How, do you get your CCNP. What's going on welcome back to network chuck in this article we're talking about the CCNP, the cisco certified network professional, one of the best IT certifications out there to get seriously the best and Cisco revamped all of them?
You'Re gonna have to know JSON you're gonna have to know yang DNA Center rest comp a he is chef, puppet ansible sausages. , my goodness rope it's crazy and then what's even crazier - and I I stinking lovest is, if you go back to the concentrations and I look at the automation one right here, which t have a whole concentration just for Network automation. If I jump in there and look at that and look at the exam topics, this thing is heavy. You jump in there from the foundation you get just a bunch of Python stuff. Then you look at AP eyes.
Then you look at device program ability and then you look at the API, isn't how to work with DNA Center s Duan Meraki! , my goodness, ! It's not just the enterprise exam. If I jump back and I go to the other CCNP tracks, let's look at the CCNP security and I'll look at just the core exam, the t call the score. I like that. Look at the score exam and look at the exam topics.
It might not jump out of you first because you don't see a specific domain covering automation, but if you open up like security concepts, are you seeing the same thing? I see? Look at 18 DNA Center ap is look at 17 north and southbound. Ap is in an SDN architecture. Pretty much 7 through 9 are all about programmability. It's happening people! Ok! I just had to go off on an automation tangent because I'm super stoked about this.
Let me know what you think any more coffee now real quick. I want to talk about the core exam, the technology core, for every track. You have to go down if you want to become security, got the security core and a price and a price core. I have two issues with an exam and it's not really two issues.
It's just two interesting thoughts about. It might be issues I don't know yet I haven't figured it out so first, what is the purpose of the exam? What's it designed for both Jason googly and Yusuf, and Joe tell us a little bit about that. The other thing I wanted to highlight is we also have put a lot of rigor and thought process in this that the examples we've been using a CCNP Enterprise is in P, security and to exam model. So, although we are providing flexibility in choices, we also had to make sure there is some common ground that people can hinge to and that common ground is that, let's take an example of enterprise.
So what is that common knowledge if, if Joe is CCNP enterprise - and I am also CCNP enterprise, how do we differentiate ourselves and how do we common ourselves? So the hiring manager knows that there are some basic fundamental foundational core body of knowledge that we both know, which is our technology core exam. And then the specialist concentration that well Joe, is specialized in Wireless and Yousef is specialized in s devant. So we both choose different concentration, but what is hooking us up as a CCNP enterprise? Is that common ground, which is the technology core knowledge and why not be able say? I have a core foundation, an enterprise core.
What we call it now foundation of these are all the technologies and skills I need to know from from a general whole perspective, and then I can specialize in all these other key areas that might suit me in my day-to-day job tasks, or maybe I want to Expand my technology and my experience and go for something a little bit different, so the exam is a baseline. It's everything you need to know as a security or enterprise or service provider. Engineer it's the baseline before you concentrate on something else. The problem I have this is coming from someone who have just finished the CCNP routing and switching, which is three exams, and t are hard exams and one exam is the route big book for the route study that took it hard.
Exam 1 exam is a switch and you study just switching technologies, smaller book hard, and then you have the troubleshooting exam where you apply all those things and you apply troubleshooting methodologies and even bigger book hard. So my question for Jason, ghulI and Yusuf was like. Ok, these core technology core exams. How can t possibly encompass all of that knowledge? It's a lot and of course none of us have seen the exam yet.
But I the question I asked was: is it gonna be a weak? Exam? Is gonna, be watered-down coffee? You know is it? Is it not that strong, which I don't do not strong coffee? I just finished the CC MPA all the stuff so like the route book is like this big. The switch book is that big and the tea chute book is like this big, and so it was at the enterprise book will be, it arrives via freight train. Yes, it really is, and in mmm but to a different level - and I think what's important about that, is you can't test on everything like as much as you want to have a CCIA exam? That's you know 200 hours long and includes absolutely every possible gosh. No! Everyone who wants that every possible looking cranny of something you could test on nobody, nobody, you can't it's not practical, it's not practical, and that's not what customers environments are right. I mean it's not what you're gonna expect. So when you're looking at the CCNP core, it's what are all the core fundamentals that you would need to know in all the different areas that were kind of spread out before right and the reason that's important is you need to know some routing and switching.
You need to know some quality of service. You need to know what EA GRP is and the BGP and noted a d-o-double-g and LBC, and all these other things that we hear about through our radio stations like Snoop duck, but but but the key. The key of importance is that, when we're talking about these new technologies and these new certifications is that you can't expect to go as deep with in that wide, you can't you really can't so we're trying to round it out and make it so it's simpler for Everybody and then you can choose how deep you want to go in what technology you want to go to, but then by building that baseline, I was talking about earlier. You know that if you went for your ccmp core you're here, you have you at least have this fundamental knowledge of all of these things, and the answer was no. T have changed what t think you need. A notice like the enterprise core exam includes a lot of technologies at the CCNP rotting.
