI. Does anyone know where i can find a good book for the ARCH? Only book that Cisco Press has is the 642-871.

CCNA, Network+
 
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