After completing my CCNP and CCDP about a year ago I pretty much dropped out of the education scene, sold all of my routers, and got busy with various radio related stuff.
Last spring I started a wireless ISP with a couple of other guys. We got it funded about two months ago and I found that I was doing a lot more with Cisco, at least BGP/OSPF/802.1Q/QoS, and I started looking over the certs to see if there was one that mostly matched what I am doing work wise - the CCIP fits me the way the CCIE, with all of its enterprise stuff, never will. I've started slowly rebuilding the lab - a 2621 with voice and ISDN, my trusty old no serial number CiscoPro 2511 that I couldn't bear to sell, a Cat 1924 EN, and a 7204 with four sync serial ports dropped into my lap a couple of weeks ago. I figure I'll be back to 'full strength' before too long - I'll probably sell the 7204 and get something smaller/quieter. I don't see any "Pass the CCIP" books or any CCIP specific tests on boson.com so I started digging into the requirements to see if the CCNP/CCDP stuff might fit. This is what I've found so far: Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (exam 640-900) is the larger of the two core exams and it appears to be very similar to BSCN with much added from BGP and IS-IS. I'm reading Internet Routing Architectures again and its a lot more fun this time - I have a dual T1 CEF bundle from Sprint, another T1 that terminates at a different Sprint router, and a UUNet T1 that ought to be up in a few weeks - nothing like real world application to get you to open up the book :-) The Multicast + QoS beta exam (exam 641-905) looks like much of the multicasting information from the BCMSN exam and a lot of QoS stuff that isn't covered anywhere else. I'm lucky here, too, lots of QoS stuff I need to do on my growing network. I've had the Cisco Press IOS 12.0 Quality of Service reference book for a while, and I just got Enhanced IP Services for Cisco Networks and the new IP Quality of Service book as well. Hopefully reading this stuff will fill in the blanks ... I looked at the five possible electives - Cable, Content Networking, METRO (optical), Security, and MPLS - MPLS is the only one that doesn't look completely useless for a network of the size I operate. I've been hoping they'll add a wireless specialization which would be very easy for me after the last six months, but MPLS looks like a good second choice - stuff I might be able to use, lab gear is not a fortune, and there are a couple of books out. I bought MPLS and VPN Architectures today. Has anyone on here completed the CCIP yet? Who is actively working on it? I'd love to hear from others doing this - drop me a note at mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Neal Rauhauser CCNP, CCDP voice: 402-391-3930 http://AmericanRelay.com fax : 402-951-6390 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] fcc : k0bsd Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=26605&t=26605 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
