[Music]
in our next section we're going to start
to talk about what are some of the other
recommended resources that you can use
for preparation and also what is an
overall strategy that you want to apply
as you're going through your studies
ultimately leading you towards of the
lab exam now as I mentioned me
personally I currently have 4 CC II's in
ççde so I would highly recommend to use
the methodology that I'm talking about
here because it is a tried-and-true
method also true for Brian Dennis and
the other instructors that that do
development and work for I&E the big
thing here is and not to take too much
time on this but it's it seems almost
self-explanatory but people very often
overlook this is that the ultimate goal
of the CCI certification is not really
to pass the lab exam it's to become an
expert if you become an expert in the
technologies you buy by default we'll
pass the exam ok you may not pass the
exam on your first attempt there's lots
of other factors that go into the actual
day of the exam but long story short if
you become an expert in the technology
you will pass the lab so your ultimate
goal should not be to study for the lab
per se your ultimate goal should be to
build a very large foundational base of
how the technologies work so once you
once you're to that point and once you
really are an expert in the tech
technologies you should be able to look
at a topology just offhand and say here
are the potential design issues you're
going to run into this is how I would
build this topology these are the the
the interactions that are going to
happen between the technologies because
if you really understand how they work
behind the scenes then you should not
have any problems with the actual
questions that they're going to be
asking you the day of the exam now the
reason I even mention this though is
that a lot of people don't take this
approach and a lot of people instead try
to prepare for the exam just by going
through labs after labs after labs and
the issue with this is that you you
probably could pass the exam ultimately
doing this
but typically the candidates that we see
that use this method are the ones that
are taking the exam eight times nine
times ten times before passing it
because they're simply trying to learn
how the configuration works and they
don't really understand what's the big
picture overall so just keep this in the
back of your mind as you're going
through your preparation if you get to a
point where you really don't understand
something you need to make an honest
excuse me I should say you need to make
an honest assessment of yourself
and realize what do I know and what do I
not know and when you find yourself
running into those situations where you
don't really understand why something is
working then you need to fall back to
the fundamentals so go back to the
recommended readings on the technology
go back to this video series as I'm
explaining how the technologies work and
then showing the examples of them
because ultimately it normally turns out
that whatever technology you didn't
prepare for is probably going to be the
one that's on the exam so if you don't
really know how multi guess works don't
cross your fingers and just say I hope I
don't get multicast in the exam so not
to again not to spend too much time on
this but again keep this in the back of
your mind that you always want to make
sure that you really understand at a
fundamental level how all of these
technologies work then ultimately when
you get to the exam it's not going to
matter what questions they ask you if
you will if you know how OSPF works you
know how OSPF works and then you'll be
able to do whatever implementation that
they're asking now specifically the way
that I would recommend to get there in
order to become an expert in the
technologies is that you need to follow
an incremental approach
okay you can't immediately go and read
the most advanced texts on MPLS layer 2
VPNs and go through the implementation
because if you don't know what is MPLS
and what is the problem that is trying
to solve you're not really going to
understand the overall big picture of it
so the way that I like to do this is a
very straightforward four-step approach
okay first and foremost you need to get
just a basic understanding of what's
going on okay so what is MPLS why would
you even want to use it to begin with
okay then get a basic hands on
configuration experience so how do i
configure basic label distribution
protocol how do i configure basic bgb
VPN v4p rings
how do VRS work whatever the technology
is you're looking at just getting the
most basic cursory understanding of how
do you implement this to try to
reinforce what you've learned up to this
point now once you get past these steps
and you know the fundamentals of the
technologies then you can start looking
at them at an expert level so then go
back to the recommended readings go back
to the video series and you're trying to
figure out from an expert level how does
this work in more advanced designs and
then ultimately how do you how do you
implement this in more advanced designs
but the the reason that this is so
important is that so many people
immediately try to step try to jump to
step four skip step one two and three
and they don't realize it until another
two years later when they've already
failed the exam four times so regardless
of whatever the topic is if you take
this this very structured approach
you'll find that it's going to save you
a lot of time in the long run and that
ultimately you're going to be an expert
in the technologies which is what we're
really trying to do because passing the
exam is arbitrary ultimately the goal of
having this certification is that you
can apply this stuff in the real world
so in terms of preparation resources
outside the scope of course of this
class and outside the scope of our other
materials like the lab workbooks there's
a lot of just general general reading
that you need to do in order to
understand these technologies and
there's really gonna be no shortcut for
this so you can't skip the readings and
figure out and think that you're gonna
know how MPLS works or skip the readings
and know how bgp works you need to
always start with this this again is
that step one just getting a basic
understanding okay once you get beyond
the basics which most of the books are
pretty good at covering the core
technologies but not really all of the
advanced applications this is where then
you want to move into the documentation
so the documentation is going to show
you specifically how does Cisco do the
implementation so this is where the
config help is going to be this is where
you start to learn about
caveats of what is supported what is not
supported both in terms of the
technology and in terms of the products
