Original subtitles

In this video I'm going to discuss my experiences taking the new Cisco CCN exam.

I took the exam on the day that it was released by Cisco and then published my thoughts to YouTube.

But I'm going to add that video to this course so that you also have that information.

I'll also give you some updates.

One of the questions that I've often been asked is how many questions are there in the exam.

And before we continue please note I have to be careful because of the Cisco NDA or non-disclosure agreement.

I'd love to tell you a lot more information about the exam but I have to be really careful because of

the NDA.

I will say this.

There are over 100 questions in the exam.

In other words there are many more questions than the previous release of the CCMA exam.

You have 120 minutes.

In other words you get about a minute per question.

You have to be really careful with your time management.

There are some other surprises in the exam with regards to simulations.

So I can't say too much but please note that there are differences compared to the previous version

of the exam.

I personally thought that the exam was easier.

It covered a breadth of topics but wasn't as difficult as the previous releases of CCMA.

Firstly because it doesn't cover as many topics and also because of the exam question types that in

the exam but I have to be careful saying more than that.

But let me tell you you still have to be well-prepared for the exam new topics such as wireless.

There's a greater emphasis on security and network automation of new topics that you need to make sure

that you understand and learn about.

We'll be covering those topics in this course.

So you'll have that information.

I've also added the blueprint or list of topics to the course.

So download that.

I highly recommend that you go through that before you take your exam.

This course will cover all the topics in the blueprint but it's well worth your time making sure that

before you take the exam that you understand all the topics on the outline or blueprint.

Okay.

So I'm going to cut to this video.

Hopefully it helps you.

I'm David Bumble and I've just passed the new Cisco CCN exam 200 dash THREE OR 1.

And in this video I'm going to give you some tips and tricks to help you in your preparation for the

new Cisco CCN 200 dash 3 or 1 exam.

Today I took both the Cisco CCMA as well as the Cisco definite exam.

Fortunately I passed both of them so really happy about that.

Some surprises however in this new exam.

Some stuff that I thought was really good.

Some stuff that I thought was strange some unexpected stuff.

I'll talk about that in this video so keep watching.

If you want to learn more about my experience taking the new Cisco CCMA exam

now before we continue.

If you enjoyed this video please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel please like this video and

please click on the ballot to get notifications when I post a new video.

But also shared with others.

Let other people know about my experience of the Cisco CCMA exam.

Hopefully this will be of benefit to you and others hopefully you'll learn something.

Okay so let's get started.

Let me state this right in the beginning.

I felt that the exam was very balanced.

Covered a whole range of topics I think is a version one exam they call a CTA exam version one.

I thought it was a good exam.

However there were things that surprised me.

Things that I didn't expect to see in the exam but on the whole I thought it was a good exam.

I write a lot of quiz questions.

I've written exam questions for vendors before it's very difficult to write good exam questions.

It's much easier to answer any question than it is to write a question.

It's much easier to criticize a question than it is to create a question.

So I thought they did a great job a whole balance of various topics covered a wide range of topics in

their list of of topics that you need to know but some hints would be concentrate on the new stuff spent

time on the new stuff.

Don't get bogged down in trying to memorize huge amounts of commands.

So first step is learn the new stuff especially like wireless.

Make sure you understand wireless.

Make sure that you understand security topics.

Now another tip.

What do you need to prepare.

Is packet Tracy enough and I would say definitely spend time using Packet Tracer.

So do you need.

Genius 3 Do you need viral.

Do you need even.

Do you need physical equipment.

I like those products.

I like the new viral.

I'll be creating a video on the new viral very soon.

I've already got access to viral 2.0.

Great product.

I love genius 3 love even.

Those products are great.

I really think you should use those products for CCP positions.

However I think packet traces enough if you can get access to physical equipment that always helps.

If you can get access to genie 3 or viral that's great as well because it'll have options that you won't

see and packet tracer.

Okay so I think packet traces enough.

I don't think you need to invest in buying hardware even though I think it's recommended.

It's not a requirement.

I don't think you have to buy viral.

However again I would suggest that you do that as soon as you can because packet Trace is great but

it's at this level and then viral genius 3 even G and physical equipment is at this level.

So if you want to really increase your knowledge if you really wanna increase your understanding I'd

recommend that you get those products but it's not required for the CCMA exam for my CS in a course

I'm going to concentrate exclusively on Packet Tracer labs.

So in the past I used to use junior 3 labs but a lot of people struggled with those labs.

It's quite difficult to set up especially if you're new to Cisco so I'd recommend Packet Tracer.

Easy to setup official product from Cisco.

Brilliant simulation software allows you to simulate many many topics specifically for the CCMA.

I would highly recommend Cisco packet tracer and that's what I'm going to base my course on.

Now one of the best places to look if you preparing for a Cisco exam is the Cisco outline or Cisco details

of the Exam.

Exam is 120 minutes 200 dash 3 or 1.

This kind of stuff you know ready.

One of the first things I would do if I were you is have a look at the exam topics and I've downloaded

the exam topics here and this is where it got interesting.

Okay so let's start with one topic straight away EAI GOP.

