Cisco CCNP – Things You Need to Know

If you have already received the CCNA certification and want to improve your profile even further to explore more opportunities in the area of networking, then you can be sure that Cisco CCNP certification is the next thing waiting for you. However, this next step in Cisco career certifications will not be as easy as CCNA, if you didn’t consider the entry-level test too hard for your standards.

No doubt that it is a positive sign if you are confident about your skills, but it costs nothing to look for ways to be prepared for the examination and to acquaint yourself with the challenge lying ahead. One of the simplest ways to deal with it is to learn more about the pattern of the examination and to make yourself familiar with it as much as possible.

You can do so in a number of ways. One of the most effective ways of preparing for the examination is to take test exams and follow course guides to CCNP. You can find a lot of help on the internet in this regard. You can also find help in studying questions that appear in the CCNP certification examination. Another very good way of learning about the CCNP exams is to interact with the professionals who have already taken the certification on a personal level or on online forums.

The CCNP certifications involve the exams of 642-901 BSCI or 642-902 ROUTE, 642-812 BCMSN or 642-813 SWITCH, 642-825 ISCW and 642-845 ONT in one training path, while another involves the same exams with 642-832 TSHOOT replacing the 642-845 ONT, another path features the 642-892 Composite, along with ISCW and ONT, while another features Composite along with TSHOOT 642-832, however a failure in the latter path could make you wait for as long as five years to appear again.

You can start thinking about CCNP as soon as you are confirmed the CCNA certification, since you are only required to have a year’s experience in networking to be eligible for it. The certification remains valid for a period of three years and you should make efforts to revalidate it within this time to make sure you remain certified by passing a 642 exam in the curriculum or any CCIE/CCDE exam.