Show 114 – Real-Life CCNP With Jeremy Cioara

25 August 2012 by 19 Comments

Jeremy Cioara, IT trainer, uber-nerd, and all-around Cisco geek jacks into a Skype conference room with Packet Pushers Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro to discuss the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) program. Scott McDermott, newly minted CCNP, also joins in the conversation to share his studying and testing experiences. We don’t just yammer on about the tests, though. We also talk about the practical side of being certified, and how you can move ahead in your networking career using certification as a vehicle.

What We Discuss

  • Why get certified anyway? What’s the big deal?
  • Who is the CCNP program aimed at?
  • Why do most people do route/switch tracks before other tracks like voice or security?
  • Greg has no use for VoIP. No, really. He doesn’t.
  • What’s the best order to take the CCNP route/switch exams in?
  • How do you turn a certification into a better job situation?
  • 9-to-5-ers vs. people who love networking: which are you?

Links

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:06 — 26.3MB)

Filed Under: Podcasts, Weekly Shows Tagged With: , , , ,
About Ethan Banks

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, is a hands-on networking practitioner who has designed, built and maintained networks for higher education, state government, financial institutions, and technology corporations. Ethan is a host of the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over one million unique downloads, and today reaches a global audience of over ten thousand listeners. Also a writer, Ethan covers network engineering and the networking industry for a variety of IT publications. He is also the editor for the independent community of bloggers at PacketPushers.net. Follow @ecbanks.

  • Joey

    as a guy that just earned the CCNP in Route/Switch a couple weeks ago, that was awesome! I’ve spent so many hours following along with Jeremy’s videos in my lab. Thanks.

  • http://twitter.com/insektazz insekt

    Thx for show.
    I think value of CCNP certification has reduced in the last few years. The reason why it happens is that the most of people just damp exams and do not get real knowledge.
    As result employers trust only CCIE.

    • http://twitter.com/Network2501 Peter Carstairs

      Or that there are now more specific certification paths that better suit an individuals career path.

    • http://packetpushers.net/author/ecbanks Ethan Banks

      Braindumping is a huge issue, to be sure, but I think most employers can prove what a job candidate actually knows during the interview process. “So you’re a CCNP? Great. Get up to the whiteboard and draw a simple OSPF topology to route traffic between our headquarters and 5 remote offices. Ask any questions you think you should to clarify our requirements.” That’s a vague, open-ended question, and it’s that way on purpose.

      Here’s why. In that conversation, a prospective employer should be able to sort out exactly what the candidate knows not just about OSPF, but also about WAN design, how much work they’ve done with carriers, route summarization, appropriate hardware to position into certain roles, etc. A question like that is a great jumping off point to a larger conversation, in other words. A braindumper will fall apart under such scrutinization.

  • http://twitter.com/chrismarget chris marget

    Guys, all that talk about multicast being lame had me shaking my fist in the air with nerd rage as I listened to the show…

    Way to reel me back in there, Ethan. This comment might have been much different :)

    /chris

  • http://libertysys.com.au/ Paul Gear

    One big question i still have after listening to the show is: how big is the gap between CCNP, and CCIE? I’m not a Cisco fanboy (I definitely don’t want the tattoo, Jeremy!), but i’m doing CCNP because i know it will increase my knowledge and my job prospects.

    My CCNP instructor told me that i would be crazy to do CCNP and not go on to do CCIE, since it only required a few additional technologies (like MPLS, QoS, Multicast), and the rest of it was just getting deeper skills in the same stuff (OSPF, BGP, HSRP, IPv6, etc.).

    What do you folks think?

    • Bit Bucket

      The effort I put in for my CCIE is 50 times of what I did for my CCNP.

  • Sean

    I love Jeremy Cioara. His passion for networking always gets me excited to learn. I wish he’d record many CBT videos for other things, then I’d probably be able to fix the leak my wife has been driving me nuts about. Great show.

  • http://twitter.com/rich_bibby Rich Bibby

    Great show guys (as usual). This has really motivated me to get my head into studying again, after a post SWITCH lull. once more into the books for ROUTE!! Was really surprised at Scott’s CCNP exam order though!

    • http://twitter.com/scottm32768 Scott McDermott

      Heh. It just fit what I knew best better than the traditional order. :)

  • Jason Leschnik

    Oh sweet, Jeremy is a legend… Cannot wait to listen to this show.

  • http://twitter.com/RafaelBianco Rafael Bianco Nacif

    This show was awesome! Please try to get Jeremy one more time. I owe him my CCNA and CCNP!

    • JR

      I second this! TY Jeremy!

  • http://www.facebook.com/james.braginton James Braginton

    Pretty coooool

  • Taras

    Loved this podcast I really enjoyed listening to it. Thank you!

  • Dave

    “…jacks into a Skype conference…” LOL….not the best choice of words, maybe?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=625436937 Steven Williams

    4 kids!!! WHOA!

  • Aatif

    Hello, I am a big Fan of jeremy. His way of teaching and making things with ease drive me crazy about Networs. Spending hours n hours daily just listening and follwing him in my Lab :) . studying Route CCNP these days. Love you Jeremy.

  • Mush

    hi,
    Jeremy is my hero, the way he is teaching amazing.Everyday I study his CBT nuggets videos. they are very helpful. without those I cant imagine being a CCNA or CCNP.keep it up ur hard working.we love u Jeremy…
    thanks again..