so when we look at the documentation
here I'm going to show you two different
portions the first one for the
technology documentation is something
that you want to use during your
preparation but you won't have access to
it in the actual exam the product
documentation is different that's the
actual iOS configuration guide and
command reference but the thing is
people overlook all the other
information that's available in the
documentation that is outside of that
scope so I'll talk about specifically
what is available in the technology
documentation and this is all free
information that's just on Cisco's
website now in terms of recommended
readings and I say this every time I
talk about this I swear that I do not
work for Safari Books online but I would
highly recommend that you guys get a
subscription to this if you haven't seen
the Safari online website before it's
essentially the the publisher of Cisco
press this is their their ebook site so
if you go to Safari O'Reilly calm or I
think it goes to my Safari Books
online.com and if you look at just the
price of getting a subscription here
versus what any of these books cost in
printed formats it's really up to you
whether you prefer to have physical
books for reading personally for me I
have tons of books on my physical
bookshelf and I don't think I've picked
up any of them in probably five years I
think the last time I picked him up was
to move them from my old office to my
new office but the advantage of using
Safari here is that you can search all
of the content not just the not just the
the titles so for example let's say
we're trying to figure out something on
OSPF virtual links you can just type
that in there and then instead of trying
to figure out what are all the different
books that cover this it's going to link
you right to the individual sections
that talked about that so what this is
going to be useful for again is not
necessarily to learn the topics because
when you learn the topics that's when
you probably want to start at one end of
the book and just read it all the way
through but when you're looking at
something very specific and maybe you're
looking for a canoe
duration example or information about
how does this design work this is
ultimately with Safari is great for that
you can look at multiple authors take on
the topic because sometimes you might
read one person's book and you don't
really like their explanation you read
it through somebody else and then it
starts to click
usually in my experience this is what
helps me is to read about the technology
from different authors take on it and
then you slowly start to piece all the
information together and then you get a
better overall picture of it
now there's without getting into too far
the details with this there's basically
two different subscriptions I think you
can get one of them is and I'm not sure
exactly where this is that would be
under luck to your account but I think
one of them you can say I want ten books
and I'm going to have only these ten
books for this month the other one is
the the full subscription which i think
is like $45 u.s. but the thing is
there's so many books on this list of
what is recommended to go through that
even if you spend 18 months preparing
for the exam it's going to be cheaper to
do the Safari subscription than the the
printed books so again you know I'm not
a Salesman for Safari I swear but it's a
really good resource if you guys haven't
see it so check it out the other thing
is that we like to separate the books
into two different categories first the
the vendor-independent ones should be
first and then the vendors specific ones
second okay the reason why is that you
don't want to learn the implementation
before you understand why would you even
do it to begin with so for example a
perfect example is this last one on the
list MPLS enabled applications okay this
is a very general book that doesn't have
anything to do with configurations but
it says what was the the market driver
for MPLS to begin with so why did we
even need to indent this technology then
what is the application of it so what
are the different designs that MPLS
supports what are the different ways to
do layer 3 VPN versus layer 2 VPN and
why would you do it one way versus
another once you know the basics that
this talks about just from a technology
point of view then you could go on to
the next step which
would be something like MPLS
fundamentals or MPLS configuration on
Cisco IOS and look at the actual
implementation that Cisco was doing so
again it's it's not to say that the
vendor specific books are bad it's just
that you don't want to learn the
implementation before you know why you
would do that even to begin with so this
particular list you can find it on on
under ine coms less resources but I'll
also post this along with the the later
links that I'm going to give so you'll
see the specific books that I'm talking
about here but the way that you
generally would want to approach this is
focus on just IP first so if you've
never read internet working with tcp/ip
or if you've never read tcp/ip
Illustrated then you're definitely
selling yourself short because nothing
has changed in really the core operation
of IP for the last 20 years so if I'm
learning about IP let's say I want to
learn OSPF it doesn't make sense to read
any other book on OSPF except the one
from the guy who wrote OSPF so start
with the the vendor-independent book
first which just says this is the
protocol this is why I wrote it this was
the problem trying to solve then move on
to something like routing tcp/ip that
says this is how cisco actually
implements the protocol so again it's
it's not it's not any type of shortcut
that you can go through it is going to
be time-consuming to do this and that's
why I was talking about before is that
this is not a realistic goal to say I'm
going to pass my society in 30 days this
has to be something that's saying in 18
months from now I'm going to be an
expert at all these technologies and
then realistically plan out what your
schedule is going to be and then you
need to be constantly renewing your your
assessment of yourself throughout the
process to figure out you know at this
point do I really understand how this
technology works okay if I'm comfortable
with it check it off the list and move
on to the next one
but the thing is if you try to shortcut
this you're going to end up in that
inverted pyramid where you you're trying
to look at just the the very top level
of the implementations without really
understanding why you would even do this
to begin with
now beyond just the regular books and
again there's there's a lot of these so
it is kind of overwhelming but you just
have to start at one end and slowly
start to chip away with it the other big
