evilrouters.net

Last Friday, I asked in anyone was aware of, or would be interested in, a mailing list for the discussion of topics related to CCNP certification and exam preparation. I still haven’t heard of (or found) any lists that really fit in with my idea, so I took the liberty of creating one.

A mailing list named, simply, “ccnp” has been created at FreeLists:

“…FreeLists, a service providing free, commercial-grade Internet mailing lists to all interested. Our lists are all internet and technology-related. Thus, we provide a free focal point for technology-inclined individuals and groups on the Internet. We do it all without the support of advertisements, ensuring the highest-quality mailing list experience for you and your users.”

I know (work with) the guy who runs this shop and it is a very well suited “home” for this list.

If you’re interested in participating, you may subscribe by sending an e-mail to “ccnp-request@freelists.org” with a subject of “subscribe”. You may unsubscribe by sending a mail with a subject of “unsubscribe” (and confirming your requests). I hope that this list can be a useful resource for those of us preparing for CCNP certification. As such, there are no formal rules, with one exception: I reserve the right to do whatever I want if you: spam, become annoying, post off-topic too much, etc.

After subscribing, you may post to the list by addressing your messages to ccnp@freelists.org. For those of us who like to filter these messages, you’ll notice that all posts have “[ccnp] ” prefixed to the Subject: line, making it trivial to do so. When you subscribe, feel free to send an “introduction” message (especially since I anticipate this will be a very small group at first).

Feel free to spread the word!

That’s all, see you on the list!

I’m aware of a few mailing lists for folks studying/preparing for the CCIE-level examinations, but haven’t been able to find anything useful for one working his or her way towards CCNP. I subscribe to some of the CCIE lists, but, to be quite honest, most of that stuff on the list is still way over my head.

Is anyone aware of mailing lists aimed at those working towards the various CCNP exams? Failing that, would be interested in one? If I can’t find any, I may just start one — nothing too in-depth, but basically a place where one can post questions/answers to various scenarios, study topics, etc.

iman jalali, director of sales and support at trainsignal, was nice enough to send me a free copy of their ccnp video course.

the ccnp certification training package, according to the website, contains over 50 hours of training for the bsci, bcmsn, ont, and iscw exams for the ccnp certification.

the videos are led by chris bryant, ccie, who never misses an opportunity to try to get you to visit his own website (link intentionally missing), where he sells his own training products as well. i don’t particular care for him, but i’ll try not to let that bias my opinion of trainsignal’s course as a whole. i hope to “review” it here soon.

while there’s a plethora of labs to work through if you’re preparing for cisco’s ccie examination, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot for the lower levels, specifically the ccnp (what i’m currently working on). it could very well be because i haven’t bought any of the “official” cisco press books, who knows.

regardless, i, like many others, have been making extensive use of dynamips for running labs on a pc (even though i have a stack of cisco gear sitting right next to me). it’s just easier to not have to mess with the physical cabling, plus i can take it with me (i have dynamips and dynagen set up on my macbook).

i’ve considering making up some of my own lab topologies and then creating some exercises to go along with me. there are plenty of lab topologies already available (some even with the dynagen .net file), but i haven’t found many that have actual lab exercises to go along with them.

if i were to make up some of my own (complete with visio diagrams, dynagen .net files, and exercises to work through), would there be any interest?

p.s. i don’t use gns3 so you’d have to come up with your own config files for that.

if you happen to be going to cfunited (like me) next week, be sure to read through the cfunited attendee packet — some good info in there to know ahead of time.

this will be my first time attending cfunited and my first time in washington, dc, in about 15 years. anything i should know beforehand? =)