I passed the “Implementing Cisco IP Switched Network”exam successfully couple of days back.  Now I am one step closer to achieving mp CCNP. My approach was simple and straight forward, I read the Cisco Press title CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide. Thanks to Cisco Press and Jamie Adams for providing me a copy of CCNP Study guides. The exam was pretty easy but be careful there are few ambiguous questions which really needs your experience and expert knowledge on the topic.

I have following piece of advice for the CCNP aspirers

• 1) Set the date for exam before starting your preparations (Goal Setting).
• 2) Read Cisco Press title CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide.
• 3) Practice the Boson questions came with the title CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide.
• 4) Watch CBT nuggets if needed as they are really cool videos to watch.
• 5) Practice labs, (create your own scenarios on STP, HRSP, VTP, VRRP, GLBP etc.) If you can afford get three Cisco 3550 Series Switches from eBay.
• 6) A week before exam review all the topics and practice few labs and boson practice test.

(My CCNP Switch Lab)

If you follow the above with dedication and determination nothing can stop you from achieving CCNP.

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.