thing is going to be the Cisco
documentation now technically the
documentation is the only resource that
you would ever need for any six Cisco
technology they have by far the best
documentation that I've seen out of any
vendor for anything so the information
is there every question that they ask
you in the exam the answer is in the
documentation the thing is just that
most people don't know how to properly
use the documentation and when you look
at how much information is there it's
just completely overwhelming to figure
out how do I even sort through this or
where would I even start so that's what
I want to talk about here briefly is why
would you use the technology
documentation separate than the product
ones and how can you figure out with
just the vast scope of what they have on
there what's going to be actually useful
for us to use so let's go ahead and take
a look at Cisco's website here so from
just Cisco comm where do you want to go
to is click on support' and then
somewhere on this page it should be
somewhere towards the bottom there
should be a link that says configure now
when you're taking the actual lab exam
and you open up your web browser this is
going to be the home page this is the
main documentation home page that you're
going to get to the configuration guides
the command reference and then also the
the actual technology documentation what
I would recommend personally is to set
this to be your home page so then every
time you open up your web browser and
you're going to facebook or you're going
to read it you think I probably should
be studying and said but in seriousness
the the reason why you need to be so
familiar with this is that the search
the search engine is disabled in the
exam so if you're going to use this at
the time of the actual test you need to
already know where every document is
located and specifically how do you get
there instead like I mentioned there's
two different
two different portions of the
documentation there's the product
documentation and there's the technology
documentation so let's start under
technology let's say technology IP and
then something like IP routing protocols
IP routing OSPF okay it should
eventually redirect you to the correct
page and this is then going to be under
the IP routing technology support so
from here it's a little bit easier to
navigate back and forth between the back
and forth between the domains but if you
look at how this is formatted it starts
with just a generic QA so what's like
some overall information that I would
need to use about or need to know about
OSPF okay these documents here the
frequently asked questions you
definitely want to read through these
for all of the iGPS for BGP for MPLS for
multicast for QoS basically all the very
high-level topic domains try to go
through the technology domains and see
if they have these q and A's okay a lot
of the stuff that's in here might be
kind of self-explanatory like how does
or what does route summarization mean so
hopefully at this point everyone knows
what route summarization means but some
of the some of these might not be as
obvious like what's the difference
between default gateway default Network
and the actual default route or
what is unicast reverse path forwarding
and can a default route be used to
perform a you RPF check so is the list
goes down it gets a little bit more
specific as to what it's covering but
the thing is that it's just a really
good central resource that you can use
here in order to get just some general
information about the protocols okay the
other thing is that you'll see that it
will sometimes link directly to the RFC
s okay the art of sees themselves I'll
talk about when we go through the
particular technologies where you don't
necessarily have to read them but the
thing is if you get to a point where you
don't really understand why something is
working or how something is supposed to
work then then it might be time to
actually read the specification because
it's gonna clearly say this is what must
be supported this is what should be
supported and this is one optional and
then from that you can kind of infer why
is it behaving like this like for
example in OSPF we'll look at how always
be a path selection works why would it
choose an inter area route over an intra
area route in certain designs well it
depends on the RFC the RFC says you have
to run path selection this way so if
you're confused about it that might be
the best resource in order to to look
back at so you don't need to necessarily
memorize the RFC numbers they're not
going to test you on that in the exam
but since most of these protocols are
open standards anyways it's a good idea
to to be familiar with that so on these
QA pages you'll see sometimes it links
directly to what the RFC numbers is
you'll also see the technology white
papers anytime you find one of these the
design guide you definitely want to read
through that okay a great example of
this would be for example the dmvpn
design guide and it talks about why
would you choose dmvpn over other
solutions so why would you use it over
MPLS l3 VPN or why would you use it over
get VPN over private layer to transport
so again the first thing about all these
technologies is you want to figure out
just from a high-level marketing point
of view why might you use this okay once
you know the sales info of what is OSPF
why am i trying to sell it to you
then you can get into the nitty-gritty
details of how does OSPF do path
selection over virtual links different
than inter area routes so that type of
stuff is going to be your final step
when you're learning the expert level
information yeah you'll also see that as
you start to go down this list they get
more detailed and they start to pop talk
about specific examples so beyond just
the design guides now they start to get
into very specific things like
specifically how does the type seven -
type five link state conversion work
okay most people don't know that there's
actually only one area border router
that does the conversion and there's a
difference between what the forwarding
address is in the translated route and
actually how you send the traffic so
this will be one of the details I'll
talk about when we get to OSPF but you
can end up in some unpredictable results
like I give you the route but then you
send your traffic a different direction
and if you didn't know these details at
the expert level this is the type of
stuff that they're ultimately going to
be testing on in the exam is the expert
level understanding so again I'm not
going to go through all of these through
all the technologies but do spend some
time to go through them where again
where you get to these is from the main
documentation page you go down to
technology then whatever your technology
