CCNP Study + Firewall

As I recently told a friend, "Half-time is officially over." I have officially returned from a one month reprieve from studying after achieving my CCNA. My wife let me order two presents for myself last night.

 



















Yes. Time for CCNP R&S. I'm ready to take my career, but most importantly, my understanding of networking to another level. I ordered the CCNP Routing & Switching Official Certification Library (includes 3 books - ROUTE, SWITCH, TSHOOT) from Cisco Press. I have to say, I was thoroughly amazed with the overall lack of CCNP material out there in comparison to the CCNA, especially in terms of reading material. I checked multiple vendors and the lack of variety is a little discouraging. I will probably use the Official Library in conjunction with a CBT  subscription for all library access that my employer currently maintains for our small IT Team. I also heard Chris Bryant's Train Signal videos are a great tool. One thing I found that held true for my CCNA studies is what everyone said when comparing books to video; videos provide a great overview, but books combined with hands on labs are where you will receive most of your knowledge.




And, as promised, I ordered an ASA5505 off of ebay to help polish up my security skills. I work with dual ASA5520s at work, but the 5505 will do for home labs. I purchased one with the Security Plus bundle license because it allows:  

• High Availablity
• DMZ Support
• Dual ISP Support
• 25 IPSEC VPN Peers

The other licensing does not provide those four features and I wanted to maximize the capability that I could get out of the 5505. I already have enough limitations building on a home lab budget. I will probably ending up buying a rack mounting kit.

Until I get them, I'm stuck living my life one shipping update at a time!