What an incredible journey this was. This certification was not easy at all.
There are
no dedicated books for the exams so I had to come up with some sort of game plan.
I figured, if there were people out there who were CCNP SP or CCIE, how did they do
it? So my game plan was easy and straight forward, review the blueprints of each
exam and start looking for books!
Out of all the Cisco Certifications I've gotten over the 2 and a half years, I've ALWAYS
used INE as the main resource. In preparation, I watched the fulled CCIE Service
Provider v4 Course by Brian McGahan. Yes, it has "CCIE" in the title but with Brian
McGahan teaching this course, he did a GREAT job going from fundamentals to the
advanced topics in smooth transition. Like with all of his courses, he goes over the
relevant RFCs, configuration and design guides on the technologies. Which I have to
say, I went through a lot of configuration guides for each exam. Starting from
CCNA /SP, I had to really get used to navigating through Cisco's Website to find the
configuration guides and design guides.
The labs that I used for each CCNP exam was based on INE's CCIE SP topology. When
I practice my labs, I use Cisco's DevNet Sandbox with
VIRL: https://devnetsandbox.cisco.com/RM/Topology. Its a FREE resource that is
open to the public. So no need for you spend $200 on a VIRL PE license or EVE-NG
or GNS3. The ONLY thing you need is Cisco AnyConnect. Here is a great video from
David Bombal and Hank Preston who go in detail with this
service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0jfZLobFdU
Building Cisco Service Provider Next Generation
Networks: Part 1 and 2 (640-875 and 640-878)
The first 2 exam were not that bad in my opinion. I am already CCNP RS so the
technical prep in terms of basic networking and protocol theory rolled over for CCNA
SP. The additional reading I had did was the following:
1. IP Routing on Cisco IOS, IOS XE, and IOS XR: An Essential Guide to
Understanding and Implementing IP Routing Protocols by Bradley Edgeworth,
Aaron Foss, Ramiro Garza Rios.
2. Cisco IOS XR Fundamentals by Dawit Birhanu, Mark Ghattas, Syed Natif
Nawaz, Mobeen Tahir
3. Next-Generation Network Services by Robert Wood
Deploying Cisco Service Provider Network Routing
(SPROUTE-642-883)
Beginning this exam was very exciting. When I reviewed the exam blueprint, I saw
that a few new topics came up: IS-IS routing, RPLs, and BFD. BGP is also covered but
nothing to crazy that I already didn't cover in CCNP RS. So here are the books that I
read.
1. IP Routing on Cisco IOS, IOS XE, and IOS XR: An Essential Guide to
Understanding and Implementing IP Routing Protocols by Bradley Edgeworth,
Aaron Foss, Ramiro Garza Rios.
2. IS-IS Network Design Solutions by Scott Sturgess, Abe Martey
Deploying Cisco Service Provider Advanced Network
Routing (SPADVROUTE- 642-885)
This next exam was 1 of the 2 exams that in my opinion was the most fun to read
about and lab out. This exam covered mainly Multicast Routing, which was
completely new to me in terms of configuration and deep protocol theory.
1. IP Routing on Cisco IOS, IOS XE, and IOS XR: An Essential Guide to
Understanding and Implementing IP Routing Protocols by Bradley Edgeworth,
Aaron Foss, Ramiro Garza Rios.
2. IP Multicast, Vol 1 and 2 by Josh Loveless, Ray Blair, Arvind Durai
Implementing Cisco Service Provider Next-
Generation Edge Network Services (SPEDGE 642-889)
Based on the exam codes, this exam was supposed to be taken last. I decided to take
this exam 3rd because of my fear of QoS. The SP-CORE exam (642-887) covered both
MPLS and QoS so when I was focusing on MPLS, all the books smooth transitioned
to MPLS VPNs. So because of this transition in the technical books, it only made
sense for me to just study for the SP-EDGE exam, which is all MPLS VPN related.
Practicing the configurations for this exam was the most fun.
1. MPLS Fundamentals by Luc De Ghein
2. Advanced MPLS Design and Implementation by Vivek Alwayn
3. Layer 2 VPN Architectures by Wei Luo, Carlos Pignataro, Anthony Chan, Dmitry
Bokotey (skimmed through this book)
4. MPLS and VPN Architectures By Ivan Pepelnjak, Jim Guichard
Implementing Cisco Service Provider Next-
Generation Core Network Services (SPCORE 642-887)
This was the last exam I had to take which I dreaded. QoS in my opinion is most
uninteresting topic to cover. The theory made sense but going through the labs for it
was not that fun. Because this exam covered only basic MPLS vs the advanced topic
of MPLS VPNs, that section was very easy. MPLS-TE was fun to configure and read
about.
1. MPLS Fundamentals by Luc De Ghein
2. Traffic Engineering with MPLS By Eric Osborne, Ajay Simha
3. End-to-End QoS Network Design: Quality of Service for Rich-Media & Cloud
Networks, Second Edition by Tim Szigeti, Christina Hattingh, Robert Barton,
Kenneth Briley, Jr.