Switching exams did not cover their stuff on wireless and security, things that we would not have gotten in the routing and switching track, so t've redefined and changed what t think. An engineer at the NP level needs to know for a baseline in each of those technology tracks, ok, cool. So to answer my first question problem thing, but my second one is this: what about the jump from CCNA to ccmp? Is there going to be a huge jump when you take your CCNA and you get your CCNA and then you jump to like the technology core exam for the enterprise core? What I mean is, are you gonna have enough knowledge to start studying for that, because if you, if you look at the current tracks now before the change in 2020, if you wanted to get your ccnp security well, you go and get your CCNA security and the Knowledge you gained, and the CCNA security should be enough to bridge the gap to jump into CCNP security. So you have all the knowledge to start studying the more advanced topics and CCNP security. But if you just get the CCNA, which is baseline knowledge and you want to jump into CCNP data center, you try to take data center core exam.
Is there gonna be a large gap of knowledge that you don't have before even starting to study for that core exam? Where do you get that? I think the answer so far I've asked use of ask Joe I've asked Jason Cooley. The answer is there will be gaps, there will be, but the answer is that you take additional classes through Cisco to fill that knowledge gap which I'm not gonna. Do that, and I know a lot of you will not do that. So I think the short answer is there will be some extra self-study.
You have to do in between that to get yourself ready for that and I'm sure there will be books and authors, I'm sure the books t write for these core exams will assume that you need that knowledge. The assumed knowledge right and t'll fill you in on that and then bring you up to speed on what you need to know. So I'm not too worried about it. But it is interesting that the we do have that apparent gap between CCNA and whatever specialization, you're gonna go down or track.
Rather so what you'll see - and I think this is this - is really important and in the past it might not have necessarily been exactly this way there was. There was a path to get to these different certifications, and sometimes the gap between the two would be substantial right. big example for that was in the past, was CCNP to see CIE, and there are. There are folks who author books on bridging the gap between, because there is a tremendous amount of gap between what was going on traditionally in the CCNP and a CCIA exam.
Well, you'll start to see with the stream streamlining of all these different certifications and how t're rolled out and how t apply to each other that it's, instead of being a gap and looking at it as a gap, it'll be an evolution of what you already know. Filling in more deeper gaps that you didn't have now, let's circle back and look at these concentration exams. Let's look at the enterprise real quick, and this is one of the things I absolutely love.
I adore about the new cisco certification program. Each one of these concentrations is its own certification. If you go right now and just take the exam, not right now, like 2020, if you're ready in 2020, then go take it right now. But if you go and just take the exam and nothing else, you have no other cisco certification.
You become an advanced routing and services specialist. This is a legit certification that you can get that you'll have an eclaim badge for you can put on your resume. You can put on LinkedIn and you can verify that you are an advanced routing person without having without having your CCNP by the way, without having any other Cisco certification.
You can just get that specialist certification same thing goes for if you want to jump straight to the SDU, an concentration without any Cisco certification and socking zilch nada, nothing, you can jump to this exam, take it and suddenly you're an SDN specialist as certified as the Un specialist - that is, awesome, think about that. You don't have to go through the entire certification track, just to verify and certify that you know something, and now you have the ability to sit back and say I want to focus on this and I don't have to take a four test exam to be able To get just a little bit closer to that, this is where the choose - your own destiny thing that Jason ghulI described really is hit home for me and it's amazing, let me let me explain I'll give you an example from my career and where I wish. I would have had this - oh my goodness, so here's my example. So throughout my career I would have very much consider myself a traditional routing, switching guy, so I was doing CCNP routing and switching things. So naturally, I would want to get that certification.
That makes sense right boom, get it done, but like most engineers, I don't only just work on routing and switching a firewall project came through and I needed to learn how to do firepower. So I I learned it, but what was frustrating for me is. I freaking love, certifications, I'm a certification junkie, I stinkin love it and it drove me nuts that I could not get certified in firepower and sure I could have gone and got my CCNP security to certify myself. But I don't want to take a bunch of exams, a bunch of information.
I didn't really care about all I cared about fire power. That's all I cared about. I didn't care about everything else yet, but that all changes with the new exams with the concentrations check this up. If I go back and look at the security concentrations without becoming a full-on, you know CCNP security certified individual. I can share you pick one exam.
