Archive for the ‘juniper’ Category
JNCIS – Epic Win (Again)
I spent the last of my Juniper exam vouchers on the JNCIS-SEC exam and passed by the skin of my teeth today. Since I took a new job last month that’s 100% Cisco, this is the last Juniper exam I’ll take for the foreseeable future. Too bad, too. I really like the Juniper exams.
At my previous job, we were 90% Juniper with a whole mess of SRX firewalls around the world. Since this exam is really about that platform, it was pretty logical that I should do alright on it. Of course, a large part of the blueprint was on IDS and UTM, and I have no experience there. For my entire career, those type of devices have been handled by other groups, so I had some studying to do. That’s where I ran into problems. I have absolutely no interest in IDS. I have no interest in UTM. There’s nothing about content scanning and analysis that interests me at all. I promise you all that I tried my best to read up on these topics, but I was asleep after 10 words every time I tried. After rescheduling the exam twice to try and study a bit more, I finally decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and just took the exam…and passed.
The exam was typical Juniper with clearly-worded questions and perfectly-clear exhibits all around. A near-perfect exam yet again from Juniper. I was disappointed by three questions, though. The problem wasn’t with the technical details; they were just worded terribly. I’m definitely not shy about commenting on questions during the exam, so hopefully the exam team can use my comments to improve those bad apples. I’ll miss these exams; Cisco surely doesn’t produce any exam of this quality.
Send any Final Four tickets questions my way.
JNCIS – Epic Win!
I quit my job…by design. I start a new gig on Tuesday and am getting back to the world of Cisco. As a last nod to Juniper, I decided to use an exam voucher I had and take the JNCIS-ENT exam. Easy pass.
The content was right along with the exam objectives, so there were no surprises. Most of the topics are things I’ve done a thousand times on the job. There were some things, though, that were beyond my experience. IS-IS was the big one. The very first question I got was about IS-IS metrics, and I had absolutely no clue what the answer was. Nor did I have any clue about the other IS-IS questions. I went 0-for-3 on those guys. The only other problematic topic was HA, which didn’t really surprised me. I was able to answer the VRRP questions, but I’ve never done any GRES, ISSUe, RTG, etc., at any point in my career. It wasn’t surprising that I didn’t do too well on those. Everything else was cake, and I only missed 6 questions in my comfort zone.
The exam was yet another top-notch effort from Liz and the group, but there was one questions that didn’t meet the standard set by the others. It was a VRRP question, but it used some awkward wording that that I read over and over. I just used the context of the questions to give an answer and moved on.
There was really nothing else to report. It was a great exam, so don’t be afraid to take it if it’s next on your list.
Send any Cisco refresher courses questions my way.
Juniper to Get Deep in the Consumer Market
My Juniper account exec let some news slip yesterday. We were on the phone talking about how great the SRX platform was and that I wanted to put one in my house instead of my ASA 5505. Of course, I don’t want to spend too much on a new gateway device, so I asked if there was anything below the $100 mark. He said there wasn’t anything on the books but there was something in the works. I think he had a little too much to drink at dinner. :)
It turns out that Juniper is in talks to buy D-link – one of the big names in home networking. The idea is that D-link already has some large, medium, and small business offerings, so the catalog is very wide. The big money, though, is in the consumer market. My account exec went on to tell me that they’re already working on a new consumer-level product based on the SRX; it will be marketed as a D-link device with the Juniper name on it somewhere. I can’t wait to see a home router with Junos on it. Think about running the Pulse client to connect back home. Awesome!
I also learned that Juniper is going to buy the EasyShare line from Kodak. Kodak just announced that they have already lost $200 million in the first two months of the year, so they are definitely hurting and looking to get some help after their Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The EasyShare line provides a way for Juniper to get themselves positioned in the video market with the rest of the big hitters. There is no word on why they want to get into video, but the logical next step would be an enterprise video solution or maybe it’s a building block for another larger product. We’ll have to see.
I’ll have to get my account exec a few more drinks in him the next time he’s in town. Maybe he’ll tell me when Juniper is going to have a voice solution. LOL
Send any similar stories questions to me.
JNCIA – Epic Win!
Maybe not epic, but a win nonetheless.
My boss is over all the network guys in the company, and that includes guys that support different divisions and departments. He told me he was tired of waking up at 2am every morning to fix a problem the other groups can’t handle, so he’s working to get the junior guys motivated to learn for themselves. One technique he’s implemented is to force them to get their CCNAs and JNCIAs by June. Since he made it part of the job description, that means that everyone above the Analysts has to meet those requirements, too. I made the deadline with plenty of time to spare.
Do you remember the full day off of work I had to take to sit the CCNP exams? The 2-hour drive to a prison town, lunch, a 2-hour exam, and 2 hours back? That sucked. I live in a major metropolitan area now, so my travel time to the nearest testing center is 45 seconds. I mean, literally 45 seconds. It’s right across the street from my apartment complex. Easy walk if it wasn’t so cold. That’s good, too, because I showed up this morning, and the center didn’t have any power! Someone plugged in a coffee maker in the break room, and power went out in a whole wing of the building. Since I always get there early, I was actually able to drive home, wait for them to fix the problem, and still be there at my scheduled time. Convenient for sure.
I must say that the exam was pretty darn good. It may, in fact, be the best IT exam I’ve ever taken. The breadth of material was awesome; it had questions from the absolute basics to some of the stuff I saw on the CCIE R&S written. Since I’ve been doing networking for so many years and have my string of certs, the exam was pretty easy to me, but I’m sure an absolute network newb would find the material’s scope a little overwhelming. The exam scores very high on the fairness meter, as well. The questions were clearly written; the exhibits were legible and well-marked. Best of all, there were no real trick questions. They asked what they wanted you to answer and provided the answer to you. There were no assumptions or judgments involved in trying to figure out what was being asked.
Overall, I was very impressed with the exam. Two thumbs up. I can only hope the rest of the exam in the track are this good. I won’t know until after I pass my CCIE lab, though. :)
Send any certification delays questions my way.