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.

In my previous post I did discussed about some of the key features of NX-OS lets see what else it offer

• Base services: The default license that ships with NX-OS covers Layer 2 protocols including such features such as Spanning Tree, virtual LANs (VLAN), Private VLANS, and Unidirectional Link Detection (UDLD).
• Enterprise Services Package: Provides Layer 3 protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (ISIS), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Policy-Based Routing (PBR), Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), and Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE).
• Advanced Services Package: Provides Virtual Device Contexts (VDC), Cisco Trustsec (CTS), and Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV).
• Transport Services License: Provides Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) (when available).

Apparently the NX-OS includes some quite interesting kef features and benefit. In this post I will try to highlight few of those features. Some of them are as follows

• Virtual device contexts (VDC): Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switches can be segmented into virtual devices based on customer requirements. VDCs offer several benefits such as fault isolation, administration plane, separation of data traffic, and enhanced security.
• Virtual Port Channels (vPC): Enables a server or switch to use an EtherChannel across two upstream switches without an STP-blocked port to enable use of all available uplink bandwidth.
• Continuous system operation: Maintenance, upgrades, and software certification can be performed without service interruptions due to the modular nature of NX-OS and features such as In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) and the capability for processes to restart dynamically.
• Security: Cisco NX-OS provides outstanding data confidentiality and integrity, supporting standard IEEE 802.1AE link-layer cryptography with 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptography. In addition to CTS, there are many additional security features such as access control lists (ACL) and port-security, for example.

Pic Courtesy: Cisco Press

Although the title “31 days before your CCNA Exam” aims at Cisco Network Academy students, but it can be used for the Cisco CCNA 640-802 Certification aspirers who does self study.

The author Allan Johnson divided the title suiting in to 31 chapters, which are so concise you can finish each chapter in an hour. The cream of the title  “31 days before your CCNA Exam” is the section called “Exam day and post exam information” which gives the CCNA Certification aspirers guidelines on what to expect after the completion of exam as well as what they should do if they fail to pass the exam on first attempt. One more section that I really liked is “CCNA Skills review and practice” which helps you to practice the CCNA skills which includes most of the CCNA 640-802 exam configurations skills in one topology, which covers topics like VLAN configuration, frame-relay configuration, inter vlan routing, EIGRP,VTP, port security , STP. You can practice those topologies either on Cisco Packet Tracer or GNS3 graphical network simulator.

Overall the title “31 days before your CCNA Exam” is a true gem, but cannot be a only source for passing CCNA 640-802 exam, this title is good for the some one who is looking for quick reference on CCNA 640-802 exam topics in an well organized way. I thank Cisco Press and Jamie in particular for providing me the copy of “31 days before your CCNA Exam”

Interconnecting Data Centers Using VPLS is a book which aims at providing solutions that provide a high speed, low latency network and spanning tree protocol (STP) isolation between data centers based on Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS).

Pic Courtesy: Cisco Press

The book makes interesting reading, especially as it covers in detail about the architecture design and configuration required to interconnect data centers as well as case studies to interconnect Data Centers.  This book is targeted to Systems professionals and System engineers who are into designing solutions for interconnecting data centers which ensures high availability Layer 2 connectivity and STP isolation.

The authors Nash Darukhanawalla and Patrice Bellagamba started the book with explaining the need for high availability of the Data Centers, explaining the concept of the high availability clusters, introduction to Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), MPLS traffic engineering.

The authors’ present different flavors of data center interconnect solution using different combination of Spanning Tree modes, VLAN mapping as well other criteria’s along with complete configuration required at the  aggregation switches and provider edge routers.

The book is divided into 13 chapters, and it also deals with issues related to layer 2 bridging domains and provides guidance to extend VLANs using Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). This book contains lot of reference network diagrams which can help the readers to understand the presented solutions in normal mode as well as in failover mode.

I found this book extremely readable and enjoyable and I would recommend this book to the folks who are interested in knowing more about the Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). The book comes with lot of useful information which will definitely help the readers to get familiar with the Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) concepts and configuration steps required for interconnecting data centers.

If you are preparing for the CCNA 640-802 Certification exam and you are not willing to invest on hardware to setup you own lab, then the CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator released recently by Cisco Press  is the right Simulator for you.

The CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator  is a state of the art, interactive simulation software, which allows you to practice your networking skills with more than 250 labs, specifically designed strengthen CCNA and CCENT exam topics, including router and switch navigation and administration, LAN switching, IP addressing, routing, WANs, Spanning Tree Protocols,  VLANs and trunking, IP routing protocols, scaling IP, and troubleshooting.

The CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator will surely allow you to discover the realistic network device response as you work through each of the labs developed by the bestselling author and an expert instructor Wendell Odom.

The CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator comes with 250 well structured labs, including more than 180 skill builder labs, 50 complex configuration scenarios, and 20 complex troubleshooting scenarios. The complex troubleshooting scenarios included in the CCNA Network Simulator  are more complex compared to other simulators in the market and will definitely helps you to  understand the complexity of the problems as well as you will be in a position to handle more complex scenarios either in the CCNA 640-802 Certification exam or even the real network.

The CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator is developed with an objective of providing the hands-on skills necessary to successfully answer the simulation and scenario-based questions on the actual CCNA 640-802 Certification exam.  Each lab includes detailed instructions, topology diagrams, hints, and full answers.

Definitely the CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator  is right simulation software for the CCNA 640-802 Certification aspirers; it’s worth investing your dollars on this simulation software.

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