is let's say for example security and
VPN and VPN would be like IPSec like I
can'tyou negotiation and design design
guides dmvpn design guide but again the
thing is that if you don't know the
manual navigation of this if you never
really click around then you're not
going to know that this that that stuff
is available and then it's here but
again the big thing about this is that
it's not accessible during the lab so
it's a great resource to use now but you
can't use it at the actual exam time now
what you can do use during the actual
exam time is the product documentation
so the product documentation is going to
be the configuration guides the command
reference and then the the master index
in the release notes
so there's mainly two different
documentation that we need to go to
within the scope of our sv5 which is
going to be under products we need to go
to ILS and then under switches we need
to go to them land access switches now
the platform doesn't really matter which
you choose here because again the exams
not testing hardware specific stuff it's
testing on just the software features
but again the big thing is that the
search is not available in the exam so
you have to learn the manual navigation
paths and most of these are not self
explanatory a lot of times it doesn't
make sense why a particular document is
in one section of versus another so
let's say for example you're trying to
figure out how do bgp regular
expressions work if you don't know what
a BGP regular expression is yet don't
worry about it we'll talk about it in
the BGP section but let's say you go to
the Cisco documentation and we go to
products iOS we go to regular iOS 15 M
and T 15 3m in T and 15 33 again it
doesn't really matter which released you
pick it should just redirect you to a
page that you ultimately get to here or
it says documentation and there's going
to be mainly three different portions
we're gonna go to the configuration
guides the command reference and then
the master index so I got to come back
to an in more detail here specifically
what are what are the differences but
let's say for that example I said which
is BGP regular expressions this would be
under the configuration guide and this
is going to be under terminal services
configuration the terminal service
appendix for regular expressions so it's
like how could you possibly know this
unless you already knew it to begin with
and that's one of the big problems with
the documentation is that it's not self
explanatory where some of these things
are located so as I go through the
different examples through the different
technology domains I'll show step by
step where the documents are located but
it's up to you to really spend the time
when you're going through the labs when
you're watching the videos that you
should be going through the
documentation navigation so I know this
is exactly where Network
translation is this is exactly where
dmvpn configuration example is because
in the lab exam one of the big enemies
is the time that if you had 20 hours to
do the exam you might be able to solve
it but in 8 hours you need to have a
very structured strategy in a very
structured approach so if you waste a
half an hour browsing around the doc CD
you're probably gonna end up not having
a good day
okay so specifically the reason that you
need to use the differences between them
the config guide versus the command
reference and then the master index
really depends on what exactly you're
trying to accomplish now the
configuration guide is when you're
trying to figure out what's a
step-by-step list of exactly what I need
to do in order to implement the
technology and you'll see that all of
the configuration guides follow the same
type of general format where they say
this is what oh s PF is these are the
caveats of the release so in this
release maybe these are the open bugs or
these are the closed bugs and then these
are the features we support and then
this is actually how to configure it so
step one go to config T step to say
router OSPF but the thing is no matter
what the topic is they all follow the
same type of general format so you can
you can always know if I don't know how
to do this offhand just go to the task
list and it'll tell me exactly what I
need to do in order to do a particular
implementation so let's say for example
like doing network address translation
okay if you don't know the exact syntax
but you have a general idea of where
that might be located
then you're probably going to be ahead
of the game to start okay so let's say
we go to the configuration guides and we
would already have to know again where
specifically in the documents it's it's
located ok net would be under IP and
it's going to be under IP address and
configuration so IP addressing network
address translation configuration guide
configuring that for IP address
conservation and then you can see it has
general information like how networks
why would you want to use it yeah what
are the different types of it and then
somewhere in the document in the mid
should say how to configure X whatever
the technology is so if you go to this
portion then it gives you the step by
step task list of what is specifically
required and what is optional so then
you could just go down their list and
you and what like we can see here it
says you say IP net inside source and
then you specify am I doing a static
translation am I do not doing dynamic
and so on and so forth okay also towards
the end of the document it should give
you full config snippets where if we
look at configuration examples let's say
doing dynamic translation of inside
source addresses this would be one of
the more common configs so it says you
create a pool this is going to be what
we're translating towards you say what's
the source addresses so this is where
the traffic is coming from as it moves
from the inside interface to the outside
interface if it is matched in access
this one then translate it to pool 208
so again even if you didn't know how the
syntax works you can pretty much look at
their examples change stuff around and
then come out with at least a minimal
functional configuration and you'll see
that in the exam these type of
peripheral technologies they don't
really expect you to be an expert in
SNMP or an expert in EEM as long as you
can do the basic functional config by
using the documentation usually that's
what they're testing in those particular
types of examples now on the other hand
core topics you will need to know
offhand like BGP how the path selection
works or how do you establish OSPF
adjacency over a dmvpn and different
types of phase designs so those type of
things you probably would not want to
use the documentation for in the exam
but you will want to use it in your
regular preparation okay like I said
