Don’t just go out and take any old cert, but make sure you’re investigating and researching what is the hot ticket in the industry today, and make sure the certs you are taking are relevant to what employers want.

For example in this day and age, the cloud is a big deal. In light of this Microsoft is now offering a Private Cloud Certification track. This is a great way to get ahead of the competition and stay relevant with your certs.

You can read more here.

-RP

I have always had some experience from my CCNP training, but studying for the CCNA Voice is giving me a great look into the voice world. The best part is that Cisco just came out with a new CCNA Voice study guide this month so it’s fairly up to date!

You can buy the book for cheap from Amazon.com. You can review the new exam topics for the new exam 640-641 here.

-RP

This exam was actually quite hard, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it but I was able to pass it in the end. There was tons of stuff on QoS, VoIP, Wireless, and even AutoQoS with the SDM. The Cisco exam blueprint was bang on and I was able to come out with the win!

The things I used to study were my course at Boson taught by CCIE Bryan Baize, the Bryant study guide by CCIE Chris Bryant, the Cisco Press study guide, my course text books, and lots of practice using the Boson practice sims and my own lab equipment.

If you’re taking this exam don’t take it lightly, make sure you study hard!

-RP

I also borrowed the course textbooks from one of my friends who had taken the course and had the textbooks. This helped in my studying along with all the pdfs that I used from VMware’s website to prepare for the exam.

My co-worker Nathan who also has a blog here has posted some exam resources over here. He has some really great links that he recommends that I used and were quite helpful.

I also used Simon Long’s blog web site where he broke down the exam blueprint with hyperlinks to each piece of information you need. Simon, if you are reading this, thank you very much! Here is the link.

-RP

The ISCW exam material seems to be smaller to me. I’ve also heard it is easier than the BSCI and the BCMSN. It covers topics such as

• Basic configurations for Cisco routers when you’re configuring them in a teleworker scenario such as with DSL or Cable Internet.
• IPSec VPN
• MPLS
• Mitigation of Common Network attacks
• IOS Firewall
• IPS
• Hardening of Cisco Devices

Now that does sound like a lot of material but it shouldn’t be too bad considering how crazy the BSCI exam was. I figure if I wrote the BSCI successfully the rest should be comparitively easier (not easy, but just in comparison). So since I was so successful with the last two, I’m not going to abandon my strategy. A combination of the learning from my boot camp combined with the Cisco self-study guide, more lab time and the Bryant’s Advantage study guide should allow me to pass the exam.

-RP

Well I was doing some digging and I came across this thing called The Bryant Advantage. Chris Bryant is a certified CCIE and he created his own study material which is 100% legit and is great for studying for the exam. He also provides rack time if you need it.

So I figured I’d take the plunge and I bought the Bryant Advantage materials with the rack time. I have to say the material is just great! I’ve been reading his ebook and he really does a great job of explaining everything. Also Chris is extremely helpful for any questions you might have. I can highly recommend buying his material to prepare for the CCNP.

-RP

Luckily the great folks at Boson have a boot camp available and i’ve been lucky enough to get a great instructor, Bryan Baize. Bryan Baize (CCIE 16139) is a CCIE (the PHD of network certifications in my opinion) and a fabulous instructor. His ability to recall the most obscure facts and answer all of your questions and his ability to convey concepts to the students is just great.

As a former IT instructor myself, I can wholeheartedly recommend using the Boson boot camps as part of your training regiment for the CCNP. I will keep you guys up to date on my progress in my quest for this certification. One more week to go!

-RP