My CCNP SWITCH Story

Today, I took the 642-813 Exam, better known as the CCNP SWITCH Exam, for the first time and passed. For those of you not aware, this exam is one of the three qualifying exams to become a Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP®). The exam consisted of a little under 50 questions and I passed with 923 points. I was totally shocked because in my previous mock tests I couldn't get above 78% and they were a hell of a lot easier than the real thing!

I started studying the material on the first day of June and my goal was to do the exam by September. I took a break for a week or two to finish an assignment for a business course I'm currently doing which made me go a little past the preparation deadline I set. Actually, you could say I started preparing earlier in the Fall of 2010 but I only read up until the High Availability topics back then, so I had to start from the beginning to refresh my memory. So, the total time I took to study was roughly 4 months.

Below is a break down of the primary study material I used to prepare myself:

Books:

• Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH)
• CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide
• CCNP SWITCH Lab Manual

Other materials:

• Chris Bryant Advantage CCNP video bundle (very affordable compared to CBT Nuggets!!)
• CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Cert Kit: Video, Flash Card, and Quick Reference Preparation Package
• Cisco Learning Labs for CCNP SWITCH 25-hour 90-day labs
• 2x Cisco Catalyst 3550 Switches

I knew from the get go that the new CCNP track that Cisco introduced in 2010 was going to be more challenging than the previous CCNP exams and I needed to be more than just a CLI wizard. I needed to know all of the technologies inside and out and master every topic covered in the exam objectives. I feel I should warn those experience or inexperienced network admins that may feel the need to rely on Pass4Sure to familiarize themselves with the questions. It's a dangerous gamble, they really should just change the name because using it will NOT help in this exam; you might get away with a few questions but you won't be able to pass those lovely simulation questions and let me tell you there is a lot this time! I was surprised to be greeted by over 5 simulation questions during my exam. I had one on my second question, followed by some multiple choice, and the pattern continued all the way near the end. With 30 mins left on the clock, I was not far away from the last 10 questions and was greeted with yet another sim! I was ready to throw in the towel; that was just way too many sims!

Before I took the exam, I already knew what the major topics would be: 

First-Hop Redundancy Protocols (HSRP, VRRP, GLBP) and Switch Security (DHCP Snooping, DAI, Port Security, etc) and I was right. I didn't get very many Voice questions, I don't remember a single question about wireless technologies, and had none about SNMP or IP SLA. The first sim I got was a nightmare of six separate questions part of the same scenario involving HSRP. Now, I just have the ROUTE and TSHOOT exams to complete to be certified but I think a small break from four grueling months of studying is in order.

For everybody's convenience, I took the liberty of writing notes on a little device called the DigiMemo which allowed me to export the pages to PDF documents. You can download them all from my DropBox (I apologize for any spelling mistakes or words that don't come out clearly as I didn't go back and check every page for errors). Also, for practice I created flash cards of my own on FlashcardExchange.com to quiz myself while I learned the material. You can view those here.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my SWITCH Story and that it's helped some CCNP candidates out there. Good luck!!