Tag Archives: CCNP Notes

Back On Track

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passed

There nothing quite like seeing the word “Pass” come up on the screen after you finish answering that last question.  There are a few moments of tension, waiting for the computer to spit out your results;  Did I study hard enough?  Did I truly learn the material for this exam?  Did I just blow a couple hundred bucks on a failed attempt?

Then the score report validates everything you’ve done over the last few months with a nice four-letter-word:

Pass

It’s hard to maintain dignity and consideration for the other exam writers in the room, and knowing everything is on camera and in view of the stern watchful eyes of the exam proctor, you know you have to hold in that real celebration until you’ve gotten outside the building, or at least into the elevator.  A few fist pumps maybe, and probably a fairly Cheshire-Cat-Esque grin on your face.

642-813 – Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH) – done!

Procrastination

I know I’m not alone out there. There are plenty of us studying towards certifications or other academic achievements who know they should be putting in more time reading or doing labs. In my progress towards the CCNP I could have probably passed all three exams by now had I focused a little more and spent more time learning and less time doing other things. Sometimes life gets in the way, right? It’s not an excuse, I recognize that it’s a choice for me, and it’s also something I’ll have to really think about and decide how I want to approach the next exam. Like many out there I have a job, a wife, a kid, and many other things in life that limit the amount of time that can be dedicated to studying or labbing.  If I truly plan on achieving my long term goal of “CCIE by 40” some sacrifices will have to be made.

I left Cisco Live last year truly motivated to continue my studies. Spending a week surrounded by other networkers who have multiple certifications and great careers will do that to you. Looking back it’s hard to tell exactly how motivated I was since that was June and here it is in April with the first of three CCNP exams finally passed. It has been a good 9 months in other areas that’s for sure, and perhaps I can’t measure the success of the past 9 months by looking only at my certification progress.

As an example, I’ve also taken great strides in my health and fitness.  I’ve lost 50 pounds since July of 2012. Nothing special here really, just diet and exercise. I didn’t cut out carbs, or take any weird mail-order supplement that was the “fad diet du jour”, I simply started counting calories, got a personal trainer to kick my ass 5-6 hours a week and work out on my own 1-2 hours a week on top of that.  I feel awesome.  Clothes shopping isn’t a total hassle, and I’m finally going to be able to wear that Speedo this summer.

It’s all about the big picture, right?

What’s Next

642-902 – Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE) – is next on the agenda. I’m truly hoping to take the momentum from this pass and carry it forward into an awesome study plan for this one.  I don’t do a lot of layer 3 work in my day job so there is going to be some real fundamental learning happening here, and I’m looking forward to it.

CCNP R&S Progress-O-Meter:

SWITCH – 4/6/2013

ROUTE – In progress…(again)

TSHOOT – 1/24/2015

Wearing Many Hats

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Jack Of All Trades

If you’ve read my bio you’ll know I am part of a 4 person IT department for a small rural public school division in northern Alberta.  Technically there are 5 of us, but does Management count?  No, I didn’t think so.

This brings some interesting challenges, one of which is perfecting the lost art of the IT Generalist.  The person who can do a little bit of everything.  The guy or gal who, even if they’ve never seen that particular problem before, has a fundamental base skill set that will let them logically and efficiently troubleshoot and bring the issue to resolution.

I like to think that’s me.  Although my primary passion has always been networking, I don’t always get to pick and choose my assignments.  I have a primary responsibility to ensure that all of the technology in our schools are working, first and foremost.  That means general help desk type work fixing the mundane….printers, wireless mice with dead batteries, staff and student logins, turning it off and on again, etc.  On top of that each of us within the department has a niche area that we specialize in.

The Network Guy

Let me introduce the team.  We have “Server Guy” who handles a wide gamete of tasks such as managing our Exchange environment, our VMware cluster, our SAN…  We have “Linux Guy” who really has several things he takes care of but they all run on Linux so I don’t know what those are.  He’s also kind of “Security Guy” because he handles things like our content filter and likes to port scan everything to try to find “attack vectors”, when he isn’t lamenting our lack of password complexity rules, or stringing together video cards to brute-force passwords using rainbow tables.  Right now we also have “New Guy” who we haven’t quite assigned any niche responsibilities to as we haven’t fully evaluated his skill set yet.  For now he’s a good minion and we make him climb ladders and run cable.

Of course there is also “Network Guy”.  That’s me.  In this environment that means LAN, WAN, voice and wireless, all of it.  I (try) to do it all. I work closely with “Server Guy” when we’re adding a new VMware host to our cluster ensuring we have switchports and VLANs ready for his needs, connecting the iSCSI SAN where it needs to go, etc. I work with “Linux Guy” when there are firewall changes that need to be made.  It’s often said that you can be great at one thing or good  mediocre at several things.  It begs the question “Can you know everything?”.  I certainly don’t, nor do I expect I ever will.  It absolutely makes it difficult to focus on a particular area of expertise though.

Don’t Make Me Pick

I love it all.  Well, for the most part.  Sometimes there are those really nit-picky problems with a certain networking technology that drives you nuts and if it wasn’t for that one thing you’d spend 100% of your time working on that discipline, right?  As technophiles/nerds/geeks we all have a certain amount of attention deficit, it’s a trait that is almost required to be able to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the technology world.  This is a blessing and a curse.  After I’ve spent a week working on a nasty voice issue with Callmanager or Unity you can bet I’m feeling like a voice god and oh yeah I’m going to start on my CCIE-Voice right away!  Next week after spending several dozen hours with a spectrum analyzer and site survey tools trying to figure out why this one classroom has a large wi-fi black hole, I might be ready to challenge the CWNE, because clearly, 802.11 is what I was meant to do.  When you are forced to handle a variety of subjects like this it can be a daunting task to narrow the field when it comes to sitting down at your study desk or home lab and really deciding what you want to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the exposure and variety that comes with this territory.  Ultimately I have to be disciplined enough to focus on specializing in one area, without losing tough with the rest.  From my perspective, at least from my networking perspective, Routing and Switching is the base from which all the other technologies flow.  Being great at that fundamental level, I believe allows you to thrive in any subset of networking.  For me, that’s why I have renewed focus in working towards my CCIE R&S.

4 x CCIE

You’ve seen them, the folks sporting two or three, or even four CCIE certifications.  Will that ever be me?  No.  At least I don’t think so, not while I’m still married.  I have one goal and that is to get my CCIE R&S before I turn 40. I’m not going to tell you how long that is but I’ve got a long way to go since all I have right now is the CCNA and CCNA-Voice. I am about ready to write the 642-813 SWITCH exam towards the CCNP and will then move onto ROUTE and TSHOOT.

Fueled

For several reasons that I won’t get into with this post, I’m very motivated right now.  I have a plan, and I am slowly working towards it.  This blog is one piece in that puzzle and I hope to use it as a tool and resource to study and push towards my goal.  It’s a great community of people in this industry and I plan to leverage all of the resources at my disposal towards the task at hand.  Feedback, comments, advice are always welcome, and thanks for reading!