before a perfect example of this would
be if you're trying to figure out what's
the what's the config template for dmvpn
so from the main configuration guides we
would go down to security secure
connectivity dynamic multi-point VPN and
then if we just skip to actually in the
first one dynamic multi-point
and then skipped you just the
configuration example you can basically
just take this full example copy it into
notepad change around the addresses and
then you have a fully functional config
for dmvpn so again there's nothing wrong
with relying on the documentation as
long as you already know where you're
trying to go and that's the big thing
that you need to spend time now while
you're studying for the exam is do I
know where ipv6 automatic 6to4 tunneling
is documented if I needed to look at
that particular syntax so try not to
memorize all sorts of random nuances of
the syntax rely on the documentation
it's going to help you to learn not only
the syntax but also where the pizza
where the particular topics are located
now the other use case is going to be
the command reference which just gives
you the syntax tradeoff this is going to
be when you know what you're trying to
do but you don't know what the exact
syntax is or maybe you don't know what
the exact arguments are what the
defaults are so let's say they ask you a
question that you want to configure the
EHR P hello timers to be three times the
default well I don't know what the
default timer is that's not something I
want to memorize I'm just going to go to
the command reference look at the
command it's gonna tell me what the
default is but again the thing is you
need to know where that's already
located so if we were to go to the
command reference the command reference
would be under the release under
reference guides the command reference
and you see it's broken down in these
into these multiple topics just like it
is in the other sections okay in the
case of routing this would be IP routing
yeah ARP command reference and then this
is going to be the IP hello interval for
the HRP okay it says configure the hallo
interval use this command and it says
that the defaults are 60 seconds for low
speed MDMA and
then somewhere else in here should say
with the other default of sitting is 10
seconds but again the key point being
here it is 5 seconds for the other ones
the key point is that these are the
details you don't want to memorize
because you have access to the command
reference you already know how to find
the command how long did that take me
okay I was talking to you guys while I
was doing it but if I was fully
concentrating 5 seconds 10 seconds and
then that's just some other minut detail
that you don't need to that you don't
need to have to worry about ok also when
you're reading through the the command
reference here and this is a great way
that you can figure out what are
features that I don't know in the
particular topic ok and that was part of
the the the CCI tectorial that Bruno the
CCI RNs Program Manager was talking out
talking about that when was he was
preparing for the exam his number one
thing to think about is I need to know
what I don't know is to figure out you
know what is really the overall scope of
everything that I'm trying to get to and
figure out this is what I'm comfortable
with this is when I'm not in the stuff
that I don't know that's what I need to
focus on but the issue here is that
there's no shortcut for this you
wouldn't know for example if you went to
the OSPF camera reference so let's let's
just pick any random section here let's
say IP ospf fast reroute and let's say
something like IP ospf prefix
suppression okay this says to prevent
OSPF from advertising all prefixes that
belong to a specific interface except
for prefixes that are associated with
the secondary IP addresses to remove the
per interface command blah blah blah
okay so what's the usage of this says
you can suppress prefixes on a per
interface basis for all interface types
by entering this command you can do it
globally you can do it for interface
when you when you enter the command a
prefix is generated for any interface
type then it is suppressed but what's
the real usage of this okay why would
you want to do this in a real design and
this is what the issue is that if you
didn't know that OSPF could do this in
the exam they might ask you a question
talking about the end where's
old and you don't know that this is the
command that they're talking about
okay specifically what the use case of
this is is for a large MPLS core or it
could be used in enterprise environments
as well but the basic logic is something
like this is that when I'm doing label
switching and we'll talk about this in
more detail when we actually get to that
section but let's say that we have a
basic MPLS layer 3 VPN where router 7 is
the PE and router 5 is the PE and then
we have the customer routers 9 and 8
that we're trying to get traffic between
ok so we're trying to route traffic in
it comes in as IP and we're trying to
MPLS encapsulate it and then send it
through the MPLS core now for any
traffic that is transiting the service
provider network the only thing that it
needs to know is what is the egress PE
that you're trying to reach or in other
words the MPLS network would need to
know specifically in this case what are
the routes to router 7's loopback and
router 5s loopback and what are the
labels associated with it but they don't
need to need to know the details of the
transit path so for example they would
not need to know the route between
router 1 and router 3 the actual address
of the link or even the the link between
router 6 in router 7 and the reason why
is that we're never sending traffic to
the link we're always sending traffic
past the link we're just using it as
transit so what this commands actual
usage is is for scaling the MPLS core
that you can pull out the number of
prefixes that you need in the routing
table which also means you reduce the
number of labels that you need in the
label forwarding base and it's started
and it starts to scale the IGP
but again the issue is that you have to
think about how could they ask me a
question that is related to this if I
said to you configure OSPF to scale the
core by not advertising transit prefixes
if you've never even heard about this
feature you're completely lost there's
no way that you would have enough time
in the exam in order to sort through the
config guides or the command reference
to try to figure out what they're
talking about and that's one of the big
battles that using the documentation
will fix for you is that you need to
know what you don't
no you need to figure out what are all
the features of OSPF that are relevant
to me and I don't need to memorize the
syntax I just need to know that the
