These 3 diagrams have been publicly available for years, I downloaded this TSHOOT Topology off Cisco's official learning forum, post can be viewed here. I doubt this is exactly the Topology used on exam day, it very well could be, however if this is not it the Topology will be something extremely similar to this. … Continue reading TSHOOT – Critical understanding of Cisco Published Topologies, troubleshooting methods, and must knows for exam day!
It's been a long couple of years of medical issues that have stopped me from actually taking the exam, but have studied the material over and over, and finally took it today and passed it on the first attempt. I have to say that all of the questions on the exam were absolutely outside what … Continue reading 300-115 SWITCH Exam Crushed! Tips on how I navigated this mentally exhaustive exam for the Pass grade!
Credit to @SpanningTreeDC on Twitter for the awesome STP logo! Wanted to throw some notes on here on which STP features are global, interface level, how the global configs will impact interfaces that are configured and also how error-recovery can save the day when you don't want to have to shut/no shut every err-disable interface … Continue reading Pretty easy read on STP Sub-Commands, what they do, errdisable demo, some labbing, lots of good info for exam day!
IP Source Guard is similar to Dynamic ARP Inspection in the way that it maps IP Addresses to certain criteria that must match or packets will be dropped, however this is configured solely on the interfaces and ties the IP Address of the device off that interface to its ip source verify table. You can … Continue reading Quick IP Source Guard Review, and how it differs from DAI (slightly) for exam day!
Correction: 2/23/20 is the last day to take 300-101, 300-115, and 300-135 specifically! (Updates / timelines of exam expirations at bottom of post!) It turns out the new exams are also 300-XXX, and I'm too lazy to re-write that graphic 🙂 As mentioned in the above graphic / title, 2/23/2020 will be the last day … Continue reading The CCNP R/S Refresh is here – Migration Tool, exam life times during migration explained in detail, and a peek at the monster ENCOR blueprint!
Some quick notes from labbing tonight that I thought is good to knows for Exam day, this will all be very messy crap with output behaviors, no editing out to make it look nice! ALSO one important note I keep forgetting - It is for PRIVATE VLANS that VTP and neighbors hosting Private VLAN must … Continue reading Quick Takeaways from DHCP Snooping / Dynamic ARP Inspection / VLAN Access-List labbing session and misc tips for Exam Day success!
Wanted to jot down some bullet point style notes as to the differences between the 3 FHRP's that you will see on exam day for SWITCH, and a few things you may also see on ROUTE at the bottom for Authentication and creating "Tracking objects" to increment and decrement values of the different Priority #'s … Continue reading HSRP vs VRRP vs GBLP – All Default settings, Authentication, and important quick notes for Exam day!
There is a whole lot there in that Topology to get to, but it really just committing to memory the logic of how each switch must be configured appropriately, as for RSPAN you will see the Destination is not that Listener port but rather a Transit VLAN to carry that traffic back to our Listener … Continue reading SPAN / RSPAN – Review of important exam day pointers, full configuration of both to demonstrate gotchas for Exam Day!
This will be as brief of Exam Day notes for MST as I can make, I will eventually slowly lab the above Topology for demonstrations, but will cover all the basics first! The information required for switches to be in the same MST Region is as follows: MST Region Name (Blank by default) MST Region … Continue reading MST / Multi-Spanning Tree – Exhaustive review of all the gotchas, niche details, and diagrams / labbing to demonstrate behaviors and output for Exam Day!
A review of VSS (Virtual Switching System) and StackWise "Chassis Redundancy" systems for the CCNP SWITCH exam, I already have a full blow Stackwise post here, however VSS doesn't need to be beat to death to get the must knows for exam day down! Lets get started first with VSS otherwise known as Virtual Switching … Continue reading MultiChassis Redundancy – Review notes for Exam day of VSS vs Stackwise, the differences and benefits both reviewed and illustrated for clarity!
The above Topology has been configured for the labbing portion of configuring VTP Authentication, I won't go int every detail, but I will bullet point the basics, before reviewing authentication methods to know for exam day + full explanation of VTP Pruning as it can be a tricky topic if you don't know the mechanisms … Continue reading VTP v3 – Review of v1/v2/v3 basics and updates to v3, an in depth look at VTP Pruning and mechanisms that drive it, and VERY important v3 Auth info and concepts to finish up!
I figured I would take it easy on a Friday night, and do a full blow lab on CEF 🙂 This Topology is a good example to review CEF FIB and Adjacency tables, as you don't need a really large Topology to demonstrate, provides "Packet Switching" information meaning it just wants to read the packet … Continue reading CEF – Deep dive into FIB and AT Tables, how packet MAC Addresses are re-written, and diagrams to explain along the way! IMPORTANT for Exam Day!!!
The above illustration is exactly how a MultiLayer Switch interconnects logically The MultiLayer Switching segment confused of my studies confused me to no end, and when studying some material today it clicked what is meant by "Hardware Switching" vs Process or Fast Switching, and wanted to review it here as well in a more visual … Continue reading MultiLayer Switching / CEF – Packet processing explained in depth, and visually presented for clarity!
The last thing I left on from Cisco forums was an issue with their exam experiences in regards to the topic of L3 EtherChannel configuration, so I thought a good place to start would be where I left off, and this will be important for exam day I expect! If you read nothing else, skip … Continue reading EtherChannel Review – VERY Important Layer 3 EtherChannel proper configuration for Exam Day!
I wanted to update this blog that I have put off studying to take care of myself physically, as I have been going from Work laptop -> Study laptop -> Bed -> Work Laptop, and it started to take a toll on my physical well being so I decided to take a much needed break. … Continue reading SWITCH exam postponed until I have time to dedicate to covering material and going for the Pass!
The DEVNET GRIND! 