Cisco Network Security 1 - ouch!

[Whirl-Secret]

Just took the practical skills test for Cisco Network Security 1. What a beast! Failed horrible. There were 7 of us on the course - 3 were too scared to come to the exam, and the 4 of us that took it, all failed.

Need to design a network strategy then set up a Cisco router and PIX 506 to talk to each other over a wan (securely of course) and then suggest improvements. In 1.5 hours!

Re-take is on monday, got to study like crazy

[Jammrock]

I've heard Cisco certs are a beast. The only one that is only mildly beastly is the CCNA test, but I know a lot of people who have failed that too.

I've got some MS upgrade tests to take next, but I plan on hacking away on Cisco cert next year.

[agallag]

My bro has his CCNP and CCDP, passed everything first try. He's now failed the CCIE exam three times in a row.

[Jammrock]

My bro has his CCNP and CCDP, passed everything first try. He's now failed the CCIE exam three times in a row.

I bet. I hear horror stories about that thing. It's supposedly the most evil cert test to take.

[Fluff]

But when you pass $$$$ bet the exam costs $$$ though. I have to sit my CCNA soon, as have been avoiding it, completed all modules at an academy a while back. it was ver 3.0

[agallag]

He works for Cisco already, so it's not costing him anything to take the exam. He's not exactly hurting for $$$ right now either, but it can only get better when he gets that cert.

[Whirl-Secret]

Yeah the teacher on my course is studying for the CCIE, and has been for most of this year, and he plans to study till next August !!! Geez.

I've done all 7 MCSE exams this year, really didn't want to have to spend more of my own time studying, I'm a bit burnt out of it. Oh well... 4 more days of studying my ass off. Unfortunately work won't give me any time off for it, and I can't take holidays as we'd have noone left in the IT dept. Bah!

[Helevitia]

He works for Cisco already, so it's not costing him anything to take the exam. He's not exactly hurting for $$$ right now either, but it can only get better when he gets that cert.

It's only free 3 times and then it's $2000 for each test after that. It used to be free as many times as you want, but not anymore. And yes, the CCIE is insanely hard. Most people take 3-4 times to pass it on average. It used to be 2 days with the second day all troubleshooting, but it's one day and basically you don't have anytime to **** up. If you don't know a section, you can't try to figure it out, you need to skip it and move on.

[Pace]

I'm a quarter to halfway though CCNA - it's finally getting challenging. I think I should have done MCPs first, as at least it gets some letters on your CV sooner. I've always had a fair understanding of networking concepts, but my interest went far deeper, hence the CCNA first. I did buy a CCIE book when I had just left school I think - it makes perfect sense

[Fluff]

Yeah the first module is pisch. I found it did get more challenging. Found that some of the non official cisco books are a little better at explaining things and are a little less boring, Sybex books seem to be reccommended. Do you guys think that IPv6 is going to create alot of jobs?

[Whirl-Secret]

Woohoo!

Passed the second time with 64/80! (64 was the passmark, makes it even sweeter).

Now for the theory test on Monday, gulp.

I did the Microsoft 70-291 and 70-293 exams before this, and they hardly touch the surface - they are the hardest ones by far (imho) of the MCSE 2K3 exams (mainly DNS, dhcp etc). The routing parts of it were very small compared to this one - mainly static stuff.