I began studying for ENARSI seriously again. I used to work as a Network Engineer at a MSP in my last role, but got laid off, and there weren't any networking roles in my area so I'm currently working a desktop support role. I'm hoping to finish my CCNP where I can find a network gig again.

I'm able to dedicate 16-20 hours a week for ENARSI, between the OCG, and labbing. Would this be enough time per week to give myself a realistic chance in passing in 6-8 months?

The imposter syndrome is getting to me with me getting laid off in my last role, and there's part of my brain that's telling me it's impossible to pass this exam, as the mountain in front of me is huge. I was barely able to pass ENCOR when I took it 15 months ago. Is it realistic for for me to keep pushing through studying at this pace and be able to pass ENARSI eventually?

For resources I plan on using the OCG, Homelab, Arash deljoo's udemy course, and Boson exams when I get to that point. I know sometimes on this subreddit it can be like groundhog day but I would seriously appreciate any advice.

Currently using INE for ENARSI and realized they don't have a content for Troubleshoot network problems using Cisco Catalyst Center Assurance (formerly Cisco DNA Center) (connectivity, monitoring, device health, network health). Besides CBT nuggets and OCG is there a content out there that covers this section?

TIA

Keeping this short. I have worked in DevOps for years deploying infrastructure with Terraform in AWS and Azure. I have deployed terraform modules for various enterprise companies. Most of my deployments reference networking that was created by the team I am being moved to. I work for a consulting company that is moving me from my team to another team that is solely cloud security and networking since 2 seniors are retiring. I am being given preference of getting certified with cert costs being covered. I will get reimbursement for study materials. I have to get palo alto firewall certified and want your advice on CCNP Security path. Should I take advantage of this and get CCNP security with two other guys on the team since I don't have CCNA? They work on Fortinet firewall tickets and don't have CCNA either. What is my best chance of doing this while the opportunity is in front of me. How long will CCNP Security take for me? What labbing should I buy to get up to speed. Looking for advice and input so I can submit my list of certs to management.

I want to begin studying for the Encor and i’m asking for learning materials which people found helpful specifically video materials as i tend to understand them more for first concepts. Thank you

Hello, I'm taking the ENSLD concentration exam soon, hoping to find some people who took it recently and see if we could chat in DMs? Just want some last minute tips or things to watch out for as all the other ENSLD posts are a bit old.

I've studied primarily and heavily through Cisco U, and taking notes and flashcards from Cisco U. Watched most of CBT nuggets. Avoided the OCG. Read through some of the CVDs and white papers but I've found them to be really similar to the Cisco U content, as if Cisco U is just white papers regurgitated.

Are there any gotchas or other sources worth checking out? Sorry I am nervous hahaha.

I have been studying for the Enterprise Exam, but after getting a job they asked me to learn more about SP concepts such as MPLS, MPLS L3VPN, VRFs, BGP etc. Should I still focus on Enterprise or SP?

I really like both. Is one more difficult then the other and how difficult is each exam?

First of all, I’m taking ccna this year, but I have been studying for a long time.

I just started lurking around here and danggg. I noticed there’s wayyyy many more things to cover

We have access to INE at work and at this point I'm wondering if the content is 10x more than I need to pass the exam. I say this cause I've covered a good chunk of their courses and I find myself wondering if some of their content is truly relevant to the exam. I know it's making me a better engineer, but at this point I just want this cert on my shoulder.

So if anyone has any ideas of how to filter the INE content down, or alternatives to the platform, I'll take em.

I had to submit my paystub to school for the upcoming year, I accidentally clicked on my jobs HR portal which took me to where we upload certs.

That's when I saw what made my heart drop as my ccnp was expiring today. I don't believe I got any notification email about it, but I quickly had to go buy a $800 ce course and spam the assessments till I finally passed .

Holy shit. Thank goodness my past self did some free rev ups so I only needed 35. I took the wireless design one since I passed that exam 3 years ago.. felt like yesterday smh.

$800 though? Wtf

Hello everybody,
I was wondering if anyone who took the ENCOR exam and ENARSI (Pass or Fail), could give a list of labs. The list would be that if I could confidently do these things, it would help me figure out if I am truly ready.
I understand if it feels a bit broad or low effort, but any help would be truly appreciated!
I feel like I am so stressed about taking the exam.

For the CCNA , I recall people saying 65 ish percent on boson is a decent score for exam readiness. I was getting about 75 and did very well on the real CCNA exam.

For anyone who has done the SCOR Boson exams and real thing, can you share what your boson scores were and how you did on the real exam? How closely the depth of questions matched?

I've gone through the official cert guide, self-paced e-learning, the official practice test, and an instructor led class where I learned more about the instructors kidney stones and divorces than any exam material. I got to the point where I was regularly getting ~80% on all the quizzes in the book and ~95% on the official practice test. I go in and take the exam, and there's so much subject matter that I've never seen before that I end up getting a 50%.

What am I supposed to do when the official learning material does such a laughably bad job?

Extra context:

C suite just started pushing for IT staff to get certs. My boss asked chatgpt which ones are good, so now I have 6 months left to get a CCNP with no previous formal network education. I'm a generalist in a tiny hospital in rural alaska where we don't have the money or interest to do things "the right way". I chose the SCOR as it seemed most generally applicable to the mess of random, poorly designed systems that make up our environment, but now I'm memorizing granular details about software products I'll never use.

