Getting the Scoop from Dave Hucaby, Author of the SWITCH Cert Guide
(Today’s post wraps up this series on the new CCNP, with a post about the new CCNP SWITCH exam. It’s written by Cisco Press author Dave Hucaby, who wrote the new SWITCH Official Cert Guide among his many other products. Dave should be around to reply to your posts, and I’ll keep an eye out as well. The rest of this post is from Dave – enjoy!)
Thanks for inviting me to post, Wendell! Today, let’s take a look at the new SWITCH course and exam. I’ve been writing and updating the Cisco Press exam cert guides for the CCNP switching exams since 2001 – almost from the beginning. That means I’ve seen the course and exam go through a change or two. J
Traditionally, it’s been easy to figure out when specific topics are added or taken out of the switching exam. However, the latest changes are different. Just take a look at the SWITCH exam blueprint (https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-6566) and try to find some specific acronyms or switch features in the list of topics. I don’t think I’m the only one having trouble with this – the comments on the blueprint page are full of questions like the following:
- Where is STP?
- I can’t find multicast!
- What happened to QoS?
- I’m struggling to find EtherChannel in the list
In addition to reorganizing the CCNP curriculum into three distinct courses and exams, Cisco has taken a new approach to the exam topics. The goal seems to be to mimic the tasks and scenarios we might face in the real world as network engineers or professionals. Each exam topic has the form of “Implement something, given a network design and a set of requirements.” Think of this as an assignment for a new project. You have to know what it is that you need to accomplish, and you need a broad knowledge of the switching features that are available to you so you can reach the goal. That makes me think there will be plenty of scenarios on the exam – you know, the ones that begin with a lengthy narrative to set up the problem, along with a network diagram to juggle on the screen while you evaluate all of the answers.
The exam topics also have a new structure:
- Determine network resources needed
- Create a plan
- Configure features
- Verify features
- Document results
This is a new way of thinking about old problems, and it’s an organized and professional approach. We’ve always focused on configuring switch features, but now we’ll have to face exam questions that might make us list some resources and plan our actions. To verify features, we’ll need to be fluent in show and debug commands and be able to interpret their output.
So what features should you know for the exam? Let’s look at a quick example. Under the “Implement a VLAN-based solution” topic, we see that we need to study “Configure switch-to-switch connectivity for the VLAN based solution.” That sounds easy, but there are many ways we might approach the task. We could configure a physical interface, configure an access VLAN on the interface, configure the interface as a trunk, allow VLANs on the trunk, add the interface to an EtherChannel, and so on. We might have to decide which is the most appropriate solution, too.
If you have been studying for the BCMSN exam already, the set of features stays mostly the same for SWITCH. However, there are some notable differences:
- Multicast is gone
- QoS is gone, except for basic configuration with Auto-QoS and voice VLAN trust
- Wireless LAN configuration is now limited to switch interfaces where the wireless LAN joins the wired LAN; no more wireless controllers, APs, or RF topics to worry about!
- More complete coverage of switch security features
- STP, RSTP, and MSTP are all covered in glorious detail (wait, that’s not a change!)
- Less emphasis on memorizing configuration commands, more emphasis on scenarios and case studies
When you begin studying for the SWITCH exam, you might want to grab a copy of the new CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide (https://www.ciscopress.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=1587202433). The CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Cert Kit (https://www.ciscopress.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=1587203189) is another handy resource – among other goodies, there’s a DVD in the box that contains over five hours of video showing me work through 20 labs of switch feature theory, configuration, and verification.