protocol can do this I just need to know
that OSPF supports TTL security just
like BGP does I don't need to know the
syntax it's gonna be straightforward
it's gonna be whatever it says here but
if I didn't know that you could do this
then that's what is going to be a big
issue so again there's really no
shortcut for this I would highly
recommend that you go through the
documentation for all of the core
protocols which is going to be all of
the IGP so rip OSPF EIGRP ISDN is again
we don't need to know the implementation
of we just need to know the theory
behind it
so it would be rip OSPF version 2 n 3 he
had your P version for insects and BGP
and then you need to know what are all
the features that it supports again not
that you know the syntax offhand but
just that it can do this and you can
always refer back to the the
documentation now there is one other
problem that you can run into here
though is what if you don't know where
it's located okay and somebody had a
good question here I forgot to mention
you can do control F so you can search
on the page but you can't use the search
engine
so the issue you can run into is what if
I'm trying to find network address
translation but I can't remember where
exactly it's located there is basically
a reverse search that we can do by using
the master index okay the master index
is basically an alphabetical list of all
of the possible commands so what you can
do with this is from the main
documentation page we would go to so
once we get to the release we would go
to the release and general information
the no there's not a master next year
let's see there's a master index in I
think I either need to go up a release
or down a release because it's not the
same for each of these let me try
let's try 15 om someone said you choose
15 to them a try 15 to and this is one
of the other big battles
I swear that it's somebody's full time
job at Cisco to move these links around
on the documentation page I think it's
some kind of like mental warfare they're
doing against the CCI program either
that or these guys just need to justify
what their job is in the web team but
you'll see that you you think you
finally found where something is and
then you check the next day it it's
completely gone okay so let's say under
iOS we'll go to 15 to 15 to tea
and in documentation master index and
master index okay so this is where we're
trying to get to however you get there
is going to be secondary towards it so
we're at the master index so now it has
the full list of all of the commands
okay I don't know exactly where NAT is
located but I do know some basic
information I know that it probably
starts with the keywords IP NAT so from
here on the master index I'm going to go
to that section and that says it would
be here I believe and on this page I'm
just going to do a search so ctrl F and
say IP NAT and you could see it finds
the commands okay
next to this it shows you what is the
documentation section and before you get
to the exam you will be familiar enough
that you know what these shortcuts mean
this act this means IP addressing IAD if
you click on this this is going to
redirect you to IP addressing services
and it's going to take you to the
section specifically that has the net
the net commands but what else did this
tell us here okay maybe I'm not trying
to find the commands for that maybe I'm
trying to find the configuration
examples but now since we worked
backwards and we landed at the IP
addressing services command reference we
now also know that NAT is in the IP
addressing service configuration guide
so then you could go to the config guy
do some random clicking around there and
then ultimately find the the particular
section that you're you're looking for
so I can't stress this enough try not to
use your regular search engine Google or
Bing whatever in order to find these
documents because you can find them
obviously by typing the whole name in if
you say like IP napped command reference
and it's probably going to take you
right to whatever that particular hit is
right to where we were before but that
doesn't really save you any time in the
long run because when you get to the
exam you can't do this so again make
sure that you know how to use all three
of these the the config guide the
command reference
and the the master index the master
Index mainly because you want to use a
to be able to do a reverse search and
then the config guide to find the config
examples and command reference to find
the the syntax examples now the catalyst
iOS documentation is going to be pretty
much the same they have the config
guides they have the command reference
and you'll also see that all of these
guides are also available in PDF format
this is true both for iOS and for
catalyst iOS this is great if you're
trying to read through the documents
end-to-end like you want to put it on
your your iPad or your Android tablet
it's a little bit better formatted than
the regular web documentation is if
you're trying to spend a long time
reading it so for example like in data
center which was the last lab that I
took what I did before I started my
preparation was to do this I went to the
the doc CD site and I went to the
relevant platforms in this case that
would be products data center or
actually on our switches switches and
then switches and data center next to 7k
any of these and then the configuration
guides and I thought about what are
going to be any of the relevant guides
that I need to know like let's say basic
layer 2 switching and then just download
the full PDF so this is where I started
with just taking all the config guides
and downloading them all to a single
folder and then I did a Dropbox syncs to
my iPad and my other my phone and my
other whatever the other readers are so
anytime I want to do the reading I know
already where those documents are
located you can open them all up so in
our particular case for RS v5 and this
is going to be the core layer 3
documents that you would want to look at
so specifically it would be under
configuration guides it is going to be
things such as first top we're done NC
protocols this would be where HSR PVR
are PNG LBP is documented IP addressing
that's things like network address
translation on application services both
of these together these are kind of
miscellaneous features like this is
where a DHCP server a DNS
would be listed next up resolution
protocol this is part of dmvpn
but normally you don't really need this
separately on its own the other big ones
of course are going to be routing so
each of the routing domains has its own
separate configuration guide so one for
BGP HRP OSPF and rip okay make sure you
also read through the protocol
independent documentation this talks
about stuff that applies to all of them
