Tuesday, June 3, 2008

In What Order Should You Take Your CCNP Exams ? Cisco Certification

In What Order Should You Take Your CCNP Exams ? Cisco Certification
When you choose to pursue your Cisco Certified Network Professional certification, you have got some decisions to make right at the beginning. Cisco offers a three-exam path & a four-exam path, & you select the order in which you'll take & pass the exams.

While every CCNP candidate has to make their own decision, I'd like to share some thoughts based on my personal experience & the experiences of CCNPs worldwide.

The solid foundation of networking knowledge you built as a CCNA will help you a great deal on your BSCI (Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks, 642-801) exam. This is the most common exam to take first, & I'd recommend you do so as well. While there's some topics that will be old to you, such as BGP, lots of of the BSCI topics will be familiar to you from your CCNA studies.

The "middle" exams are the BCMSN (Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks, 642-811) & BCRAN (Building Cisco Remote Access Networks, 642-821). there is no real advantage in taking three of these before the other, although most candidates take the switching exam, then the remote access exam.

Should you choose the three-exam path, you'll be taking a Composite exam (642-891). This exam combines the BSCI & BCMSN exams, & it is best to take this three first. It builds nicely with your CCNA skills.

I do recommend you take the CIT (Cisco Internetwork Troubleshooting) exam last. This exam will demand you put into action the skills you have learned while earning your CCNA & passing the first three exams. Again, it is not written in stone & there's always exceptions, but CCNP candidates do seem to have more success on this exam when they take it last.

Again, I would take the BCRAN exam after the Composite, & the Troubleshooting exam last.

Whichever path you choose, you have chosen wisely in which certification to pursue. The CCNP is a true test of your networking skills, & when you make the decision to be going after the CCIE, you'll be glad to have the solid foundation of networking skills your CCNA & CCNP studies gave you.
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Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is a multinational corporation with more than 63,000 employees and annual revenue of US$35 billion as of 2007. Headquartered in San Jose, los angeles, it designs and sells networking and communications technology and services under two brands, namely Cisco, Linksys, WebEx, IronPort, and Scientific Atlanta.