Kirkian Computing

Tag: Cisco

  • My first 50 certifications

    I did my first (vocational) IT exam in 1999. This was after an annual appraisal from my (then) manager, who said “I’ve spoken to lots of people, and they’re all very impressed with your work. However, there’s no way for me to quantify your performance, so you don’t get a pay rise.” Based on that, I decided that it would be useful to have some objective evidence of my abilities from a neutral 3rd party, so I took the Visual Basic 5.0 exam and became a Microsoft Certified Professional.

    Fast forward to 2023: I’ve now passed 41 exams and earned 50 certifications. In all honesty, this process has been a bit haphazard; I’ve picked certifications based on what looked interesting at the time, or what related to a skill I’d been using at work, rather than having a clear roadmap of where I wanted my career to go. I’ve also sometimes leant towards the Pokémon approach of “gotta collect them all!” So, I think it’s time to look back and review which of these were worthwhile, and which I’d recommend to other people.

    NB I’m not including my university degrees in this list, because they’re academic rather than vocational. I’m also not including the European Computer Driving License (ECDL), because that’s aimed at end users rather than IT professionals.

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  • Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate

    Overview

    In November 2016, Cisco introduced “CCNA CyberOps”. This consisted of 2 exams:

    • 210-250 Understanding Cisco Cybersecurity Fundamentals (SECFND)
    • 210-255 Implementing Cisco Cybersecurity Operations (SECOPS)

    At this point, there were 10 associate level certifications: 9 versions of CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), and also CCDA (Cisco Certified Design Associate).

    In February 2020, most of the associate exams were merged together into the new CCNA (200-301). The only exception was CCNA CyberOps, which got rebranded as Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate.

    In May 2020, the 2 exams above were replaced with a single exam:

    • 200-201 CBROPS: Understanding Cisco Cybersecurity Operations Fundamentals

    NB There was no overlap period between the old/new exams; the last date to take the old exams was 28th May, and the first date to take the new exam was 29th May.

    I interleaved the CyberOps exams with the CCNA R&S:

    • In Mar 2016 I did ICND1.
    • In Mar 2019, I did SECFND.
    • In Nov 2019, I did ICND2.
    • In May 2020, I did SECOPS.

    The main reason I did it this way was to stop the CCENT from expiring before I was ready for ICND2.

    For training material, I used the Cisco Press books and Matt Carey’s Udemy course.

    Looking at the 2 books:

    • The SECFND book had 15 chapters (taking up 550 pages) along with appendixes.
    • The SECOPS book had 11 chapters (taking up 280 pages) along with an appendix.

    So, the combined length (830 pages) was equivalent to one of the CCNA textbooks (800-900 pages each). I’m glad to see that the CBROPS study guide is a single book, with 16 chapters (575 pages) plus appendixes.

    The Udemy course has been updated for the CBROPS exam, so anyone who paid for the old course will automatically get access to the new material.

    NB This blog post applies to the original 2 exams.

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  • CCNA R&S

    Cisco have offered the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) since 1998, but it’s been through a few variations over the years. They’ve changed the syllabus and the number of exams:

    Year Part 1 Part 2 Combined
    1998 CCNA (640-407)
    2000 CCNA (640-507)
    2002 CCNA (640-607)
    2003 INTRO (640-821) ICND (640-811) CCNA (640-801)
    2007 ICND1 (640-822) ICND2 (640-816) CCNA (640-802)
    2013 ICND1 (100-101) ICND2 (200-101) CCNA R&S (200-120)
    2016 ICND1 (100-105) ICND2 (200-105) CCNA R&S (200-125)
    2020 CCNA (200-301)

    From 1998-2016, this all applied to Routing and Switching. Meanwhile, Cisco gradually offered a range of other certifications, e.g. “CCNA Wireless” and “CCNA Security”. In 2020, these all got merged together into a single CCNA certification (except for CyberOps). This blog post covers the old R&S syllabus (2013 and 2016), not the new 2020 syllabus.

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  • Upgrading Cisco Unity Express

    I recently upgraded an NME-CUE (Cisco Unity Express Enhanced Network Module) from version 3.2.1 to 8.6.7. This module was moving from a 3845 router (running CUCME 7.1) to a 3945 router (running CUCME 10.5), so these versions match the compatibility matrix. On the whole, this went fairly smoothly, but there are a couple of issues to be aware of.

    In brief, there were 4 main steps:

    1. Backup the current configuration and data.
    2. Download and install the upgrade package.
    3. Migrate licences to CSL.
    4. Sort out the Message Waiting Indicator (MWI).

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  • How to short-circuit a network…

    Most modern networks use a star topology: each computer plugs into a separate port on a switch, either directly or via a patch panel, and larger networks will have multiple switches connected together. However, what happens if you plug both ends of a patch cable into the same switch? I’ve encountered this situation a couple of times.

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