There is no easy GOP and no V.P. now when preparing for the exam I highly recommend Wendell Odom's official

cert guides.

I strongly suggest that you buy these guides and you use them lots of good information in here.

I spent a bit of time going through these and I might have missed some stuff but even then I was quite

surprised by a few things.

Okay so in Wendell Odom's official cert guide he does mention EAI GOP in multiple places such as when

you discuss metrics so I purchase both the physical books as well as the PDA.

I like having both.

So in this example I'm looking at the PDA version so that I can share it much more easily in this video.

Notice he's got this table here.

He talks about the different types of writing calculations.

Your job he calculates based on bandwidth and delay.

So even though my job he is not in the list of topics for the exam he actually covers it in the official

said Guy.

So on the left I'm doing searches for my GOP and what you'll notice is there's a whole bunch of entries

for each GOP such as administrative distance.

Now it's difficult to understand administrative distance if the only writing protocol you're going to

talk about is oh SPF.

Here we have a table of the administer of distances for various writing protocols.

Notice we have both BGP and EAI GOP as well as ISIS.

So don't just learn o SPF in isolation and just say I'm going to learn o SPF and ignore yay GOP ignore

BGP ignore ISIS.

Make sure that you understand administrative distances.

Make sure that you understand that if ISIS advertises a right to you or SPF advertises the right to

you and each GOP advertises the right to you and BGP advertises the right to you that you know which

route is going to be selected and why now.

I've previously created videos about this I've created quiz questions about this.

Have a look at this video.

An example where I explain why for instance o SPF is chosen b over EAI GOP or why rep is chosen over

the GOP or over a SPF.

When choosing the best route make sure that you know routes elections.

You really need to understand the stuff for the CCMA exam so make sure that you know a D.

Don't just say I don't need to learn.

GOP.

Make sure you understand it again while talking about the GOP I mentioned V.P. so doing a search for

V.P..

There's a whole section here talking about veal and trucking protocol and he says before showing more

configuration examples you need to know something about a Cisco protocol called V.P. and he discusses

a whole bunch of stuff including V.P. mode.

Transparent so it's not as if you can just ignore the DP.

He discusses it in multiple places in his student guide and he says this book does not discuss V.P.

as an end to itself for different reasons.

He says it's not currently in the blueprint.

And additionally many enterprises choose to disable VTB.

However it still has an effect.

My personal opinion is that I won't remove ETP from my new Cisco CCN course I'll reduce the amount of

information about it and reduce sort of some of the troubleshooting scenarios stuff like that.

But in my new course I will definitely cover VTB going back to the Cisco exam topics.

Make sure that you know the new stuff.

Make sure that you spend time learning the new things.

As an example make sure you know about controllers make sure that you know about Cisco DNA center and

wireless LAN controllers but also don't forget about traditional stuff like what's the difference between

TTP and UDP.

What's the difference between other protocols so like HP versus DNS.

Do you actually understand how those protocols work.

Do you know what they're about.

I mean all this stuff is covered in the outline.

So I found that the exam covered a broad range of topics.

I was surprised by some of the topics that are still asked in the exam.

But when it comes to addressing and I missing it right now is submitting make sure that you know your

subnet.

If I give you an IP address and I say here's an IP address 1 9 2 1 6 8 1 30 slash 28.

Make sure that you know network first host Last Host and Broadcast address.

Make sure that you know that information.

Make sure that you know if you were given a writing table or a subheading diagram that you'd know where

devices on the network use tables.

I'm not a big fan of tables but I will be creating videos and publishing them on YouTube as well as

my course worth submitting tables to help you do the stuff quickly.

You've got to be able to look at a writing table you've got to be able to look at a network diagram

you've got to be able to know where a host is so something is always important and it's still important.

Big topics Wi-Fi.

Make sure that you know Wi-Fi topics such as encryption.

So what encryption protocols are used on wireless.

Make sure that you understand the theory of wireless but make sure that you also understand how to configure

stuff through the wireless LAN controller.

Don't skip that section new section in the exam.

Make sure that you spend time on wireless and topics such as virtualization as an example.

I mean that's not pure writing in switching but we've got this convergence of technologies so you need

to understand virtualization as well.

Traditional topics such as quality of service are also important.

My exam was very balanced.

A lot of topics from a whole range of areas for example routing.

Do you understand how writing works.

Do you understand a floating static ride vs. a raft such as default right.

Or or a raft that was added by a writing protocol.

Do you understand.

Oh SPF because SPF is the only main protocol in the CDC.

Make sure that you understand who SPF really really well.

Make sure that you understand elections neighbor adjacencies different types of links.

So here they mentioned point to point.

If you enable a wispy F on a Ethernet interface what kind of network will it be if you enable it on

a point to point link.

What kind of link will it be.

And that's important because once again a lot of when technologies have been removed from the course.

BP has been removed from the course but yeah we've got a point to point link in SPF.

So how would they test you about a point to point link if you don't have some kind of point to point

link so SPF network type could be point to point.

Which means you need a point to point link so don't just throw out all the old technologies and say

I will not touch anything that has a HDL C or point to point type of connection.

