Other big preps in order are getting myself organized and prepared for an upcoming VMware course at a local technical college.  I’ve had an interest in earning the VCP certification for some time but the cost to obtain it as a result of the required training was always too prohibitive for me to go out and swing it on my own.  The cost was also out of my employers budget and as of yet would offer only a slight value in their eyes as we are just now somewhat really gearing up our virtualization infrastructure after running a single ESXi host for about a year with a half dozen VM’s on it.  I had hear about VMware’s Academic Alliance program a while back and casually kept an open ear in hopes a school nearby would hop on board and sure enough, the Madison Area Technical College is going to start offering the course in January 2011.  After some discussion with the bossman at work, he and I are cleared to sit the course on the companies dime.  Cost comes in at under $500 each with the required course books as well, not too shabby compared to the offer direct through VMware.  Potential disadvantage some might see in it is the class runs 16 weeks vs a few days.  So it’s clearly not for someone who just wants to get through it quick to sit the exam.  Potential advantage is more time to learn the technologies for those who are not very experienced.  I’m pretty comfortable with a lot of features having used it in a single host at the office and several hosts at my home lab, so I might prefer to go through it quicker than this but I can’t complain given the cost savings!

Seems that will be the big focus for me going into the future at least for the upcoming year.  Big plans are to roll out more hosts and implement shared storage to utilize some of the enterprise features of vSphere.  I’ve already been working on the storage features somewhat, so that’s coming along pretty good.  Other plans for the year will incorporate a migration over to Linux servers for file and print services in branch offices with LDAP for directory services.  This is going to be a huge welcomed change for me, considering right now we really don’t employ a centrally managed directory for our 40+ offices – instead each site relies on local accounts which gets to be a pain to manage.  Finally is beginning to feel like we’re really getting ahead in the right direction for a change!

I’ll be trying to share some things along the way with my VMware experience as well as the Linux/LDAP experience in addition.  I have some ideas written down for content to publish here with some brief write-ups and how-to’s for some Juniper, specifically SRX, related material since I’ve largely finished that project and have them out in the field now.  So keep checking back and looking for that material to pop up, also feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed to get new content as I publish it.  Till next time!

Mnemosyne is available for free download from their website located here.

I started to put together a database of cards for the first exam I’ll be sitting, JNCIA-JUNOS and thought I would make it available for others to use as well. In Mnemosyne, you have the ability to create categories in a database and only display cards from a particular category or from more than one or all at once. While working on the JNCIA-JUNOS database, I basically broke it down into the main categories listed on the exam objectives: Junos OS Fundamentals, User Interface Options, and so on. I also decided to create a good variety of cards once I figured I would share it, so there may be some in here incredibly easy for some but that’s the nice thing with Mnemosyne is they will be weeded out of your rotation for the most part as you start to work through them.

Anyways, the link will follow below here. It’s not presently complete as of yet but I will share what I’ve got together so far. Thus far it covers about the first half of the JNCIA-JUNOS exam objectives including the following main categories: Junos OS Fundamentals, User Interface Options, Initial Configuration and Network Interfaces, Secondary System Configuration, and Operational Monitoring and Maintenance. I’ve got 228 flash cards thus far, and some of these were made while studying up late in the wee hours of the night – so there may be and probably are typographical errors. Hopefully I’ve made no errors with the questions or answers not being factual but please feel free to let me know of any mistakes you might find be it spelling or with the material itself and I’ll be sure to correct the copy provided here. I’ll also keep updating the file hosted below as well as providing updates here as I continue to add the remainder of the exam objectives.

Here’s the latest file for JNCIA-JUNOS: Download Here

This is just a brief list of some of the more general eLearning courses which Juniper offers free of charge that I thought were general enough to be a good starting point for a novice. Some of these are somewhat brief or don’t go into a whole lot of detail and often assume you have prior networking experience covering some of the basics. Overall I thought some of them were a decent primer before I hit the books.

