The Cisco IOS IP Service Level Agreement better known as IPSLA is a feature which was introduced in the IOS version 11.2 under the name of Response Time Responder (RTR). Later on Cisco sensed RTR is creating some sort of confusion as some of reference texts referred RTR as Real time responder; hence they renamed RTR as Service Assurance Agent (SAA). Even SAA didn’t stick for long time and now it’s known as IP SLA.  IP SLA is truly excellent for built-in network testing. In fact, it is a key ingredient for sophisticated implementations of Performance Routing (PfR).

 At its introduction in IOS 11.2 version under the name of RTR it had very limited offerings  

• ICMP Ping
• ICMP Echo Path
• IBM SNANativeEcho

The Cisco IOS IP Service Level Agreement (IP SLA) feature can be used to gather realistic information about how specific types of traffic are being handled end-to-end across a network. To do this, an IP SLA device runs a preconfigured test and generates traffic that is destined for a far end device. As the far end responds with packets that are received back at the source, IP SLA gathers data about what happened along the way.

IP SLA is capable of running following tests in Cisco Switches and routers

The  CCNP Switch 642-813 Official certification guide is an amazing title, which can trust for Switch # 642-813 Exam. The author David Hucaby CCIE 4594 carries an honor of writing many titles for Cisco Press especially when it come to switching he is master.

The  CCNP Switch 642-813 Official certification guide comes with seventeen chapters covering wide range of topics

The first chapter emphasizes on the importance of planning for CCNP Switch# 642-813 Exam. In this chapter Cisco Systems have made very clear what they are anticipating for the CCNP Switching and Routing professional and what skill he/she should possess to be CCNP R & S.

In this chapter the author talks about Cisco’s approach to the life cycle of the Network, it is PPDIOO

Prepare - organizational requirements, strategy, financial justification

Plan - network requirements, gap analysis with existing network infrastructure, project plan

Design- design specification created (used for implement phase)

Implement – network is built, additional components added

Operate – maintaining network health, day-to-day operations

Optimize – proactive management, potential to spir network redesign

Tips for the implementation plan

The implementation plan consists of several phases ( for eg : installation of hardware, IOS check, configurations,-over to production, etc.).  It is important to remember the following steps for each phase:

Description of the step

Reference to design documents

Detailed implementation guidelines

Detailed rollback guidelines in case of failure

Estimated time needed for implementation

When it comes to CCNP Routing and Switch Certification I personally prefer to start with Switch# 642-813 Exam. As switching exam should not be a hard exam for CCNA certified Network Engineer.  The Switch # 642-813 exam tests your skills on following topics.

ü  Network design, implementation, and verification plans

ü  Switch operation and port configuration

ü  VLANs, trunks, and VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP)

ü  Aggregating switch links

ü  Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

ü  Multilayer switching

ü  Enterprise campus network design

ü  Router and supervisor redundancy

ü  IP telephony

ü  Wireless LANs

ü  Switched network security

Now come the main question what resources you should use to pass the Cisco Switch#642-813 Exam, lot of resources are available, but when it come to self study guides Cisco Press is the leader and they come with pretty helpful titles.

To begin with you can start preparing with CCNP Switch 642-813 Official certification guide which can be easily ordered from Cisco Press watch out for eBook of day deal too who knows you can own the book for just 9.95 dollars.  For non US residents no worries as Cisco Press ships world wide at very competitive shipping cost, seems that they have some deal with FEDEX as for the last four times when I ordered Cisco press titles they charged me 9 dollars for International shipping thru FedEx and it took 4 days to reach me. In upcoming posts I will try to review the CCNP Switch 642-813 Official certification guide in detail so that you folks can get benefited.

I am always a great fan of David Hucaby; he comes up with pretty good titles, which can be easily used for achieving Cisco Certifications by self-study. His latest addition to the world of Cisco Certification is CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide.  Thanks to Cisco Press and David to release this title so soon.

Thanks to Cisco Press and Jamie in especial for making this happen. I don’t believe that I have a CCNP SWITCH 642-813 title with me. As we all know Cisco came up with a new version of CCNP Certification which requires only three exams to pass compared to four in the prevision version of CCNP.

The current CCNP SWITCH 642-813 book is much lighter compared to the CCNP Switch 642-812 book.  It’s divided into 6 parts. I liked the way topics are distributed. This book is written in an easy way it covers all the exam topics and also provides some good troubleshooting steps especially I liked the VTP troubleshooting part.

Pic Courtesy: Cicso Press

A chapter dealing with Securing Switch access is amazing I liked the best practices used for securing Switches. The Author David Hucaby did a commendable job. The CCNP Switch 642-812 title come with 100 practice questions for the CCNP 642-813 exam developed by Cisco Press and delivered by Boson. The CCNP SWITCH 642-813 title is up to date and most of the info referred deals with the latest IOS versions.

Overall this entire book is an excellent source for preparing for Cisco CCNP 642-813 exams, my advice is to buy this book along with CCNP Routing and Switching Quick Reference  book. With these two, you should have everything you need! Best of luck to you all CCNP Certification aspirers.

Hi folks, as I received a CCNP Official Certification Library, fifth edition thanks to Cisco Press (Jamie) for the great support lending on me all the time. To brief about the CCNP Official Certification Library, fifth edition is a comprehensive package for the four Cisco CCNP exams BCMSN, BSCI, ISCW and ONT. Starting from this post I will try my best review all the four Certification books comes with the CCNP Official Certification Library, fifth edition thanks. To start with I will go with the CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, fourth edition.

The CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, fourth edition is a true guide for preparing for the Cisco BCMSN (642-812) exam. The author David Hucaby did a wonderful job by the explaining the material in short concise way that facilitates easy learning.

The CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, fourth edition is divided into six parts , each part is well written and  more over its easy to understand. The most liked chapter for me is the Router, Supervisor and Power redundancy. Thanks to David Hucaby, I was able to migrate our network from HSRP to GBLP succefully. He explained the concept very well like I said it’s really easy to understand.

The CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, fourth edition does have the Scenarios for final preparations  There are nine scenarios covering wide range of concepts and are helpful not only from the exam point of view but also it can be used to troubleshoot the problems in real networks faced by some folks.

One more amazing thing I liked in the CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, fourth edition is the practice exams which are handful for the folks who has little exposure to real world networks, but it’s always recommend to have some hands on experience with Switches configuration and analysis.

Overall an excellent guide which can leads you to taste the success of passing Cisco BCMSN (642-812) exam. I would rate this guide 4.5 out of 5.