Unitek Cisco Training Blog

Hey Im an UNCLE!  Nothing to do with Cisco nor any sort of certification but I have a blog and I get to say what gets posted.  Call me Uncle Cisco!

Cisco offers two routes to earn your CCNP. You can take composite exam which covers routing and switching or take the standalone BSCI & BCMSN exams.  Which one is easier to take?  Well its simple, the composite exam gives you 2 hours to complete 60 questions vs. the standalone exams are 90 minutes and 60 questions each…  The composite is about an even split 30 routing & 30 switching questions which once you pass you are 50% the way for your CCNP certification!  The single exam approach has about the same passing score necessary as the multiple exam approach.  The downside is the amount of information you are responsible to recall for the composite exam.  The plus side is the watering down of the BSCI material since they must ask a certain amount of switching questions.

In my experience the BSCI is an unruly exam because of the depth and breadth of the material.  While the BCMSN exam is rather easy due to the lack of complexity of layer 2 switching.  By combining the two in one sitting you raise your chances of success quite a bit by watering down the difficulty of the exam by sprinkling in switching questions.  My vote is the composite!

Of course you still need to pass ONT and ISCW for your CCNP certification.

So I have been tooling around with a piece of software called dynamips/dynagen for a couple of years now. It is a two piece open source software package that emulates a Cisco routers motherboard. You can fire up a Cisco routers IOS and have full use of all the services and commands. I see the future of Cisco training going down this virtualization path. You can setup multiple routers with serial and Ethernet connections in between. Basically a full stack of equipment, I am currently using it to study up for my Cisco CCIE R&S lab. Yes it is that functional! For Cisco CCNA training it will be tremendously useful, for the Cisco CCENT perhaps not so much because Cisco CCENT certification is more along the lines of theory where as CCNA and the CCNP are more practical/hands on in nature.

We just started teaching the new Cisco CallManager CCVP Training classes back in April, and I must say: they are quite awesome. I think they do a pretty fantastic job in preparing you for Cisco CCVP or CCIE Training classes (even though Cisco CCIE uses CallManager4, the concepts taught in the classes are great prep for the CCIE track).

Expect to come to the Cisco CIPT 1 v6 class and have a nice introduction to the CallManager world.

Then sit through the Cisco CIPT2 v6 class, and hit the road running. You get to do a monster lab on the first day.  Basically, you configure up a complete dial plan with Search Spaces and Partitions and Gateways at different sites. It really ties together the concepts taught in the CIPT1 v6 class, and then builds on them from there. Good job Cisco!!!

I’m getting a lot of emails and calls lately with people asking about the old CallManager 5 exams and whether they are still valid.

So to prevent all of you from calling or emailing me, let me clarify: Cisco has not wiped out all the old exams just yet. They will remain valid until the last week of July.

Consequentially, that means it’s still not too late to get take the CallManager Version 4, 5, or 6 exams by attending a CCVP Training course like the ones offered at Unitek.

However, don’t forget though that to gain the CCVP Cisco Certification you must first have CCNA. Attendance of CCENT Training or CCNA Training is highly recommended as even if you pass the exams leading to CCVP Cisco Certification, you will not be accredited with the CCVP until you have also gained the CCNA Cisco Certification.

So keep those in mind, and take advantage of the next couple of weeks if you can.

It is an interesting day here at Unitek. Looks like we will be upgrading our Cisco CCNA classroom quite a bit! Shiny new Dell PC’s as well as a tremendous upgrade to our CCNA rack. We had been using very current 2621 series routers but looks like we are to upgrade to 2811’s which is pretty darn nice! It is one heck of an upgrade for the Cisco CCNA training. 22 new routers at around 5k each… I’m afraid to do the math hehe.

Anyways I can’t wait to get into them, all kinds of new labs and topologies. It really is going to be fun, for the Cisco CCENT training I can utilize the SDM a GUI or graphical user interface which will allow students to configure most everything necessary through a few mouse clicks! For my CCNA it won’t be that easy though CLI or command line interface for them!

What is this whole certification thing about? I mean why would someone want to become Cisco Certified? What reasons could anyone have for wanting to get CCENT or CCNA training, let alone CCNP training, when they could just sit down with a good book and read it for themselves?

Well let me tell you something. It’s not as easy as it sounds to just pick something up and figure it out. How long did it take for man to figure out this thing called fire or how about the wheel? Trial and error is an incredible way to truly know what works and what doesn’t and how much time and effort is involved with trying every possible permeation…I have only found three ways of learning something, and figuring it out for myself takes the longest by far.

Reading a book, well to be more specific—several books, by separate authors all focused on Cisco Certification is the next largest time sink. Who has the ability or time to burn through the recommended 3600 pages of material? Realistically, you will have to read those books two, if not three times, to truly get a good handle on the topics.

Of course, that’s only the first batch by author #1. What about someone else’s spin on the material? Each author will have a separate take on it, putting a different spin on trying to explain it. In the end, you will have 1500 pages of reading to tackle for your CCNA, and 10K to square up to your CCNP. Don’t even get me started on my recommended reading list for the CCIE!

OR…

…You could ask someone who has been there. Someone who has beaten their heads on a desk for days on end. Someone who has read those pages. Someone who has made it work.

Sometimes it is really quite hard to draw a picture about a technical topic using the written word. But remember what ‘ma’ always said. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Here is an example.

According to Cisco http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/556/8.html
Term Definitions
Cisco defines these terms as:
• Inside local address—The IP address assigned to a host on the inside network. This is the address configured as a parameter of the computer OS or received via dynamic address allocation protocols such as DHCP. The address is likely not a legitimate IP address assigned by the Network Information Center (NIC) or service provider.
• Inside global address—A legitimate IP address assigned by the NIC or service provider that represents one or more inside local IP addresses to the outside world.
• Outside local address—The IP address of an outside host as it appears to the inside network. Not necessarily a legitimate address, it is allocated from an address space routable on the inside.
• Outside global address—The IP address assigned to a host on the outside network by the host owner. The address is allocated from a globally routable address or network space.
…Yeah, why not just say, or better yet draw:

(click to enlarge)

An illustration like this can make all the difference in the world when you are trying to earn you CCENT, CCNA or CCNP or heck any Cisco certification. This is the reason you take a class. To SEE and understand not just READ.

We are joining the revolution here in the voice department of Unitek by starting our own blog.

Here we go.

The biggest subject on everyone’s lips? The new version of the Cisco CCVP Training course that we run.

We have currently upgraded our courses to the latest CVOICE v6 and CIPT 1 v6, and CIPT 2 v6.

Currently there are two tracks to reach CCVP.

You can attend the CCVP Training classes in CallManager 6 or CallManager 4.

You can then sit one of the two tracks:
CM4 - CVOICE, QOS, TUC, CIPT v4, GWGK
CM6 - CVOICE, QOS, TUC, CIPT1 v6, CIPT2 v6.

Alright, that’s it for now, so stay tuned for more on the revolution!