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How to Prepare for Cisco CCNP R&S

by Rene Molenaar

Posted on July 31, 2013

in CCNP ROUTE, CCNP SWITCH, CCNP TSHOOT

Ciscos CCNP R&S track currently has 3 exams, ROUTE, SWITCH and TSHOOT. Pass
all 3 exams and you will be CCNP R&S certified. I receive many questions from
students asking what the best method is to study these exams and how to prepare
themselves. In this lesson Ill explain what you will encounter on the exams and the
best way to pass the exams.

Knowledge Foundation

Before I dive into CCNP R&S, lets talk a little bit about CCNA R&S first. I am going to
assume that you passed the CCNA exam and now you are looking to become CCNP
R&S certified. Before you start with the CCNP material, you should consider if your
knowledge foundation is strong enough. Most of the topics in CCNP are not
new but will be more in-depth than what you learned from CCNA. To illustrate this,
take a good look at the Cisco certification pyramid:

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Most students dont pay a lot of attention to this picture but if you take a good look,
youll see that CCNA is the largest part of the pyramid. If you want to pass the CCNP
exams you will have to be absolutely 100% comfortable with the things you learned in
CCNA R&S. If its been awhile since you became CCNA certified, please do yourself a
favor and re-read your CCNA material or do some more CCNA level labs. If you have
difficulty doing subnetting questions without a calculator or have no idea anymore
how spanning-tree, frame-relay, OSPF and EIGRP workthen CCNP will be a very
bumpy ride. If you are familiar with everything from CCNA then CCNP will be a very
enjoyable ride! Be honest with yourself, even if you passed the CCNA examif you
had some difficulties with certain topics, visit those again and make sure you have no
knowledge gaps. If you want to learn how to ride a motorcycle, you should start
learning how to ride a bikehaving said that, lets look at the CCNP R&S exams!

ROUTE

Lets start with an overview of all the major ROUTE topics:

EIGRP Packets and Metrics

EIGRP Summarization

EIGRP over Frame-Relay

EIGRP Authentication

EIGRP Advanced Features

OSPF LSA Types

OSPF Summarization

OSPF Special Area Types

OSPF Authentication

OSPF Virtual Links

Routing Manipulation

Redistribution

BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)

IPv6 Routing Protocols

IPv6 Tunneling

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In short the ROUTE exam is about EIGRP, OSPF, some routing manipulation, BGP
and IPv6. You already learned about EIGRP and OSPF and a little bit of IPv6 in
CCNA so these should be familiar topics, you will learn (a lot) more about them
however. For example, in CCNA you learned about OSPF and its LSDB (Link State
Database) but in CCNP you will take a close look at all the LSA types that fill the
LSDB. You learned about IPv6 in CCNA but now you will also learn some migration
and tunneling techniques so you can connect IPv6 networks over existing IPv4
networks. If you forgot about the difference between EIGRP/OSPF and things like
link state vs distance vector then please re-visit the CCNA material before you
dive into ROUTE.

My recommendation is to start with the ROUTE exam first, since you will find
some routing-related topics in the SWITCH exam while there are no switch
topics in the ROUTE exam. Also, you wont need any hardware to study for this
exam since you can do everything with the GNS3 router emulator!

SWITCH

Let me show you the major topics of the SWITCH exam:

VLANs and Trunking

Private VLANs

Spanning-Tree Basics

Rapid Spanning-Tree

MST (Multiple Spanning-Tree)

Spanning Tree Toolkit

Etherchannel (Link Aggregation)

InterVLAN Routing

Gateway Redundancy (VRRP, GLBP, HSRP)

Switch Security

Some of these topics should ring a bell, you learned about VLANs and Trunks from
CCNA but youll learn some more about them. Spanning-tree should be familiar but
you will learn about the different flavors like rapid spanning-tree and Multiple
spanning-tree in-depth. Etherchannels were mentioned in CCNA but now youll learn
about the different types and how to configure them. There are also some multilayer

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switch topics like routing between VLANs and creating virtual gateways for clients
using VRRP, GLBP and HSRP. In CCNA you learned about port-security which is also
in the SWITCH exam but youll also learn about DHCP and ARP snooping. Last but
not least you will learn how to prepare your switched network for Voice over IP, Video
and/or wireless networking.

If you are fuzzy about spanning-tree and its port states like the designated, non-
designated, root port, port priority and suchplease take a look at the CCNA material
again before you start with SWITCH!

To study SWITCH at home you will need some real hardware switches. GNS3
can only emulate routers and the NM-16ESW switch module which doesnt
support rapid spanning tree, multiple spanning-tree or the different etherchannel
protocols. You dont need expensive hardware, my recommendation is to buy 2x Cisco
Catalyst 2950 switches and 1x Cisco Catalyst 3550 switch. For more information take
a look at my CCNA hardware recommendation lesson. Most of it also applies for the
CCNP SWITCH exam.

TSHOOT

The TSHOOT exam is different compared to what you have seen so far. The ROUTE
and SWITCH exams are similar to CCNA, you will get some multiple choice
questions, labs, click-all-that-apply questions, etc.