I want to take firepower one, the one I care about and suddenly I'm certified in fire power, I'm a fire power specialist. So I take that 307th an exam and I'm a fire power specialist. Just like that and then maybe we have a new data center project. I need to learn how to implement a CCIE.
I pick my certification implementing a CI. Take that exam. Suddenly I'm an ACI specialist and that's all I needed. I didn't need an entire CCNP data center track to take the core exam. I just took the 360 to zero exam and suddenly I am certified in ACI. That's amazing, and this is part of the choose, your own destiny rule.
I mean because we think about this. If I'm you, let me erase that to make sure I'm a CCNP enterprise. Now it's not routing switching anymore right, so I'm full-on CCNP enterprise, but I went over to the security track and I got some firepower and then I jumped over to data center and I got some a CI. So now I'm this crazy, hybrid engineer. That knows a ton of stuff, like I mean a lot of this already, are that right, we're just not certified how many of you work in collaboration, but you're not certified in collaboration? How many do you work in data center, but aren't certified in data center? Now you can pick and choose certain technologies, you want to know and certify those BAM so cool.
So, and what would you call me at this point? I'm a CCNP Enterprise fire power and a CI specialist. I love this. I really do so real quick. I want to address what I said in the beginning of the article.
The best way to get your CCNP in 2020 is to have your CCNP before 2020. If you can get your ccmp now, which I believe you can right now, you have about seven months from the time from the posting of this article in july seven months to get you CCNP, I believe you can do it with the right amount of study With a good plan, good materials, you can absolutely study from beginning to end get your ccmp, but let's answer the question as to why what are some reasons? Well, first, I want to cover it's a big win for you. You win big on this. Let's say you go full-on beast mode right now and you get your CCNP routing and switching the win here is in the conversion.
If you go into February 2020 and you have the CCNP routing and switching, it will turn into. First of all, you keep this guy. You still have your CCNP routing and switching so let's say you, you pass everything. You need November 2019, it'll expire November of 2022 right.
That's all three years works, so you still have your routing and switching CCNP yet doesn't go anywhere. You still have that on that. Until it expires, but you inherit the new CCNP enterprise, which will also expire from the time you took your exam so November 2022 is when your CCNP Enterprise expires, but wait.
That's not all you also get the advanced routing, specialization certification, that's the conversion. So what we're? Looking at here is, if you do your CCNP right now, you get three certifications. You do. I mean it's, it's not like a trickery or anything I mean you.
You still have this guy you'll get the new CCNP enterprise and you'll have the advanced routing specialization. You can put those three separate certifications on your resume on LinkedIn now. Why is that important? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, it's gonna be a lot easier to get your CCNP routing switching right now, because all material has been out for a long time.
You have an abundance, embarrassing amount of resources to study for the CCNP routing, switching right now, enterprise, it's gonna be new for a while. There will not be a lot of stuff out now there will be stuff coming out, but at the same time there's a lot more for routing and switching tried, tested and true you're gonna have a lot of stuff. You can study right now, also going into February 2020, when the new exams change and you can no longer take your routing and switching exam. Recruiters aren't gonna change that fast HR departments are not going to change that fast t're still gonna be looking for.
If you have CCNP routing switching on your resume, you'll probably end up showing up more on those recruiters little search engines t have and if you have both enterprise and routing and switching that increases your odds of being found for a job. And that's the whole point of while we're doing this right, so it makes more sense to me so, and this just covers with one certification so like routing and switching right. If you have data center or if you want to go for data center, if you wanna go for CCNP security, there is a conversion on the Cisco next level website. So I have a link below for that and you can look at see.
well. I have this: what does it turn into? Are? , I want to go for this. What does that turn into? You can look at that now. What you don't want to do is have a certain number of exams passed, but not quite be there yet because it'll turn into nothingness to dust so, for example, as part of the CCNP routing.
Switching if you pass your route exam, but that's the only one you pass going into the new year. You don't get anything, I believe you're, definitely getting a CCNP enterprise you're, not even getting one of the new exams. You just have nothing now. On the contrary, though, if you do pass both the route and the switch you'll get the new technology core exam or certification, which is one half of the new CCNP.
So you you'll still end up winning a little bit there. But if you got all three, you got a t-shirt as well. Well then, man, you get three certifications. That's just win! So do that just do that if you need help with that we're here to help I've got a list of resources below for your CCNP routing.
Switching data center security, if you're going for that, we've got the resources, articles, books, labs. You can do this trust me we'll take work . Is it hard ? Is it impossible? No you've got this now? What about recertification? How do you renew your CCNP t've? Also changed that a lot I'll, let joe and used to tell you a bit about that and that helps you in your recertification, because that is what the modularity helps that you don't need to be in your same same swim lane when you already are CCNP certified. We want you to expand your knowledge and your skills, but not necessarily in the same streamlet.
