Almost Ready for the CCDA Test....I think

The CCDA OCG book was polished off a few weeks ago. I haven't been able to schedule the exam yet due to projects and work travel. I hear that this test is a beast so I went well beyond just the Cisco press books. The design certs isn't about just knowing the technical aspects within the CLI. In fact I only recall a few sections that even mentions or references a CLI command. It's meant to show you how to gather business requirements, plan, implement, and operate within the business constraints given. At least on a very high level; the knowledge I've learned over the last 8 months has already helped me with many of the projects I'm a part of.

CCDA DESGN OCG Progress

Typical world of IT to make everything an acronym. So many that there are multiple acronyms that are the same but mean something different depending on what you're referring to (i.e. RFC).

Anyways, I'm slowly making my way through the OCG book, finishing the small section on Data Center. If I recall the FLG book never really hit this topic at all so I learned quite a few cool new things. Especially on the virtualization front which lightly touched on Virtual Device Contexts and access layer switching within the virtual environment.

I'm hitting every practice quiz, study reference, and additional study topics that the book is offering me. This will give me the right amount of repetition I need to be ready for the exam itself. Honestly I felt like I should of studied for the CCNP R/S this way. At my current gig, we didn't touch routing too much besides DMVPN. So a lot of the intricate routing theory I'm starting to loose.

Cisco DESGN Foundations Learning Guide Completed

Last week I've finished the CCDA FLG book for the DESGN exam. The last chapter discussed wireless design and architecture at a very high level. There were tons of things I picked up from this chapter that helped me understand my employers wireless environment immediately. Mainly the Mobility and RF Group sections. We have a wireless refresh project coming up shortly (with the help of a vendor) and this will help me immensely.


Now I'm hitting the DESGN Official Certification Guide book along with taking copious amount of notes, making flash cards, and hitting the multiple choice questions hard. I'm not exactly sure when I'll take this exam this year but it should be before the end of summer. As mentioned before, I'm not exactly in a rush right now coming off fresh from the CCNP about four months ago.

After the CCDA, next up is CCDP, and then maybe...just maybe a CCIE level certification. Experience trumps all though so after the CCDP I may wait until my knowledge is and skill set is at a point where a CCIE certification makes sense. SDN and programmable networks are very intriguing to me but my gut keeps telling me that I need a really strong foundation before diving in to that.

Cisco SAFE

Security is my biggest weak point period. I'm currently reading through the CCDA security chapters in the FLG book. I'm also downloading and book marking all of the references and white papers from these chapters I can get my hands on!

I probably have 100 of pages of reading to do on the Cisco SAFE (SCF) security framework a head of me. But I need to have a better holistic view of network security. I get asked network security questions quite often in my job role. Even today my employers CIO had a security question that I foolishly couldn't answer because I'm not well versed with the firewall policies in our environment. I will be changing this,

Enterprise Internet Edge Design

As I finish chapter 5 (Designing Remote Connectivity) in the Cisco CCDA FLG book, it provided a list of great references to gain additional understanding. I read through Cisco's Ethernet MAN and WAN design guide. Now I'm going through Cisco's guide on enterprise internet edge design.

For the most part the guide focuses on securing the edge within the 5 different modules shown above. This may be overkill for the CCDA but my intent is to take in the material slowly and thoroughly.

CCDA Studies

I've been digging into network design specifically for the last two months now. I've started and completed the Top-Down Network Design book which was a a great primer to the certification material.

I'm now working through the CCDA FLG book which is really helping nail down the topics for the DEGN exam. I'm taking my time for this exam since I'm still fresh off of the CCNP R&S certification. Which is a nice change of pace since I wanted to knock out the CCNP cert before the new tracks started this year.

After the FLG book I'll finally hit the OCG book and then maybe finally prep for the exam itself. I'm on the fence on getting the CCDP Arch books and/or CCNA Security books for exam prep but we shall see. Along the way I'm going to constantly be hitting up the Cisco SRND documentations to so that I fully understand the topics I'm learning.

Design is very interesting to me and something I've wanted to do but was always scared of. Hopefully over the next few months I can flesh out my blog more with the topics I've been learning. It's been years since I've really talked about my progress due to the countless other blogs out there.

CCNP Passed!

As of October 28th 2014 I'm officially a CCNP! After my ROUTE exam I jumped right into the SWITCH material. SWITCH was a lot easier for me to digest as I work with Layer 2/3 switches almost on a daily basis. This exam alone helped my day to day tasks tremendously along with giving me the confidence I need to tackle a few data center projects currently going on. The SWITCH exam took me 3-4 months to complete.

Today I finished up my CCNPby taking the TSHOOT exam, which was actually pretty fun. This is basically a lab simulation that tests your troubleshooting skills using CCNP level knowledge. If you aced ROUTE and SWITCH than this exam should be a breeze for you. I studied for about 2 months for this exam. I reviewed ROUTE topics since there was the 4 month gap between diving into the routing material.

With the SDN craziness on the way, I'm going to spend the next 3 months digging into Python. This will also give me a much needed break from certifications. After that I'm going to start hitting the Cisco designs certs for the rest of the year. I acknowledge that my design skillset is my biggest weakness. While I do not expect to walk away being able to take on a Network Architect type position, I do believe this will give me the foundation I need to head in that direction.