TSHOOT is different as the exam will present you with a (large) network topology
that has a number of issues. You dont have to fix these issues but you have to be able
to look at the configurations of the devices and answer what the problem is. If you
want to pass this exam there are two things you will have to do:

Truly understand all the topics that you learned in CCNA, ROUTE and SWITCH.

Become familiar with the topology that Cisco uses in the TSHOOT exam.

There is no magic troubleshooting technique that will help you solve any problem.
The only way to become good at troubleshooting is understanding all the
protocols and how they work together. You can become good at
troubleshooting by doing labs, labs and even more labs!

Cisco released the TSHOOT exam topology to the public, take a good look at it to
understand all the different components. You dont want to see this topology for the
first time when you are doing the exam

I did my best to rebuild it in GNS3 and you can download it right here. Look at all the

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different protocols that are running, how they work together and the exam will be a
LOT easier.

CCNP Study Strategy

You now have an idea what the exams are about, and that its best to start with
ROUTE, SWITCH and finish with TSHOOT. So where do you start?

Buy some CCNP ROUTE study material like a book or some training videos, whatever
you prefer. Of course I try to promote my How to Master CCNP books but there are
other good books out there. While you are studying for ROUTE you have time to
browse Ebay or something to hunt for your switches that youll need for the
SWITCH exam.

As you are reading, try to stick to one topic at a time, and dont read the book
from front to back right away. As you are reading and learning about a topic or
feature, try to configure it yourself on your GNS3 routers or switches and make
sure you understand what you are doing. Look at some show commands, try
some debugs. I cant emphasize enough how important it is to do labs, labs and even
more labs. Most people make the mistake of trying to brute force all the
theory in their head and doing not enough labs. If you want to know why Im such
a big fan of labs, please read my How to study Cisco and Networking lesson.

Doing labs is also a lot more fun than just reading books or watching videosIf you
want labs to practice instead of building your own, I built most of the CCNP level labs
and you can find them for free on GNS3Vault.

Also as you are working your way through a chapter, make sure to take notes:

Use mindmapping to write down all the theory in a structured order, you
can learn how to do this in my How to use Mindmapping lesson.

Take notes (I use notepad) to write down some of the commands that you have
difficulty with remembering. This helps to speed up doing labs.

Once you feel you mastered a topic, move on to the next chapter. Try to focus on 1
item at the time instead of reading about everything at the same time, focusing is
your friend when it comes to studying.

FAQ

Q: Is is possible to become CCNP R&S certified with self-study?

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A: Definitely yes! Because of GNS3 its easy to practice all router protocols on your
own computers and with a couple of switches you will have all the equipment you
need. It will take self discipline to work yourself through the material since you are
not forced to be in the classroom and attending a course.

Q: How much studying time does it take to pass the CCNP exams?

A: This is a difficult question to answer as it is different for everyone. It depends on

how much experience you have in IT / networking and how easily you can memorize
information. Roughly I think it will take anywhere between 100-200 hours or so to
study ROUTE and SWITCH each (so thats 200-400 hours for both!) and TSHOOT
maybe 50-100 hours. This includes reading books, perhaps watching videos, doing
labs, reviewing notes, etc.

Q: What is the best studying material to use? Classroom training, reading books or
watching videos?

A: If you are completely new to a topic then classroom training is probably the best
method since you will have someone in front of you that explains everything. When
you dont understand something you can just ask it and it will be explained to you
until you understand it. The downside of classroom training is that its quite
expensive and depending on the other students the course might run too slow or too
fast for you. Watching videos also works very well when a certain topic is new to you,
I wouldnt recommend watching them if you are looking to fill some knowledge
gaps as you will have that I already know this feeling when watching the video and
get bored easily. Personally I like books best because I can speed up or slow down
reading exactly when I want to. Most networking books can be very difficult to get
through if something is new to you however. In short, if you are new to
somethingclassroom training will be great. If you go for the self-study path, see if
you can watch some videos and then move on to reading books.

Q: How much time should I spend watching videos or reading books vs doing labs?

A: The short answer is that I think you should spend roughly 80% of your time doing
labs and 20% of your time watching videos or reading books. If you want a complete
answer, please read my lesson called How to Study Cisco and Networking.

Q: What hardware should I buy?

A: Dont buy any hardware for the ROUTE exam, you can do everything with GNS3.
For the SWITCH exam the cheapest solution is to buy 2x Cisco Catalyst 2950 switches
and 1x Cisco Catalyst 3550 switch. You will find some more information in my

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Recommended Lab equipment for Cisco CCNA lesson. Most of it applies for the
CCNP SWITCH exam as well.

Q: In what order should I do the CCNP R&S exams?

A: I think its best to start with ROUTE, then SWITCH and finish with TSHOOT. The
reason for this is that you will find some routing topics in the SWITCH exam. In
CCNP R&S you will learn about multilayer switches in the SWITCH exam so its best
to understand routing before you approach this topic. Even if you decide to do
SWITCH first, it doesnt matter all too much since multilayer switching will be easy to
understand if you passed the CCNA R&S exam.

Summary

After reading this lesson I am sure you will have many other questions, things that I
didnt even think about when I wrote this. Feel free to ask anything in our forum.
Thanks!

Copyright protected by Digiprove 2013-2016 Rene Molenaar

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