I personally will keep a little bit of that in my course.

But you know it's not as big as it was previously.

Okay big section is security fundamentals.

I would spend a lot of time on security fundamentals.

It's 15 percent of the exam.

Make sure that you understand VPN.

Make sure that you understand wireless security protocols make sure that you know how to configure wireless

LANs using WPA to using appreciate keys via the gooey.

Make sure that you understand properly as an example.

Do you know the difference between authentication authorization and accounting.

So I would spend a lot of time on security fundamentals.

Big part of the course now and then automation and program ability.

This is where things are going so you would need to know like what is a northbound API.

What's a southbound API.

What protocols would be used on northbound southbound.

My big advice would be make sure you understand what a controller is.

I've discussed this stuff and I've created videos showing a bit of history if you're interested but

I spoke about this stuff on this video many years ago.

What's the difference between separation of control plane data plane.

What is a management plane.

So if you have a controller.

Traditionally we have a device like a rider with the management plane the control plane and the forwarding

plane or data plane within the device but with a controller we take the control plane out of the device

we put it in a centralized controller.

Now in the original open flow model the controller was the brain and the switches became dumb or the

riders became dumb.

That didn't work very well didn't scale so SPF kind of died a death that's in the past now.

But the idea with a controller is we can have a controller that for instance controls some aspects of

forwarding.

So in Wendell's CCN a book he spends a lot of time on SD a lot of information on SDI.

I don't know if it's necessary to note that detail but make sure that you understand what is an underlying

network.

Essentially physical devices rather than switches running traditional stuff.

You can however get rid of spanning tree and run a layer 3 network has the Underlay.

Then you run an overlay on top of it.

Now it sounds all complicated but it's just traditional stuff that's got a new spin on it.

I would say so in the old old days and we've done this for years.

The internet.

Think of the Internet as an underlay.

It doesn't understand what's going across it necessarily.

If we especially if we put it in a tunnel so let's go back even further in the old old days we had a

traditional telephone network where the switches in the cloud were intelligent and the phones were dumb.

Then the intelligence was put on the phones and the using Skype as an example.

And the networking core became dumb and we just simply made calls across the Internet using Skype.

So the traditional telephony network was intelligent.

It was replaced with an IP call that was essentially dumb it didn't understand all the applications

going across it.

And then we made calls across the Internet using Skype with intelligence in the endpoints or in the

controllers which could be as an analogy call manage express or whatever controller we're using to set

up the calls using IP devices.

Now here in SDK we've got an underlay think of that kind of like the Internet.

So we've got just switches routers they are dumb to a point and then we put an overlay on top of it.

So we build a whole network on top of it using Vieques land.

Now it sounds complicated it's just tunnels but the intelligence is that can automatically be built

to apply policy so we can have a policy and an SD server so we could have a policy on a controller and

then apply the policy to the overlay not to the Underlay.

So rather than trying to manually configure access lists on individual devices we apply the policy and

this is the whole idea with intent based networking.

We apply a policy on the controller and then that's going to configure the devices with us overlay network.

So from me to you there might be a 20 switches or 20 writers on the Internet as an example but when

we set up a IP SAC tunnel logically it's a hop from me to you.

Same kind of idea here we've got a whole bunch of physical devices as the Underlay.

We put an overlay on top of it.

Make sure you understand those concepts.

Make sure that you understand rest but arrest in the definite exam there's obviously a lot more about

that.

Make sure that you understand the differences between Puppet Chef and sensible so answerable as an example

doesn't need an agent.

It's an agent less implementation.

So I've created a whole sensible course so I'll take some of that experience and knowledge and attitude

my new CCN course make sure that you understand that with Ansel it's kind of like with python scripts

I can just SS H to the devices and make configuration changes on them.

But with puppet and chef now with puppet you can do some interesting things but the idea is you run

an agent on the device and you don't use SS H to talk to the agent using HDP s using a web based protocol

rather than traditional SSA.

So the idea is as your control over your controlling device or your management device talks to the agent

on the device that then configure the device but with sensible its agent less.

We're not running an agent or special software on the Rogers and switches we are connecting directly

to them from a server.

Make sure you can also interpret Jason encoded data.

I was quite surprised by that one but yeah make sure you spend a bit of time on automation and program

ability but don't get stuck on this topic.

It's a new topic in the exam.

Don't get stuck on it.

Notice security fundamentals has more information wars it is more important it's 15 percent IP services

is 10 percent.

Talking about traditional stuff like the HP DNS A.P. S&P MP so isn't it.

He's been run for years.

Do you understand which underlying protocols are used by these upper layer protocols.

So which protocol does S&P use.

Is it UDP is a TTP which protocol does SSA use TTP UDP.

Make sure that you understand various protocols and the underlying protocols under them.

So I mean I could list all of these topics.

I mean my exam was very broad covered a whole bunch of topics.

I think it was a very balanced exam.

I think it was a good exam.

Okay so hopefully you've learned something.

If you have please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel once again please like this video and

please click on the belt to get notifications.

I'm David Bumble and I want to wish you all the very best.