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January 06, 2009

Cisco Catalyst QoS

And here is a new year and a new book completed. It's good to start the stats out right at the beginning. Hopefully that propels me to read more this year than ever before. Which brings me to this year's goal -- to read more this year than ever before. So I'm looking at topping 8,355 for the year.

I was looking back at the past 6 years of stats. You can definitely see a trend. 2003 is when I studied for my MCSE 2000 and MCSE:Security certs. 2006 is when I obtained the CCNP. Although I started studying for the CCIE in 2008, it's going to be sometime in 2009 when I finally take the written exam. I've convinced myself that it's the only reasonable way to recertify the CCNP. [sssshhhh...don't say anything about the 642 exams so I don't weasel out of it]

And one of the other goals for this year is *completing* the books that I set out to read. One of my worst study habits is that I start into a book and then something in it leads me to something else and I start into that book (and so on). I really have to chew through these books and get ready for the written exam. April 09 is coming up quickly and I need to PASS the written to recertify. This may mean taking it more than once. Which means I need to make my first attempt very soon.

Towards that goal, I completed the Cisco Catalyst QOS: Quality of Service in Campus Networks. It was a very good, but dry read. The coverage was excellent and the examples were detailed. This is definitely one of those books that you need to keep as a reference. There are a lot of little details that you may not remember exactly, but will be very helpful in the field. I can see this book coming in handy when troubleshooting a very difficult problem.

However, the more I read about QoS, the more I wanted to read about Voice... So, yeah, I ended up snagging the CCNA Voice Exam Cert guide. I dove about 100 pages into it and put it aside - and forced myself to finish the QoS book before I could go back to it. [Ha ha ha - now I can return to the Voice book!] It may seem like yet another detour, however, I took a look at some of the practical lab books and they definitely mention voice in their scenarios. So I'm going to read the book before diving into the next book on the CCIE recommended reading list.

There's really no shortage of Cisco Press books to read. Heck, there's no shortage of CP books to read on my shelves, either. But it's like a kid in a candy shop - which one should I try next? They all look so good!

I considered taking the CCNA Voice on my way to the CCIE exam. However, the price of the exam is too high ($250), it will only recertify my CCNA (and not the CCNP), and it would take time and money from the CCIE written pursuit. So I'm content with just reading the book for now. Once I pass the written, perhaps I may revisit that idea. It's going to be a very long and hard struggle to prepare for the CCIE Lab. It may be a helpful little benchmark / diversion and add to my skill set - probably in a very powerful way while I prep for the lab.

So it's off to update the stats and the currently reading section.

Posted by BlueWolf on January 6, 2009 08:44 PM