Just another Cisco blog
Informational
CCNP TSHOOT Exam Topology
Feb 21st
According to a post on Cisco Learning Network, Cisco will be releasing the topology used in the TSHOOT exam:
First, I am part of the exam development team. Second, what am about to reveal is not part of some secret NDA.
The new TSHOOT exam requires you to isolate issues on a defined network topology. The purpose of the exam is to evaluate troubleshooting skills, not how quickly you can grasp a network topology you have never seen. To this end, it is Cisco’s intent that the exam network topology be available for review before the candidate attempt the exam.
However, the wheels seem to move slowly and the network topologies have not been posted on CLN. Because of this I have authorized to make the topologies available through this discussion until they are officially posted.
3550 vs 3560
Feb 15th
I frequently see people asking if 3550s are sufficient for CCIE lab preparation, or if 3560s are a must. Of the top of my head I know that QoS differs between the 3550 and 3560, and also that the 3550s do not support Private VLANs. Beyond that, I can’t say much. Today I stumbled across a comparison from Internetwork Expert. This is really great information. Here’s what they’ve laid out:
Catalyst 3560 Only Features [12.2(25)SEE2]
Access Switch Device Manager (SDM) Template
IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet
IGMP Throttling
IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6)
MLD Snooping
Private VLANs
VLAN-Based QoS on Physical Ports
SRR (Shaped Round Robin)
Weighted Tail Drop (WTD)
Auto-MDIX
BGP Best Path Selection
Feb 1st
As I gear up for the CCIP BGP exam (hoping to take it in the next few weeks), I’m relearning all the little things I’ve forgotten since BSCI. I had the Best Path criteria memorized for the exam and I’ve since forgotten some of the criteria and the exact order. Google pointed me to these docs:
This one courtesy of Ciscozine:
This one courtesy of Richard Bannister’s CCIE Blog:
These two charts are great, they’ve helped immensely. I love the internet. I’m posting them here for my future use and in case and of you haven’t already seen them.
Free CCNP Cert Kits
Jan 30th
Steve at Networking-Forum is giving away 4 sets of Cisco Press CCNP Kits. Here’s the info:
As many of you know already, the CCNP certification exams are changing. The old exams, BSCI (Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks), BCMSN (Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks), ISCW (Implementing Secure Converged WANs), and ONT (Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks), will be available through July 31, 2010. The new exams, ROUTE (Implementing Cisco IP Routing), SWITCH (Implementing Cisco Switched Networks), and TSHOOT (Troubleshooting and Maintaining Cisco IP Networks) will be available in March and April of 2010.
Cisco Press, the official publisher of Cisco, has announced their new portfolio of exam preparation materials which includes a new type of product for them called Cert Kits. The kits are considered quick reference material to be used in conjunction with the official books to prepare for the exams. Included in each kit is video, online flash cards for your mobile device or desktop, and a quick reference guide for last minute studying.
CCNP Changes (Finally) Announced
Jan 26th
I meant to make this yesterday, but I got too busy. Cisco has finally announced the new changes that we’ve all known about for months. If you want a proper write up (because we all know you won’t find that on this site 
), check out Wendell Odom’s post, he goes into much better detail than I could.
The new exams are ROUTE, SWITCH and TSHOOT. They’re pretty self-explanatory, ROUTE is the new BSCI and SWITCH is the new BCMSN. TSHOOT is new (though they had a similar exam a few CCNP versions ago). ISCW and ONT are gone with some of their topics moved to ROUTE and SWITCH, while some are gone all together.