Networking Fundamentals
Junos as a Second Language
Junos as a Second Language – Podcast Version
Junos as a Scripting Language
Junos as a Security Language
Junos as a Security Language – Podcast Version
Junos as a Switching Language
Junos as a Switching Language – Podcast Version

Juniper Fast Track Program
Juniper Fast Track Portal

This one has been mentioned in the forum here many times but it’s a great resource. Register for an account if you haven’t already done so and available to you are a variety of study guides which they use in some of their instructor led training courses. Juniper doesn’t provide the lab guides and topology diagrams which would be included if you took the instructor led course but the student guides which you are given access to are good to have at least.

If you do desire to obtain the lab guides and topology diagrams (along with any other guides/booklets a student attending an instructor led course would receive), you can now order them through Juniper’s New Education Services Bookstore.

Juniper’s Day One Booklets
Free Juniper Day One Booklets

I thought these were especially nice since they catered well to my interest becaues they included many of them in the mobi format (in addition to PDF) which works a lot smoother on my Kindle!

Essentially this is just a collection of various e-books covering the Junos CLI, Junos basics, monitoring/troubleshooting, and on further into more advanced or specific technologies.

Juniper’s Forums
J-Net Discussion Forums

Not as much of a direct training resource, but still a lot of good information to be found here as you work your way through new territory. Not that the great minds who participate here aren’t helpful – they are! Just that there is a lot more traffic over at there forums and as a result – more information.

Free Practice Exams
Juniper Networks Technical Certification Program

Last but not least, I figured I would toss this one in here too. Obviously it’s the wise choice for one to look over if they are pursuing a particular certification so one can view the exam objectives, prerequisites, etc. They don’t include them for each exam, but some of the certification tracks had practice exams available. I’m pretty sure it’s only Service Provider and Enterprise Routing and Switching – perhaps they will add more, perhaps not but these two are out there at least.

It was a bit of a learning curve overall, getting used to the Juniper way having been used to IOS.  Now that I’m much more comfortable with Junos, I feel like I can honestly say I prefer working on Juniper equipment over Cisco.  It’s hard to explain to some people why that may be, and for a lot of people simply looking at the differences on paper or trying to explain why you like it just doesn’t make any sense unless they invest some time on Juniper equipment.  The best way I can describe it though, is it just seems much more intuitive to me – the way things work and how you manage the device, everything seems to mesh together with more logic.

So that’s how I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately, learning all I can about Junos with an emphasis on the SRX line as we roll these out at the offices we support.  In the near future I’ll be writing the JN0-100 exam, aka JNCIA-JUNOS.  Sometime shortly thereafter I’ll be writing the JN0-331 exam, which together with the JNCIA-JUNOS will earn the JNCIS-SEC certification.  One of the nice things with Juniper that I’ve found very helpful that you just don’t get with Cisco is the plethora of free training resources available.  Juniper has provided a wide variety of resources and has done some things in the past with their Fast Track program to get more individuals to consider their certifications.  I’ll be introducing another post shortly with a list of some of the free resources out there so keep an eye out for that.  In the mean time, keep studying and good luck!

Also while I’m at it, since I’m on the topic which is somewhat related, I thought I would include LinkedIn.  This is a tool I have been using a bit more serious, though still not as often as I could.  I’ve been spending some extra time in it lately to seek out lost connections from over the years and see what happens.  I came to the realization the other day that I have nearly just a handful of months away from having 4 years in at my present job.  It hasn’t seemed like that long, and while I’ve picked up a wealth of knowledge I thought for sure I would have moved onward to something else by now.  That’s not to say I dislike my job or the opportunities it has given me, but it’s just not the type of position with the type of company that is really going to facilitate the growth down the path I desire for my career.  So it’s time to start working on finding something better suited to my chosen.  For anybody out there who maintains a LinkedIn profile and wishes to connect, here is my profile:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikesteinhilber

As a result of these circumstances, I have been researching options to pursue a master’s degree.  I found the Master of Science Information Security and Assurance program over at Western Governors University (WGU) and after doing some research and speaking to past and present students I felt it would be a good option.  I’ve went through all the requisite paperwork and entrance requirements and officially started as a student this month.

