Hi Guys

Passed today with 988/1000

I have been studying since March 25th 2012 - the day I passed my CCNA.

I should have got 1000 but I missed a command out in one of the labs; "switchport port-security" - I kept staring at my screen for ages when doing the lab looking at the show run output knowing I'd missed something, but it just eluded me. I'm happy with the score, it was definitely easier than the CCNA.

Now, I am going to start studying for the CCNP. My question is what is the preffered - or rather the best - direction to take? Route, Switch then tshoot or Switch, Route and tshoot. I don't think it matters too much to be honest as you have to take all three anyway.

Can anyone recommend good study material aside from the Cisco Press books.

Cheers!

Start where your interest is to keep you from burning out. You like layer 2 or 3 more?

Nobody likes L2 :p
LS21 : I did Route first (because i just labbed everything up in GNS3) , Sw second (because I had to learn almost everything by heart) and Tshoot was a breeze .

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Stay the curse !

I guess doing ROUTE makes since they cover EIGRP and First hot stuff in SWITCH..

Cheers dud!!!
Congratulations

Take the ROUTE first!

In addition to Cisco Press......

I like to read the FAQ pages on Cisco.com. For example, EIGRP, OSPF, BGP (can be a bit dated), so on so forth and etcetera. Plus there are the Configuration Example and Technotes; ex. IPv6. If you really want to geek out....the Command References have some good nuggets occassionally.

I've been thinking of taking the CCNA Sec. But didn't know if I wanted to divert time. If it can be done in 2, 3 months then maybe so.

What material & equip did you use for CCNA-Sec?

well depends on whatever floats your boat.. how much real world experience do you have?

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"I will prepare and some day my chance will come." - Abraham Lincoln
http://danielhertzberg.wordpress.com - I blog about networks!

@timhalo: I used the Cisco Press Exam Certification guide, Jeremy Chiora's YouTube nugget videos (these were really good) and 2 2611XM routers, 1 2960 switch.

@burnyd: I have been installing SMB and high end advanced home networks for 3 years, only in the last year have the company been installing Cisco but we rarely do any routing (one large project had a few small bits of site-to-site VPN and routing).

I worked for a similar company doing SMB, and I did my CCNA, and moved straight on to my CCNP, since I really want to end up with my CCNP Security eventually, as that to me is the most beneficial for SMB and slightly larger firms, which is the meat and potatoes of being a consultant.

I chose to go for the CCNP Route first, mainly because switch would be more useful, so I wanted to get the hard one out of the way. I'm not sure I'll ever really need CCNP Route at this point, but I'm sure it sets up a lot of fundamentals for future stuff.

CBT Nuggets are great, but pricey, if you can get a hand on them. I GNS3 labbed them, and that was a good overview, but they're not very deep, so you'll still have to read the books, do questions, and GNS3 other stuff. The Boson questions are good, the Netsim for CCNP Route... it's ok, not nearly as useful as it was for the CCNA.

My buddy who got his BSCI reccomended getting the CCNP "Building Scalable Internetworks" book, and labbing that with GNS3, but I found it too lengthy, gave up on that. But there's also the "Cisco CCNP Practical Studies: Routing" book, which you can lab along at home with, it's a bit slow though. Honestly the GNS3 labs out in the wild are probably the best stuff to lab, the trick though is to find a upward path, because some are too hard to start from scratch.

I'm not sure there are any other books besides the Cisco press books (they're very thorough) you need, the hard part is the labbing, finding stuff that is suitable, and challenging.

for me the clock was ticking very close on my ccna expiring, i looked at the course for switch and route and switch just seemed a lot shorter and easier to get in my head before the expiration date so i chose that first, onto route tho now and the eigrp your expected to know is very basic and you should be able to do it anyway with ur ccna knowledge