That's where you can jump swim lanes and learn some new technologies or different technologies, depending on your job role, and you can accumulate that requirement to decertify it's a firepower, which is security based can Will's recertify like will contribute to that. So now, in CCNP, just like CCIE today will offer continuing education credits that you can start earning starting february 24th. In that example, if I was ccmp enterprise and I'm doing firepower now I go and I can take the training for firepower and then I can take the exam, the concentration exam for firepower that would recertify my ccnp enterprise. If I just did the training alone, or I just did the exam, I would need to do some additional activities in order to recertify. But the point is, as you move forward as your career progresses as your passion or your, what you want to do changes the modularity is there to help support that and give you the recognition for those accomplishments now for a recertification.
If I have like for the specialties and I'm just really a boss - and do I renew all of those every time I get one more, you do so a specialist also will now count for continuing education and for this exam research. So if you have your level boss mode and you've got four initial certification. Four of those concentrations - let's say: you've got enterprise, automation, enterprise, advanced infrastructure, firepower and ACI.
Great, and you say you know what I'm gonna go. I'm gonna get some my collab on. I'm gonna go and do something: a concentration in collab you'll get that new specialist and it will recertify all your specialists at that level. And then you can do some additional continuing education or another concentration, and that would renew complete the renewal of your CCNP enterprise, so that is the new CCNP. It's I think it's amazing five tracks each of the tracks has like different routes.
You can go down, it really is a choose-your-own-adventure kind of thing. T kind of game fight it. One thing I did ask Yousuf and Joe was: if you got all of the concentrations, all the specialization starts within one track. What happened and t kind of said this? Hmm now is there a benefit to earning every specialist certification like? Is there like a label you'll have within one given track, or is that just going to be the CCIE? We don't have there's no like you, you won you unlock like so t said.
There's no Easter eggs or anything you don't uncover anything, but it is interesting to note that if you want to go for your CCIE, you need to know everything within those tracks so as you're studying for the CAE. If that's your goal to become CCIE enterprise or security, it only makes sense to acquire those specializations along the way to both prove that you know it with the certification and also gain the knowledge to get your CCIE. So what am I going for? What am I excited about cuz? Clearly, I'm gonna, I'm kind of using this as a pokemon scenario.
I want to catch them all. I want to collect them all I want. I want everything the starting out.
I think my big focus will be automation without it out. I did a poll online, I did a poll on Twitter and and youtube first, I asked people. What track are you going to go down and it was interesting for twitter? Most people said I want to go down the CCNP enterprise track, put on youtube, which I got a lot more votes on. Most people want to go down the CCNP security track, that's interesting right and t're.
Looking at the CCNP enterprise, I asked people which concentration are. You going to choose. It seems that a lot of people will still love the CCNP routing and switching mentality, so t most of them chose the, the advanced routing. So we're still going to have the typical routing switching individual out there and because a lot of people want to become that person, the demand for that person is really high.
But then second place was that automation, the automation specialization? I imagine a lot of people are gonna, go for both t're gonna get the and then t're gonna get the automation. I will automatically inherit the and then I'll be going for the automation without a doubt. What are you going to go for? What are you excited about? I'm curious. Let me know below now. Another big question is: how do I start studying for these things? Right now I mean we had the exam topics up there, these exam objectives, so you can go.
Look right now link below ciscocom for us, the next level. You can look at the exam objectives and know: that's gonna be on the exam, but where are the official materials where the cisco press books t are coming out? I mean Cisco. Press has already released a release date for some books like CCNA.
The enterprise core, I think, will be released sometime in November or maybe early next year. Jaison ghoulia by the way is producing that. But the answer right now, of course, is you're. Gonna have to wait for official material and then of course, I work at EveDumps and we'll be will be producing content for that we'll be having article series covering every want, every one of them, but a lot of them, maybe one day, all of them.
But my advice for you don't wait. I mean we've been talking about automation for a long time. If you look at the exam objectives like, for example, the enterprise core or the automation, some of the technologies like routing switching security, there's already books out there for it right, it may not be in one clearly formatted defined book that it has everything. But you let's go out there and find a few things yourself right: there's documentation, there's blogs, there's books, there's articles and then on the automation portion, there's books on automation. No, these books were not written for a certification, but t were written with automation in mind, and so, if you want to learn Python scripts in network automation and Yang and JSON how to interpret JSON, you can do that.
You can learn that right now and right and that's why I encourage anyone to do when t're studying for an exam and go look at the exam topics. Look at that line when it says know how to interpret prior the Python scripts well go. Learn that go! Look for an article and that go go to the Cisco dev net.
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