[j-nsp] 13 Tips for Passing Juniper Lab Tests

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 06:24:57PM -0400, Joseph Soricelli wrote:
> In all seriousness part of my advice does include having a good  
> breakfast - in addition to getting a good night's sleep and arriving  
> early to the testing center. When I was proctoring these exams from  
> 2001-2005 I can't tell you how many people failed due to feeling  
> rushed (arrived at 8:55) or from a sugar crash, etc.

In all seriousness (so I can't be accused of being a COMPLETE asshole
:P)... Unless you live where the test is, you really do want to drive 
around the day before to figure out where everything is, especially 
where you're going to eat lunch.

> I agree that experience and hands-on time are critical to the exam. I  
> also like the tips about reading all of the steps before you start  
> typing and about asking the proctor for clarification.

Agreed, I did come across a few questions which were extremely ambiguous
and required proctor clarification. And a couple junos cli bugs and
crashing FPCs mid-test too, for that matter.

> I generally say that the JNCIP has a narrow topic list (really system,  
> IGP, BGP, Policy) but that you need to know those topics really well.
> 
> When talking about the JNCIE, the topic list grows exponentially - and  
> you still need to know those topics really well. Important things to  
> be cognizant of include:

What I noticed was that JNCIP followed the book VERY closely, while the
JNCIE lab seemed to diverge quite a bit more. There was one section on
the JNCIE lab that was straight out of the JNCIP book, for example. Also
the general tone of the test changes, from a very direct "follow these
instructions step by step" to an indirect "try to figure out what
they're actually asking you to do based on the requirements without them
specifically stating what you need to do".

> - The ability to make 3 different IGPs exchange routes with each other  
> across mutual points of redistribution in more than one place in the  
> network. Oh, btw, no routing loops or instability. ;-)

And if you really do hit a snag on those IGPs, cheating with a couple 
static routes and/or turning on MPLS shortcuts to defeat those routing 
loops really can let you pass the test anyways. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)