From: Karl Brusen (karl@brusen.com)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 15:19:03 GMT-3
After seven long months of intensive study, I passed the R&S exam in San
Jose on Monday. It was my third attempt. For what it^Rs worth, here is some
advice and encouragement for others.
First, some background on me. My situation is probably a bit unique. I am
47, and prior to April of this year, I had zero hands-on experience with
routers or switches. Although I am an engineer by training, internetworking
technology was in its infancy when I received my BSEE in 1981. Over the
past 13 years I have held a variety of management positions. In late 2000 I
decided that I wanted to move back to the technical path (my first love) and
started my Cisco studies. I achieved CCNP/DP without ever using the
equipment. This is not something I^Rm proud of -- it^Rs just that I didn^Rt
have any equipment available to me at the time.
Earlier this year I built my own lab and started the lab exam prep in
earnest after passing the written exam in April. In addition to working
with my own equipment, the local Cisco people provided me with access to
some of their equipment and I rented some Telnet access.
Again, my situation may be unique, so keep that in mind when considering my
advice below.
I do not want to violate the Cisco NDA, so I will not discuss what was on my
exam. However, I am free to talk about what I actually did to prepare for
the exam. It obviously worked for me.
Here are my suggestions:
1. Books: Caslow/Pavlichenko, Solie, Doyle 1 & 2, Halabi (for BGP),
"Enhanced IP Services For Cisco Networks" by Lee and the official Cisco
Press CCNP study guides. I literally wore out Caslow and Solie. It was
necessary for me to glue both books back together again several times.
Although Halabi is a must-read for BGP, I found Doyle^Rs coverage of BGP to
be more practical and applicable to the exam prep. Reading these books is
important; however, it is not enough.
2. The Cisco Config Guides. If I had it to do over, I would have put more
focus on them earlier. Perhaps I could have passed on attempt 1 or 2. I
don^Rt think you have to read all of them, but you need to be very familiar
with all the config guides that are relevant to the exam. As you do
practice labs, try to resist looking things up in your books and use the
config guides instead. I printed relevant configuration task lists and put
them in a binder. When I was done, it was about 4-5 inches thick.
3. The Cat 3550 manual is not only a great reference on the 3550, it is also
a good review of general IOS features. I read most of it and printed pages
with actual configs.
4. Practice, practice, practice. I estimate that I have over 500 hours of
lab practice behind me. Again, others with more experience may not need
this much.
5. Practice getting your base network up fast. You need to be able to do
this on auto pilot. I got to the point that I could bring up a base network
with two Cat 3550s and nine routers (including the two 3550 internal
routers) in about an hour. I would mix it up with different routing
protocols, redistribution and authentication. Also, I practiced doing all
my OSPF configs, including authentication, priorities, virtual links,
neighbors, network types, etc, all at once. It saves a lot of time.
6. I used the NLI (CCBootcamp) labs, which I found to be of great value.
However, I frequently added additional complexity. In particular, after the
change to the 3550s, I would substitute 3550 internal routers for two of the
standalone routers. Sometimes I had to swap Ethernet for a serial link to
do this. I also added Etherchannel and trunking to every lab, and I
practiced many of the features I read about in the 3550 manual.
7. Get a study partner. This is hugely important. It is amazing how much
more efficiently you can study with two people. Not only can you tap the
knowledge of your study partner, but it dramatically reduces the amount of
time you waste spinning your wheels. It is much easier to stay motivated
when you are working with someone else.
8. Get organized. This is a weakness of mine, and I had to really work at
it. I put my config task lists in a binder with labels. I also made a
comprehensive list of all the topics and sub-topics I thought might be
relevant to the exam. As I studied and practiced, I added to the list. I
also made a ^Sthings to remember^T list.
9. Practice typing. I am not the best typist so I bought the Mavis Beacon
typing program on eBay for $5. It helped a lot. I know that the lab exam
is not a typing exam, but the reality is that time is the critical resource.
If you can type fast and error-free you will have a big advantage.
10. When you take the exam, don^Rt get flustered if you encounter something
that you are unfamiliar with. I skipped about 12 points worth of such stuff
and focused on getting the stuff I was familiar with done quickly. When I
got to the end, I had about two hours to look things up. I managed to find
everything except one minor item. With enough time and good familiarity
with the config guides, you can find what you need.
Well, those are my suggestions. For me, I plan to start on CCIE security in
the next few months.
Karl Brusen
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