Studying CCNP

I am one of those people who gets the most out of actually getting something to work, and usually breaking it in the process, then fixing it to develope an understanding.

Now I have the CCNP BSCI Lab Portfolio book and the new CCNP ROUTE book, my intention is to flash through a few labs and see where I get and then go back and start reading the concepts. I know this might sound a little strange but I am hoping I will understand some of the commands and start to see how each routing protocol interacts and build on a foundation.

For the ROUTE exam I have a lot to learn as I only know the basics of routing from CCNA and there will be an awful lot to learn, I have given myself about two months or so. The really scary part will be BGP as it looks huge. I have chosen the new path as it has dropped a few topics which I may pick up at a later date such as MPLS, QoS and Multicast, however thse are all subject matter for the CCIP, I just can't see myself doing that but MPLS is becoming more and more important.

As for the Switch exam I understand most of the concepts and have implemented quite a lot of the technologies, trunking, etherchannel, layer 3 switching, high availability, the majority I have experience of however it is all the variables that will pose the issues such as LACP and PAgP. Spanning tree and ACLs will need practicing alot.

TSHOOT should not be an issue if I have studied each topic extensively, or am I deluding myself, we shall see.

All of this while looking for a gew quick wins on the wireless side so I may be challenged over the summer and miss some important world cup fixtures.

I intend to work to the posted exam objectives which I have put into a matrix where I will score myself on my knowledge level, 0 being I do't even know what that means and 5 being I am an expert and know it cold. I will post the patrix on the site so if you want to see my progress you can check on it. At the start thee may be some errors where I think I know something and give myself a 3 and downgrade that but when its all 3-5 I will be taking the exam, also it will depend on my comfort at the cli.

Wish me luck!!