Free Stuff – BSCI/BCMSN/ONT/ISCW Certification Guides

While I was studying for my CCNP, due to the syllabus changes I ended up with two sets of Cisco Press CCNP Certification Guides.  While I’ll hold onto the SWITCH/ROUTE/TSHOOT set for now, I do have a complete set of BCMSN, BSCI, ONT and ISCW books that I’m looking to get rid of.  If you have a need for these – maybe you’re just attempting CCNA and what to look ahead – and you’re willing to pay the price of postage, get in touch with me and I’ll see what can be done.

There are of course, two caveats – firstly that these books are NOT for the current version of the CCNP certification – they are a year or so out of date.  Secondly, I’m based in the UK, so bear in mind that shipping anywhere outside the UK is likely to be expensive!

If you’re interested, either comment on this post or contact me as @xanthein on Twitter.  It’d be a shame for me to have to just bin them.

CCNP – Complete!

After a couple of false starts I’ve finally completed my CCNP – I passed TSHOOT on Friday 19th November 2010, having completed that exam, ROUTE and SWITCH in the last 12 months.  Having gone through that I wanted to share a few general thoughts about the exam program in general – obviously I can’t say anything too specific about the exams themselves due to Cisco’s legal agreements.

First off – TSHOOT.  As many have said, this exam is a fairly major departure for the CCNP-level exams. Candidates face a number of questions, the majority of which will be trouble-ticket type questions based on a known topology and a known list of technologies (exam blueprint).  This information gives the candidate a vast resource of information that can be used to direct his/her studying.  I would also invite candidates for this exam to look at Kevin Wallace’s TSHOOT Videos.  They really do help clarify techniques that will be useful in the exam itself.  I looked at them the morning before I took the exam and it helped me get my mind into exam gear, given that I’d done no preparation in the 2 weeks before the exam (I was traveling for work and as a result was insanely busy).

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Review: CCNP Route Cert Kit

Most of my CCNP studying has been through either on the job experience or self-study: working through the books, experimenting with things on my lab kit, etc etc.  That being the case I thought I would review a few of the study materials that I’ve been using.

First up is the Cisco Press CCNP Route 642-902 Cert Kit.  This is a set of three different products that retails for around £45.00 but which I managed to get for less than £30.00 from Amazon UK.  The three components are:

• CCNP ROUTE Quick Reference Guide
• Routing Video Mentor
• Online Certification Flash Cards

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CCNP – and why you shouldn’t let it expire!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m studying towards my CCNP – Cisco Certified Network Professional.  However, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to do this.  According to the Cisco certification tracker, I first gained my CCNP back in July 2003 and my CCNA in July 2000.  This was at the end of my industrial placement while at Uni – a year that I spent working for Cisco doing various consultancy-type things.  I was very fortunate and was able to get a lot of training – the joys of the dot-com boom era!

This placement (and my background) left me with skills in both Linux/UNIX Admin and Networking.  I ultimately ended up in a job as a UNIX admin and my Cisco skills atrophied – I eventually let my CCNA and CCNP lapse in 2006.

Roll on a few years – I’ve now managed to move into a network admin role at the same company.  I re-certified my CCNA in 2007 and started towards CCNP in 2008.  CCNP is a very different ball game now compared to back then: while the core technologies are the same there are many differences in the syllabus to reflect products, technologies and protocols in use today.  Being out of the loop for a few years means that it’s taking me far longer to get through the exams and having a family now means  I don’t have as much time to study as I used to.  Letting my CCNP lapse has cost me a lot of time and money to re-certify – but given my circumstances it was probably unavoidable!

Things seem to be going pretty OK at the moment.  I passed the ISCW exam in December 2009 (after failing it in April) before the syllabus change was announced – however it did serve the purpose of re-certifying my CCNA.  I took SWITCH earlier this month and passed and am now working towards ROUTE.

If I can get ROUTE and TSHOOT sorted this year, I’ll be very happy indeed!

Blog Reboot

So having neglected this blog since 2007, I’ve decided it’s time for a reboot.  I’m currently studying for my Cisco CCNP certification and want to try and share some of that with the web at large.  Hopefully it’ll be useful for other folks in a similar situation and if nothing else I hope to invite some useful comments.

I’m debating if I can try and do some video blog entries too – mixture of video and screencaps perhaps.  Have to be careful not to let it get in the way of studying itself though!