Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Cisco CCDA Passed!

I just left the test center with a passing score for the Cisco CCDA exam. Overall the exam was a lot more fair than what was described on the many internet forums I attend. There were a handful of questions that def. wasn't mentioned in the FLG\OCG.

I think part of the reason is that the FLG\OCG books are a little long in the tooth. For example Cisco NAC is mentioned all over the CCDA books, but nothing is mentioned about Cisco ISE. The same thing for the Cisco SONA framework, good stuff to know; at least at a high-level.

I'm taking a break from certs for a while. I want to do some independent research on the TCP/IP stack and deep dive into packet inspection. After that I'll most likely read through some CCIE material for a refresher on all of those routing protocols.

CCDA 200-310 Official Cert Guide

Thursday, September 10, 2015

CCDA Test Scheduled

After a deep dive review of all CCDAtopics, I finally scheduled the test for next week. As part of the review I completely read through the Campus Network for High Availability design guide along with skimming through the Cisco SAFE reference guide. Looking up a few Cisco SONA white papers didn't hurt either.

By far my weakest topic is security, it always has been for me. But I feel a lot more confident about my network security knowledge at a high level than ever before. Going in to this exam I didn't expect to gain as much design knowledge as I did considering that this is supposed to be an Associate level cert. I was surprised by how I view my own networking projects with my employer compared to this time next year.

Once I get through this cert, I plan on taking a break from Cisco centric certification for at least a few months. I'm plan to deep dive into WireShark along with reading a book or two on specifically the TCP protocol. My goal is to be well rounded with the fundamentals before deep diving into a specific area of networking. This will allow me to be more versatile and more open to what possibilities are out their with network implementation, design and configuration.