I took the BCMSN this afternoon and exited the testing center
with a very surprising 934.
Background:
I have a couple of years time in grade with cat 19xx/28xx, about
the same more recently with 29xx/35xx, and I once worked for three
months on an incredibly psychotic Cat 5500 with 800 MACs in the cam and
one subnet(!). I've also done one Cat 5500 + NFFC + RSM layer 3 deploy
to an ISP with 40k worth of public IPs being routed through the switch.
Study gear:
I had two Cat 3524s running enterprise attached to a Cisco 2621
running 802.1Q VLANs in production at work. I had a loaner Cat 5000 with
a Sup 1 and a ws-x5213 for the last few weeks of my studies. There was
an idle 7206 in a remote facility that I used to brush up on mls rp
commands. I did some multicast work with my 25xx collection at home.
Study Materials:
Didn't refer to Caslow once(!). The Cisco Press BCMSN book (only a
few errors) and the official Cisco Press LAN switching were all I used.
The LAN switching reference does an excellent job of covering some items
that the BCMSN gives what I felt was a lightweight treatment.
The boson.com pretests were *excellent* - my only gripe is that what
is in boson's stuff is *way* harder than the real thing - I was getting
mid 60% on the boson stuff and I thought I'd squeak by the exam ... the
934 was a huge surprise.
What to watch for on the exam:
I think the BCMSN question base is *very* broad. I've talked to
folks that had to examine network sniffer traces and so forth and I saw
none of that. The possible broadness being mentioned the details are ...
Pound VTP operations into your head and do it twice for that stuff
about version numbers. Use the same amount of effort on spanning tree
and VLAN configuration issues. MLS is there but if you *understand* the
BCMSN chapter on it and then read the Cisco Press LAN Switching you'll
be fine.
I am amazed at how little there was on multicast - knowing how to
convert an IP address to a MAC address covered 50% of what I saw. This
makes me think the exam question base is broad because I've talked to
others who got a lot of multicast questions.
I really got flogged on Cisco product line knowledge. I worked for an
equipment dealership and I've troubleshot/tested/sold/refurbed
everything Catalyst from 1912s to 65xx series include all of the layer 3
modules and I was streeetttttccchhhhhheeeeeddd by what the test wanted
to know. I can eyeball a box full of Cat 5500/6500 cards and tell you
part numbers and specs on them - I rarely need to refer to the fact
Cisco product guide any more - and I was really reaching on some of this
stuff. If my experience is represenative you should call 800-553-NETS
and order DOC-CISCOCATALOG= and memorize the 55/6500 layer three stuff
before approaching the exam.
Well, thats all the wisdom I have to offer at the moment ... I am
going to go pounce on CIT and see if I can be a CCNP by this time Friday
.. I left the easiest exam for last :-)
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