so for example policy-based routing this
is not necessarily specific to any
dynamic routing protocol but you need to
know how PBR works okay or basic IP
routing okay this is the type of stuff
that you know you might think you know
but then you read through the details
and you're like I didn't know I could do
load balancing by doing multiple static
routes and then by weighting them to
multiple next hops out the same
interface so you could use something
like say I want to do a three to two
split on my traffic and the way I do
that is by pointing three default routes
this way to default routes that way and
then Sepp does load balancing unequally
on them but again a lot of these things
you wouldn't necessarily think about it
until you actually read through the
documentation and realized that you
actually can do that with the feature
beyond IP routing then land switching
this is not if the same as catalyst LAN
switching this is if you have an ether
switch a module in the router so don't
use this documentation that's not the
one you want for switching the other one
would be MPLS okay inside MPLS there's a
lot of stuff that's outside of our scope
for our NS in MPLS you would want to
focus just on this one here l3 VPN
configuration guide and then also on LDP
configuration guide so MPLS te is not
going to be in our scope l3 VPN inter
AAS care support and carrier or MPLS l2
VPN that stuff's outside of our scope so
just the basics and then the basic elf
l3 VPN which is that one there and then
the basic LD P then going back or going
beyond this QoS okay so QoS definitely
you want to know there's a good generic
overview document here which
I believe is under let's see these are
all separate documents now so I'm
wondering if it's under the mqc
no it's not that one hqf when we get to
qls I'll have to look through this to
see what what document I'm looking for
there's a generic one that just talks
about maybe it's this one condition
management overview yes is this document
so this talks about what are the
different QoS techniques so when would
you use FIFO versus weighted fair
queuing when do you use ran a detection
versus doing tail drop when you do
policing versus shaping and that's just
this general condition management
overview document there's a question
here isn't VPLS virtual private land
services in the scope now it's only in
the scope for the written exam not for
the lab exam so you probably wouldn't
need to go to the configuration guide if
you want to learn about VPLS your best
bet is to look at the VPLS design guide
because you want to know just the very
high-level overview not the the detailed
information so it would be something
like this implementing virtual private
land services or even like even if you
look at the Juniper documentation or
other other vendors because VPLS is an
open standard but you want to you want
to read just basically the marketing
info so the white papers would be good
for this because it just says you know
this is the use case so why would you
buy VPLS and then what are the what are
the different features that it supports
this is not what the config looks like
but basically you're trying to figure
out you know what's the design of it not
really what's the actual the actual
implementation
okay so beyond QoS then we would have
now we get into some of the more obscure
stuff like after QLS we have security of
course of security under secure
connectivity this is where dmvpn and
also IPSec would be located so diem VPN
configuration
and then ike i conversion one and then
the ipsec data playing this i'll come
back to when we get to those sections of
course and then talk about specifically
what do you need inside of them
multicast is another one I think I
skipped multicast which is above routing
okay multicast is in here in the case of
multi guys you probably need just the
most basic one which is not going to be
not going to be M VPN or amphib it's
probably just under PIM configuration
and then IP multicast overview and
configuring basic multicast we'll talk
about some of these more detailed
options later
like how whoops like for example how
bi-directional PIM works what would be
the use case for that or how like
anycast RP works or how source-specific
multicast works but within this scope if
you're familiar with just what's under
here under basic multicast routing this
is probably 90% of the scope for for
multicast okay after QoS then like I
said that this is where the VPN stuff is
documented both for dmvpn and IPSec and
securing the data plane this would be
stuff like using ACLs so unicast reverse
path forwarding access control lists but
a bunch of this step again is now
outside of our scope so I would not
worry about content based access control
and I wouldn't worry about iOS IPS or
also zone based policy firewall these
three on their own these are three huge
topic domains but again they're outside
of our scope now then securing user
services I think most of this is
probably outside of our scope now to
actually think all of that is outside of
our scope
then system management this is where
there's gonna be a lot of basic stuff
here that you maybe didn't know was even
available to do like you could create a
menu on the router to do automation or
you could do scripting with e/m or a TCL
that's the type of stuff that's going to
be under system management so
configuration fundamentals definitely
read through this one that's gonna do
you know just basic stuff like how does
auto install work or how do you set up
the banners on the router okay something
like this you could probably read
through this whole thing in a weekend
and then never have to come back to it
then we have there's I believe one more
important other one here which would be
when under when there's a very limited
scope that and actually no it's not even
under there anymore where is it it would
be under I'm looking for media
independent PPP I'm not 100% sure where
that moved to that might still be under
legacy dial
broadband aggregation it might be under
broadband aggregation broadband
aggregation would be pppoe but there's
still a separate section for PPP so
you'll see that also with the with the
new topology that we're using it has
Ethernet only in the CSR 1000v I'm
technically serial links are still
within the scope of the exam but it's a
very very small scope so you can do this
in gns3 or you could do this on hardware
boxes it's basically only two commands
you say clock right and no shutdown
congratulations you implemented serial
the stuff that is specific to PPP though
you can run this over Ethernet so we
will talk about things like PPP
authentication PPP multi-link PPP lfi
when we're dealing with QoS but that
stuff is independent of the underlying
encapsulation because PPP is a protocol
independent encapsulations media
