How to become a CCIE

No Comments. Posted in CCIE Certification by admin on 06-21-2010.

I have just completed writing down an article ‘How to become a CCIE: Cracking CCIE Security Labs’ and I have sent it to various study forum.

In summary, there are only 12 easy steps to become a CCIE:

1. Start with the self-assessment, check the CCIE Security lab blueprint and verify your current skill level
2. Use other certification as steeping stone, for CCIE Security I recommend to take CCSP and CCIP, not CCNP
3. Build your home lab, with several routers and 1 PIX firewall at minimum
4. Passing written exam doesn’t mean anything, so just pass it with any way and register for your lab
5. Read a lot, no single source can make you pass CCIE lab, so you must spend lots of time with Cisco website, RFCs, Networkers, Ciscopress books, study forum, CCIE workbooks and any related links on the Internet.
6. Build your speed: practice, practice, practice. Keep repeating the same thing until your fingers, not only your brain, memorize how to configure Cisco security technology.
7. Join the community, you can’t fight this battle alone. Create small study group.
8. Learn how to ask, to the study forum and during the real lab to the proctors.
9. Understand the Lab questions, you need to know what Cisco expects from your answer.
10. Trust no one, trust no solution: You should not trust any of your resources (books, Cisco website, workbooks etc) until you prove it by yourself in your lab.
11. It’s all in your mind, CCIE is completely a mind game. You will pass if you believe that you can pass.
12. The journey must be fun. It is only an exam even it’s really hard and you will not have social life at all during the journey, but at least you should enjoy it.

In the past five years, the inrush of regulation at the national and regional levels has significantly transformed the business of security. In the United States, laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPAA, GLBA, data security breach laws like California’s SB-1386, and FISMA have made the adoption of many security practices a matter of regulatory compliance, rather than merely a measure to avoid worst-case security scenarios.

Though not a government-mandated compliance guideline, the PCI Data Security Standard deserves special mention as highly successful “private” regulation imposed by the major credit card brands. PCI DSS compliance has become essential for businesses that want to continue processing credit card data without risking fines and sanctions.

Many security pros — both veterans and those who are new to the field — often find themselves learning about the intersection of security and regulations during the compliance process itself. However, CISSP certification often aids infosec practitioners in their efforts to succeed when thrust into situations where compliance is driving the corporate information security agenda.
CISSP Common Body of Knowledge

The Certified Information Systems Security Professional, or CISSP, is offered by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2, and seeks to provide an objective baseline for measuring competency. The CISSP Common Body of Knowledge (or CBK) defines the knowledge base required of CISSP candidates. The CBK consists of 10 categories that CISSP candidates are expected to be familiar with in order to pass the rigorous CISSP certification exam. The categories are:

* Access control
* Telecommunications and network security
* Information security and risk management
* Application security
* Cryptography
* Security architecture and design
* Operations security
* Business continuity and disaster recovery planning
* Legal, regulations, compliance and investigations
* Physical (environmental) security

Security regulation certainly touches on all 10 of these areas. For instance, the “Legal, regulations, compliance and investigations” category used to be called “Law, investigations and ethics” a few years ago. The change represents the most visible acknowledgment that a major aspect of security is associated with compliance to laws and regulations. Within this category, the CISSP candidate is expected to have an understanding of information security-related regulation not only in the U.S., but also increasingly in other parts of the world

The other categories have begun to cover compliance as well. For instance, the job rotation, separation of duties and responsibilities, and security incident handling are important matters in security regulations; these are covered in “Operations security”. Similarly, “Physical security” covers perimeter security and equipment protection, required activities in many security regulations.

“Security architecture and design” covers security models that are used to build access control policies and models. In the era of regulations, this topic is apt to be used more often than in the past. Likewise, “Telecommunications and network security” covers the gamut of technologies and practices covering the protection of data communications. In the Internet era, this category is well exercised. The other categories in the CBK likewise cover activities required by one or more security laws.
CISSP’s complementary role in regulation

The major focus of the CISSP certification is centered on security technology and management, but the functional areas in the realm of regulation and compliance are “softer” areas that are somewhat removed from security itself. These areas are covered by security governance and management, a part of the “Information security and risk management” category.

A CISSP experienced in governance and management will have little trouble understanding much of the security regulation in force today, particularly those regulations that are more prescriptive such as HIPAA and PCI. And the CISSP CBK has covered virtually all of the security technology areas, which aid the CISSP in knowing how to carry out specific regulations.

However, there are compliance-related tasks for which the CISSP certification does not prepare its candidates. Activities such as business controls development, internal audits and the interpretation and application of regulations are barely touched on in the CISSP world. Other certifications, such as the Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), focus on controls and internal audits.

Introduction

In the ever-growing field of IT, one has to keep pace with the emerging technologies and stay up-to-date. During the last decade the filed of IT has expanded so much that you can’t be an expert at everything. You have to select a track for yourself, look for the certifications recognized and accepted by the industry, and get on with it.

Certifications are the measure of your ability and specially knowledge in some specific area. They not only add a star on your resume, but also give you an edge in this ever-growing and evolving field. And not to forget, it does add up in your promotion and salary raises.

