Hell Week...day 1

Well just like I did with the CCENT, I finish up my material by going back through all of the books tables, scenarios, open ended questions, and late night labs. This is the time were I take all of the theory I've learned and put it all together. I go through the whole book again basically while setting up multiple complex labs and answering dozens up dozens of questions that's included.

Today I spent most of the time with VLAN's and STP, I finished up the day with going through one of the complex scenriaos included with the Cisco Press book. This lab was a mix of VLSM and OSPF along with manually figuring out routers IP addresses and subnets by looking at a network diagram. About 5 hours later and I'm finally done for the day part, I end the day by configuring a simple lab before I hit the hay. Tonight is going to be the easiest night, I'm just setting up a router with the basic initial setup and configurations with Telnet and so on.

Study Update # 7

Well I've finally read through both official CCNA ICND books, well over 1000 pages! The next few weeks it's going to be crunch time.. I need to narrow down on my weak points and make sure that I understand the theory, configuration, and troubleshooting thoroughly about each topic. I'm pretty nervous about this test but anxious as well. There won't be to many in-depth updates because I'm not really learning completly new materials as much as I'm going back over material. I have however landed my first Cisco related phone interview which I was very nervous about. I was asked tons of questions but I was able to answer most of them right. I tripped my self up a few times and missed a couple of easy questions but oh well. I was also asked about protocols not covered by CCNA such as MPLS and BGP so I decided to study those a little bit on the side.

NAT Configuration

I finished chapter 16 of the ICND2 book regarding NAT/PAT configuration, one more chapter to go! NAT wasn't to bad actually the hardest part is remembering all the commands to setup NAT the various different ways. Like most routing configurations setting up NT statically was the simplest but at the same time could be the most time consuming. Then there was Dynamic NAT and PAT configuration which were about the same besides one syntax. Honestly most people would choose PAT because it provides the most flexibility while saving tons of public IP addresses. Next up is IPv6 which I already have some understanding of but I need to learn the basic configuration.

Study Update # 6

I started today off really early by finishing up the Frame-Relay chapter at around 7 A.M. but you know what they say about the early bird! I started by creating by far the most complex lab routing scenario so far. Using GNS3 I created a hybrid 5 router Frame-Relay topology using the OSPF protocols with two different areas. Needless to say it took me a while however I couldn't figure out why my full-mesh couldn't talk to my point-to-point connections. I know it had to do with the router that was the ABR (Area Border Router) i just had a lot of stuff to cover today so i didn't dwell on it to much.

From there I read some troubleshooting scenarios envolving Frame-Relay and I have to say this. After 3 days of Frame-Relay study it's still the only topic I'm not confident that I know at least 80% of the material. With that being said I'm going to have to spend some extra time getting this down. I've read a few forums and a lot of people would agree that Frame-Relay is the hardest to grasp. Mainly because there's a lot of Layer 2 and 3 protocols that go hand and hand so it's easy to get confused. Also it's not the easiest lab to setup so just that along takes some time. I went over the VPN chapter which was a lot of info I already knew but was good review. It was also the only chpater to have less than 20 pages (only had 10). Next up is NAT and IPv6 then it's crunch time were I get everything down good and prepare for the test!

Frame-Relay Configuration

Welp ladies and gents I've spent the entire day setting up Frame-Relay Topologies both full and partial mesh. It was a beast of a chapter like I thought it would be but I managed to get a lot more of the concepts down. As a matter of fact though I'm not even done with this chapter yet. It's the only CCNA chapter that's going to take me more than 1 day to get through it. not because it was a lot of pages but it's a lot of steps required to setup Frame-Relay especially labbing it. Mainly because with Frame-Rely in the real world the ISP has the actual Frame Relay switches and they are the ones that are responsible for the DLCI's. But in order to lab this topic you have to create your own Frame-Relay Switches some how.

There was 3 different ways, Figure out Packet Tracers confusing cloud setup, use a router with the GNS3 emulator, or simply use the Frame-Relay Switch included with GNS3. Needless to say I chose option 3 which I'm sure saved me a lot of headache in the long run. I surprisingly didn't run into to many issues the hardest part is that there were a lot of new commands. The other things was that you have setup a lot of things before hand such as the DLCI's and determining the numbers along with the sub-interfaces. Tomorrow I'm going to finish up the troubleshooting section of Frame-Realy and the VPN chapter which shouldn't take to long because I have experience working with VPN's.

Study Update # 5

Well I finished going over Chapter 13 regarding Frame Relay but I'm not doing reading about this topic just yet. Tomorrow I believe is going to be the longest day for me as I have to configure Frame Relay on top of configuring different types of topologies available for the first time. I'm hoping I can get through it without to many headaches but we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes me about 5-7 hours to get through this chapter. If I start early and keep things consitent I can shave quite a bit of time off that so we'll see. I finished up tonight going over a basic Spanning-Tree Protocol video. I'm pretty confident with STP now I believe, the last major switching topic I need to nail is VLAN. I will have to set up RoAS (Router on A Stick) at least one more time and setup some advanced STP labs.

Frame Relay Theory

I finished going through the Frame Relay chapter in the ICND2 which helped me further understand this WAN technology. This is probably the only other chapter besides subnetting that tripped me up a little bit. More specifically it has to do with the fact that Frame Relay needs to use both Layer 2 and 3 protocols. At the layer 2 it took me a while to get the DLCI global and local theories nailed down. Also knowing when one protocol/technology begins and ends in a Frame Relay topology. For example LMI (Local Management Interface) provides keep alives between the access links.

But encapsulation occurs between the routers on the PVC (Permanent Virtual Circuit) between each other, so it crosses the Frame Relay network. Where as LMI's only cross between the DTE and the DCE which is usually the Router and Frame Relay switch at the ISP. At layer 3 you have determine how you want to configure the interface IP addresses. You can actually configure the Frame Relay to use one subnet if it's in a full mesh. However if it's only in a partial mesh it's probably best to use seperate subnets for each PVC, this is especially true if you're using a distance-vector routing protocol. You can also configure a hybrid of the two options. All in all I'm going to spend a little extra time with Frame-Relay to get it down by exam time.