CCNP Switch exam (642-813) Passed
{Breathes sigh of relief}
Route has always felt more intuitive to me. Neighbors/adjacencies/hellos/tables; route just makes sense. I find switching topics/exam static, boring and difficult to study for. Switching has always felt like a bunch of unrelated protocols and standards, piecemealed together to make things work. ACL's, Multilayer switching (a switch is a switch, until it we enter a command and make it a router) and STP to name a few...ugh.
Yes, I understand how important switching is; how forwarding at line speed in switching ASICs is much better/faster than the software-based forwarding of stand-alone routers. I understand how important implementing security standards at the access layer is to securing the network. I understand that given the choice between routing traffic and switching traffic, we will choose switching. All that being said, I still don't like it ;p
So it is with great relief that I report to you that I passed the CCNP switch exam a few months ago. I took the test twice and I'm not embarrassed to admit to that. Cisco exams are well designed and can trip up the most seasoned net peeps. I got stuck on the LACP w/STP sim, which screwed up my time management for the exam. I looked up at the clock, had 7 minutes left and a whole lot of questions to still get through. After putting in a couple more weeks of studying and labbing up the SIM on my home lab, I kicked its butt!
I still have not worked my way through all of the switching labs in my lab manual, but I've been going back to switch and labbing it up on my home lab to 1) reinforce my knowledge 2) keep switching topics fresh in my mind while studying route.
I've got a lot of updates to post here and hope to get them out soon. My wife and I have a 7 month old son (our first offspring), who has acquired any spare time that previously existed in my life. I try to study at work when its slow, but that is a rare occurrence. I've been watching/listening to study material (CBT Nuggets/Chris Bryant/INE) every chance I get (while cooking breakfast, while driving, etc) and hope to take the route exam by the end of July.
I've got some cool stuff to tell you about progress I've made on the home lab (fully meshed connectivity, upgraded a card, configured NTP, network documentation creation...) and hope to share it soon. It just depends on how well our son is sleeping that week and what the wifey has added to my honey do list.
Until next time, my fellow tech nerds,
Andy