independent so again like I mentioned
I'm going to get into this in more
detail and it seems like I got into a
lot of detail now but I'm honestly only
scratching the surface of what is inside
these documents so once we go through
the actual sections like in OSPF that's
what I'll go through the OSPF
documentation BGP and BGP and so on and
so forth
someone asks here are the workbooks not
complete enough that's not really the
issue whether the weather the workbooks
have the topics covered the issue is
that in the exam you're not going to
have access to my workbook to look at
the config examples so you need to know
is specifically where the documents are
if you need to use them as a reference
ok so don't call me during lunch and
term the bathroom or anything I can't
help you at that point there's a
question if I understood correctly if I
book a rec and I go to router one and do
show CDP neighbors will I see all the
other 19 routers actually you won't the
reason why is that CDP is off on these
routers by default if you turn it on you
will though so you need to say first in
global config CDP run and then on the
link level CDP enable but if you do this
and let me just quickly do this on all
of these at the same time
CDP CDP run CDP unable and then show CDP
neighbors shows CDP neighbors
they'll see all of each other so you
could see here that that they look like
they're connected all on the same link
it's just that they're all plugged into
the V switch so the V switch on the back
end is what's connecting all of the
ports they're on the same layer 2
network but then again when you actually
go to configure the logical network like
here on this particular box if we show
IP interface brief it has multiple
logical sub interfaces so this is a
segment between routers 1 2 & 4 and this
is a segment between router 10 and 3 so
just by doing different dot1q tags this
is what ultimately builds the topology
there's another question here when it
comes to building the lab can I write up
a blog or on the forum there there
actually is already a document under the
under the workbook so if you go to the
member site under workbooks under RS v5
and then under the hardware topology
this one here this talks about how you
can build the network so I go into
details about what platforms you can use
both physical and virtual and then what
particular versions that you would want
to use like if you want if you want a
physical terminal server these are the
different modules you can use and so on
so again this is under the workbook it's
under ine CCRN sv5 hardware topology ok
there's another question will the v5
exam can consist of 40 to 50 devices
basically yes but not all at once so
you'll have maybe 20 virtual routers in
the control shooting section maybe
another 20 virtual routers in the config
section and then there are their
unrelated topologies so I don't think
you're going to get a full network of a
hundred routers all at once but
throughout the course of the day there
will be a large number of devices that
your that your
acting with there was another question
here on the documentation I didn't show
the catalyst documentation let me go
through that real quick here this that
would be under so far and clean this up
a little bit from the main documentation
site you would go to products switches
which is here switches then we want LAN
access switches campus land access and
let's say for example 35 60 X and any of
these doesn't matter what it is let's
say that one and documentation
configuration guides and let's say 1502
s II then you'll see the catalyst
documentation is basically one large
page so anything in all configuration
guides you would find it under here so
this is what I meant about the PDF if
you download the PDF for catalyst that's
one config guide for everything but in
the case of the iOS documentation it's
one PDF per topic domain like one for
OSPF one for BGP so specifically here
where you would find some things that we
would need to LACP should be under
little channeling which should be under
where configuring ether channels and
link state tracking it should be here so
LACP so there's not as many topic
domains you need to know in catalyst
simply because the scope of catalyst is
just not that big compared to the
routers so the important ones would be
things like configuring VLANs
configuring VTP configuring private
VLANs and then let's see spanning tree
multiple spanning tree optional spanning
tree features I would say Rep probably
is not going to be in the scope same
with flex links that was removed datp
features an IP source card that's our l2
security so that would be within our
scope
IGMP snooping and multi guys viewed on
registration that's for layer two
multicast port based traffic control
this would be stuff like port security
storm control private deal ends or
actually not private lancets is an or
zone section configuring lldp that's an
open standard version of CDP configuring
span and remote span unidirectional link
detection network security with ACLs
this would be like VLAN ACLs and then
ether Channel so there is still a lot of
documentation need you need to go
through under here but anything that
overlaps with iOS you don't need to
reference both of them like for example
here we have configuring IP multicast
routing and there's not really going to
be a difference between this in catalyst
versus regular iOS so a catalyst might
not support all of the features but if
you just read the iOS documentation you
don't necessarily need to read the the
catalyst one so you want to focus on
plats on features that are specific to
layer 2 switching like VLANs trunking
VTP that type of stuff okay there's a
question during the design of real
switches connecting to the virtual
server and allowing the VLANs to pass on
the link we might face an issue when we
configure VTP pruning my ultimate goal
doesn't propose topology might affect
some technology operations that actually
could be a case I'll talk about that
when we get into VTV pruning the the
issue you're describing won't actually
happen though unless you do something
that you're not supposed to which would
be to set the link towards the
hypervisor as a spanning tree trunk edge
port but I'll come back to that and talk
about it it could be a potential issue
what the question is being asked is
basically that if we look at the
physical topology so let me pull up my
physical topology diagram which is this
one
the question is what happens if you
configure VTB pruning and then the
switches accidentally prune a VLAN from
this link that goes to the hypervisor so
it is a potential issue you just need to
make sure that whatever this link is
it's allowing all VLANs on the trunk so
don't edit the allowed list don't do
pruning on that link and then you should
be fine