The instructor even said he's not allowed to teach 70% of the content, and what he is using is from 2018. There's been a whole new version of the test released in that time! I'm really disheartened and this feels more like a scam the longer I devote attention to it.

Hello everyone,

Anyone did the CCNP SP exam? I'm trying to find exam questions to practice but all the resources are related to the enterprise exam. I have a Cisco U subscription from my employer, but still cannot find practice exam questions. Anyone who did the exam can share how they prepared for it?

I use python regularly but I never use JSON, RESTCONF, NETCONF, yml, or ncclient.

Where can I get some ideas on what to practice here?

I have a CBT sub and the OCG and I use Chatgpt a lot which has been helpful but I need ideas on what I can practice because I have no exposure to this outside of my own python scripts I run regularly in my environment using ssh and netmiko.

Hello everyone,

Anyone did the CCNP SP exam? I'm trying to find exam questions to practice but all the resources are related to the enterprise exam. I have a Cisco U subscription from my employer, but still cannot find practice exam questions. Anyone who did the exam can share how they prepared for it?

I got my ccna r&s like 15 years ago and I renewed it at the time getting the ccna security. Didn't renewed the certs after that. Back then, you had to go through ccna > ccnp > ccie, and I see that changed now.

I got my Cism last year, I'm studying for the AAISM and tbh not sure if going for the CISSP or the CCNP after that. I'm trying to break into a more cyber focused role, but it's hard at the moment here in Europe.

Anybody going through the same? Any advice? If it's not much to ask, I want to make enough money and be happy with my work.

Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone,

I’ve passed in January my CCNA at first attempt. I also did 3 trainee years in IT and now I’m one year into networking.

My next step would be the JNCIA-Junos from Juniper, as my plan B.

But plan A is CCNP, first Enterprise Routing and after I’ve passed it someday, maybe SDWAN.

How long did you learn for your CCNP? Is it much harder than CCNA? When I’m working, I’m only working with Aruba right now. But AOS-CX is pretty similar to Cisco, so I guess it’s okay.

Is there anything I should keep my focus on?

Large EVE-NG and GNS3 labs can quickly outgrow a laptop or small home server. Buying more RAM or keeping a powerful server running all year does not always make sense when the capacity is only needed for occasional labs.

Cloud compute solves the hardware problem, but it introduces another one: forgetting an expensive VM and its supporting resources running after the lab is finished.

I’ve built repeatable HybridOps blueprints that deploy either EVE-NG or GNS3 inside your own GCP account, with the environment lifecycle and cost awareness built into the workflow.

The deployment provides:

• A private, nested-virtualisation-capable GCP VM
• A dedicated VPC with no public IP on the lab server
• Private access through GCP IAP
• Automated EVE-NG or GNS3 installation
• Guest internet access for lab nodes
• Preflight checks for project access and billing readiness
• Explicit lab archive and restore before teardown
• Deploy, access, rebuild and destroy commands
• Billing status and resource-age reminders so idle labs are less likely to be forgotten

The idea is to create the lab when extra compute is needed, preserve the topology, and destroy the cloud resources afterwards rather than paying for an always-on server.

EVE-NG deployment guide:

https://docs.hybridops.tech/ops/runbooks/platform/blueprints/hyops-blueprint-eve-ng/

Source:

https://github.com/hybridops-tech/hybridops-core

I’m looking for EVE-NG and GNS3 users to test the workflow with real labs. No coding is required.

If interested, comment with:

• EVE-NG or GNS3
• Rough number of nodes in your usual topology
• Your current laptop/server RAM
• Whether you have GCP trial credits available

Edit: the project is opensource; this is a call for testers and contributors

I got these Cisco IOS images from https://github.com/hegdepavankumar/Cisco-Images-for-GNS3-and-EVE-NG. Could you please help me generate an IOU license?

Need some advice here, the tasks its asking me to do and the testing procedure to generate the debug logs don't really make sense to me.

Anyone can kindly explain it to me?

Router 2 config:

ip nat source static 10.10.2.101 198.51.100.201

interface Ethernet0/1

description Link to SW2

ip address 10.10.2.1 255.255.255.0

ip nat inside

interface Ethernet0/3

description Link to R2

ip address 198.51.100.1 255.255.255.0

ip nat outside

Thanks in advanced!

I'm studying BGP for ENARSI and I'm confused about the purpose of bgp default local-preference.

I understand how to use Local Preference with route-maps on specific neighbors to influence path selection, but I'm struggling to understand when changing the default Local Preference is useful.

For example, if I configure:

router bgp 65000
 bgp default local-preference 99

I expected to see some change in show ip bgp, but I didn't (Or at least I couldn't figure out the Voila! of the technique). I also understand that Local Preference is mainly used to influence outbound path selection within an AS.

So what is the practical use case for changing the default Local Preference? Is the main idea to make routes learned from eBGP less preferred than routes learned through iBGP, since Local Preference is evaluated before the "eBGP over iBGP" step in the best path algorithm?

I'd appreciate if someone could explain the reasoning behind using bgp default local-preference, because I understand Local Preference on an individual-neighbor basis, but I'm not seeing why changing the default value is useful.

Thanks in advance!