I hope to share some of my experiences along the way here as I progress through the program.  This point in my life I find myself excited to continue on with my education as well as a bit of fear about my ability to keep myself focused on getting things accomplished given the stress my present situation creates.

This is what led to the problems with preparing for this exam, it took a lot of perseverance to actually study for this exam.  When it comes to studying, I encounter a hard time staying on track unless the material is either something I find interesting, or something that there is much use out of understanding the material.  This is not to say that if something isn’t interesting that I won’t study it at all, because I have studied many dis-interesting topics through my classes extensively – but many of those proved to have value in some aspects of my life or career.  The portions of the 70-620 exam that I found problems to motivate myself to devote time to and study were both dis-interesting and content that I firmly believe will never really benefit me, and should I encounter those items in the real world at some point (unlikely) – it will be incredibly easy to work through regardless.

That being said, I did study for the exam in it’s entirety anyways since the topics could be brought up and I wasn’t about to fail an exam because I was ill prepared.  I just had to buckle down and work through it, regardless of how boring the content was.  Study materials used for this exam included the MS Press MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit, Configuring Windows Vista Client as well as the TestOut LabSim 70-620 – Configuring Windows Vista Certification Suite computer based training (CBT).  The book was difficult to work through because of the issues discussed previously, and as a result I only read the first 3 chapters of the book.  The bulk of the study time was spent watching the TestOut CBT through in it’s entirety once and then completing the full practice exam at the end of the training 4 or 5 times.  In the end it turned out to be adequate and a pass was made.

Next up in the MCITP: EA track… 70-640, but only after the Windows 7 Beta (71-680) and the CompTIA Server+ 2009 Beta which are coming up in the next several days.

Till next time…

I was fortunate enough to be one of the candidates selected it seems, just awaiting the voucher code that is sent after you confirm your testing center.  In the mean time, I thought I would post a link to CompTIA’s Server+ 2009 exam objectives:

CompTIA Server+ 2009 Beta Exam Objectives

Best of luck to everybody who plans to sit the exam!

Those intrested in signing up for a chance to be considered for the exam should fill out the form located on CompTIA’s website here:

Free CompTIA Server+ Beta 2009 Exam Voucher Application

Good luck!

The real reason for this post is to share some resources that some of us might overlook when trying to determine what to study for the 71-680 exam with.  First and foremost, one should take a good look through the official Microsoft 70-680 exam overview (while the exam is in the beta period, it is labeled the 71-680 – the official exam designation will be 70-680 upon release).  In the exam overview you will find a comprehensive list of all of the skills being measured within the exam, a good overview of everything you’ll want to know well for the exam.  There are also several resources within Microsoft’s website which will be helpful study aids.

Windows 7 Technet Library:
Windows 7 Technical Library Roadmap (Beta)

Windows 7 Springboard Site:
Windows 7 Beta | Support, Deployment, Resources

Windows 7 Learning Portal:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/wi…7/default.mspx

What’s New in Windows 7 Beta Guide*:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=143723

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Networking Enhancements Executive Overview*:
Download details: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Networking Enhancements Executive Overview

Windows 7 Manageability Overview*:
Download details: Windows 7 Manageability Overview

* – These documents are just links to Word documents of their prospective areas within the TechNet Library that MS made available.

I plan to go through as much of the materials listed here as possible, as well as continued exposure to the latest Windows 7 beta release.  I must say that I’m refreshed to see the skills being measured on this exam.  I haven’t sat the 70-620 exam yet, but from the overall feedback from the community, it sounds as though the Vista client exam is far too easy for a requirement for a certification such as the MCITP: SA or EA.  I’m glad to see that the Windows 7 client exam seems to be more tuned to an enterprise environment rather than a traditional end user.  Should be an interesting exam, definately looking forward to it!  Best of luck to all of you who got a spot in the beta!