CCNA Voice 640-461 passed

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Hi all,

I passed this exam today (640-461), with 100%

I found there wasn't a huge amount of good info. online about this qualification and preparation for it, so thought I would share some useful info.

LAB
CUCME - I had a 2811 router, with 2 FXO & 2 FXS ports, and a PVDM2-64. It also had a 512mb flash card to fit CUCME on.

CUCM/CUC/CUPS - I had a HP Intel based workstation with VMware 5.1 on, 1TB HDD, 8GB Ram. I provisioned each environment as below:-
Redhat Enterprise 32bit, 4GB RAM, 100GB HD (at SCSI 0:0).
I had to use CUCM & CUC v7.1, as I couldn't get v8 to see my NTP source despite it being synced at a good stratum. I was able to install CUPS v8.1. I won't detail where I got bootable images for these environments, except that it was from a popular site online. They come with trial licenses anyway, and this is an essential part of study.

I had 5 IP phones (7940, 7941 x2, 7906, 7945)

With this setup, I built 2 labs and went through every bit of config. I could from the Official Certification Guide, and CBT Nuggets. I ended up with a fully integrated CUCM, with Voicemail and Presence which was nice. I also had a SIP trunk to the CUCME environment.

My 3 sources of knowledge were the Official Certification Guide, CBT Nuggets, and the test exams that came with the cert. guide. And my 3 years administering CUCM. When I got stuck on understanding the answer to a test question I looked at the online Cisco papers about the products, and it was usually able to answer.

The exam:
The study book and CBT Nuggets alone do not teach you all you need to pass. Real world experience is necessary too, especially for the troubleshooting questions. There were also a few surprise questions that required a knowledge of specific models of IP phones (Desk and wireless), and licensing.

The Cert. guide is pretty light on CUC and CUPS, but don't assume this will mean the exam is the same.

There were a few more questions than I expected from past CCNA exams, but I suppose you get more text questions when you get less simulations.

I hope this helps someone, happy to answer any other questions you may have (except exam room specifics, and where to get cheat sheets).

Tim