Preperation for Renewal

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Preperation for Renewal : Day 1, revisiting old turf

My Cisco certs expired around the march/april time, but since then I have been a tad pre occupied with windows related work/studying. As my new role encompasses alot more cisco based work than my previous few jobs, I thought I would get back up to speed, by prepping for my renewals

I decided to take it a bit easy to start with, and borrowed my friends Sybex CCNA 5th Edition to see just how much of the basics I had forgotten, and damn was it frightening! lol
Whilst my switching skills have stayed up the speed as pretty much everywhere I have worked has required switching skills, I can configure vlans and vtp with my eyes closed still, getting stuck back into routing was an eye opener, I really had forgotten a TON

LSAs, Adjacencies, Border routers, it all clicked somewhere, but didnt make a whole lot of sense like it used to do!
So I got cracking, and configured a nice little routed set up consisting of 2x 2600 series routers, 3x 4000 series routers, as well as a 2950-24 switch. Deciding to tackle it in stages, me and my mate jotted down a brief diagram, and progressed node at a time, firstly implementing a router on a stick solution for inter-vlan traffic across the switch, my home network was on vlan2, and the first 4500 series was on vlan 3, we used the 2621 and sub-interfaces to acomplish this.
All of this went well and there were no problems, we were able to ping the eth0 interface of the first 4700 (hence forth known as wan-router01), initially we were going to try and just use static routers to get us by, but i figured that would be a pain, and i really should brush up on my routing skills, so we set up an OSPF (single area for now, all router interfaces were part of area 27)

It was amazing just how quickly it all fell into place once we started using a routing protocol over statics, we ran some debug ip ospf commands to check chatter and that really helped solidify exactly what was happening (its hard to believe i ever implemented a multi area ospf topology with the ammount i had bloody forgotten lol)

suffice to say, at 2am this morning we were able to ping the remote node (randomness.pheo.org) really, it was a random choice of name

the results of a long nights work

Code:

Tracing route to randomness.pheo.org [10.5.10.10]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  trunk-router01.pheo.org [172.17.27.101]
  2     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  eth1-wan-router01.pheo.org [10.1.0.1]
  3     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  eth0-wan-router02.pheo.org [10.2.0.2]
  4     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  eth0-remote-router01.pheo.org [10.3.0.2]
  5     2 ms     2 ms     2 ms  randomness.pheo.org [10.5.10.10]

Trace complete.

C:\>

i know i know, the dns entries were overkill, but it looks cooler, lol


So anyway, basically this is a note to any wannabe Cisco candidate, the materials hard, and it wont stay there if you dont use it!, it's not about passing an exam, its about keeping those skills current and active, use em or lose em i say, so all the best to everyone undertaking it and remember that it doesnt end with the exam!

now to tackle frame relay again! doh

 

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Great read Phoenix!

It just goes to show that even the best of us forget things when we don't use it on a daily basis.

Good luck with the recertification.

 

thats indeed true Simon, which is why I am a firm believer of Ciscos cert expiration policy, I know how much I have forgotten in three years of limited use, and I dont deserve to be 'qualified' unless I can make it through those renewals and brush up on stuff, not only what I have forgotten, but whats new, i imagine things like BCRAN are covering dsl and broadband more than they used to, and perhaps less async and isdn? who knows! but its going to be an uphill journey i imagine

 

Well said.

It should be worth saying to any newbies to the world of IT that read this thread that IT is about constant learning, it just never stops.

Although not all certifications have expiry, which I think they should (personal opinion here guys ) you have to keep those skills up to date after the exam is long gone.

 

Fantastic information here, Guys. Thread pinned.

 

Good stuff Phoenix!

 

I'm glad to see this here, Ryan. I look forward to reading more of your chronicle about your efforts towards renewal.

 

Amen to that, I'm missing studying like mad for my CCNA (no joke) I really enjoyed the practical part. Towards the end I was making up my own labs on mindtech using the 5 router topology.

I've got a few sessions left so I might make a point of making up some lab excercises to do on a weekly basis just to keep it all fresh- especially as I'm focusing on getting an MCSA now I don't want to forget any Cisco stuff.

I'd be happy to share any of my own made up labs on online routers/switches, I had some funky stuff going on NAT, access-lists, OSPF, EIGRP, RIP 1 and 2- going over frame relay and ISDN (static routes for the ISDN links of coursh mish moneypenny).

Yup I really love all that stuff... Even though my focus now is MS 70-291, I could still spend hours playing with routers and switches hehe

 

You not going for CCNP?

 

I want to get at least 1 Win 2003 MCP next, maybe even an MCSA. As I'm looking for a job at the moment and I have no Cisco experience I'm not getting much joy appying for Cisco roles. I do however have lots of Windows experience which the agents that are calling me back seem to be more interested in. I stand a better chance of getting some hands on Cisco by getting a Windows role that will incorporate a bit of Cisco, but to get a really good windows role with a view to getting some networking hands on I'm having to sell myself on the Windows side of things.

I've been flatly refused anything to do with the network where I am at the moment, there are no openings and they won't let me log into any routers or switches. I can't afford to take a pay cut and get a helpdesk NOC role as my outgoings are adjusted to my current income…

Real chicken and egg situation, there are some nice high level desktop/mid level server/entry level network roles out there- not a lot but they're there, I'm getting a good response with my current qualifications so hopefully soon I'll be able to rack up some Cisco hands on then I can pick up the CCNP trail.

70-291 is the 'TCP/IP, subnetting' exam as well as a lot of other stuff like supernetting, DNS, DHCP and Active Directory network environment. I figured it would be the best one to go for while all the CCNA theory is fresh in my head

 

Hey good luck with the next cert! Am going onto BSCI upto page 660 Yep it is tough getting your foot into the cisco side of things am hoping to get something internal at work but they all want CCNP. If I was to get a job external I would have to take a big pay cut and like you I can afford that at the moment. Are you looking to do contract or perm?Hope you get fixed up

 

Preperation for Renewal : Weekend 1, simple complexity

As I may of already mentioned, during my progress for renewal I am using the opertunity to assist two friends to pass thier CCNA at the same time, a great revision method for myself, and gives me the ability to cover material i forgot was even in the CCNA, most useful really ;)

My friend works at a school that is also a Cisco network acadamy, so we blagged the room for the weekend, brought down a load of my own cisco kit, and threw up a few killer labs, nothing too heavy, after all they are only on the CCNA, but covering all that material was a great help for me, even if it was not at the depth required for my CCNP renewal, having that basic knowledge coming back really did help the rest fall into place

we start with a simple back to back serial connection, concepts of DCE/DTE clocks and such, and moved on from there to a more advanced internetwork design, with link state routing protocols and different speed links to demonstrate the ability of said protocols to calculate the best route, and failover when one of those links goes down (easily performed by yanking the cable out)
On sunday we tried to be a little more structured, layout out our plans for the day and progressing to somewhat of a schedule, we initially started with a simple back to back frame relay connection without a frame relay switch, then progressed to a more advanced setup using a hub and spoke topology connected via a frame relay switch, creating multiple PVCs utilising sub interfaces to avoid split horizon problems, we then threw a routing protocol on top and watched as our network came to life

At the moment i only have the scribbles from the interactive whiteboard, so excuse the mess and ilegability, I will endeavour to turn them into visio docs when I get the chance so that others might follow the lab ideas to practice there own config skills

 

Great Stuff Phoenix!