Networking Certifications

As an IT Professional, if you are looking to pursue your career in the field of networking and specifically to indulge in the vast market of Cisco based networking products, The Cisco Certified Network Associate or the CCNA is a certification for you.

CCNA – Cisco Certified Network Associate

Cisco Systems awards the CCNA certification. It measures the ability and expertise of your proficiency of managing and implementing the installation, configuration and operations of various networking services for smaller networks. If you are a CCNA certified professional, you are guaranteed to not only earn more than others non-certified personals in your field, but you would be preferred on others due to your level of competency. CCNA is surely going to get you paid very well and you would surely become an asset to your organization.

Advantages

The average minimum salary of a CCNA professional in UK is £33,650 (US$ 48,000 approx) with an average of 10-15% increase with number of years of experience you gain. The demand for CCNA professionals has almost doubled during last 5 years and it’s constantly on the up. And CCNA is just the beginning in your path of being the Network Professional. Getting more certifications is directly related to considerable pay increase.

Though there is variation in the salaries of CCNA professionals as per different countries and even different regions as data analysis shows that in the US, salaries differ according to the place of work.

Without a doubt the fees paid for CCNA certification are nothing as compared to its benefits. CCNA professionals can work as network administrators. They are more suitable to work well in Local Area Networks, Wide Area Networks, and other fields of computing.

642-426 study materials

No Comments. Posted in Cisco Certification by admin on 06-13-2010.

642-426 Exam
Troubleshooting Unified Communications (TUC)
Exam Number/Code : 642-426
Exam Name : Troubleshooting Unified Communications (TUC)
Questions and Answers : 48 Q&As
Update Time: 2010-05-28
Price: $ 79.00

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One of the major topics on your CCNA and CCNP exams is Frame Relay. Additionally, Frame Relay is one of the most popular WAN technolgies in today’s networks. Getting hands-on experience with Frame Relay in Cisco networks isn’t just a good idea, it’s a necessity. Let’s face it, your employer is going to get a little touchy if you start experimenting with your network’s Frame Relay setup.

To practice all your important Frame Relay commands for your exams, you need a working Frame Relay cloud in your home lab. A production network’s Frame cloud consists of a lot of Frame switches, but if you choose wisely, a single Cisco router can act as your home lab’s entire Frame cloud!

Before we look at the configuration of such a router (hereafter referred to as a “frame relay switch”), let’s look at the physical requirements.

The more serial ports you have, the better. You should get a router with at least four serial ports. For frame switching purposes, it doesn’t matter if the ports are synchronous or asynchronous – you just need the ports.

You will also need some DTE/DCE cables. The DCE end of the cables will be connected to the frame switch.

A great configuration for a CCNA practice lab is three routers that serve as “production” routers, and a 4th router as a frame relay switch. (You’ll want an access server as well, but that’s another article.)

What I use in my student and customer pods is a setup where R1 is connected to the frame switch’s S1 port, R2 is connected to S2 on the frame switch, and R3 is connected to the frame switch’s S3 port.

Now comes the tricky part – the configuration. A frame relay switch’s config can be hard to find, so here’s a copy of mine. Pay particular attention to the config on ports s1, s2, and s3.

version 12.0
service timestamps debug uptime

service timestamps log uptime

no service password-encryption

!
hostname FRAME_SWITCH

!
!
ip subnet-zero

no ip domain-lookup

frame-relay switching

!
!
!
interface Ethernet0

no ip address

no ip directed-broadcast

shutdown

!
interface Serial0

ip address 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0

clockrate 56000

!
interface Serial1

no ip address

no ip directed-broadcast

encapsulation frame-relay

logging event subif-link-status

logging event dlci-status-change

clockrate 56000

no frame-relay inverse-arp

frame-relay intf-type dce

frame-relay route 122 interface Serial2 221

frame-relay route 123 interface Serial3 321

!
interface Serial2

no ip address

no ip directed-broadcast

encapsulation frame-relay

logging event subif-link-status

logging event dlci-status-change

clockrate 56000

no frame-relay inverse-arp

frame-relay intf-type dce

frame-relay route 221 interface Serial1 122

!
interface Serial3

no ip address

no ip directed-broadcast

encapsulation frame-relay

logging event subif-link-status

logging event dlci-status-change

clockrate 56000

no frame-relay inverse-arp

frame-relay intf-type dce

frame-relay route 321 interface Serial1 123

!
interface BRI0

ip address 150.1.1.1 255.255.255.252

no ip directed-broadcast

encapsulation ppp

dialer map ip 150.1.1.2 name R2 broadcast 2335552221

dialer-group 1

!
ip classless

!
dialer-list 1 protocol ip permit

!
line con 0

exec-timeout 0 0

logging synchronous

transport input none

line aux 0

line vty 0 4

login

!
end

The key command in the global configuration is frame-relay switching. You must have this configured before you can configure the interfaces.

The interfaces will be configured with the frame route command. Let’s take a look at what each value means in the command frame-relay route 122 interface Serial2 221.

frame-relay route – the command

122 – the incoming DLCI on this interface

interface serial2 – the interface the data will be sent out

221 – the outgoing DLCI

This command on S1 means that anything that comes in on this port on DLCI 122 will be sent out interface serial2 on DLCI 221.

It’s a good idea to hard-code the interfaces to act as DCEs with the frame intf-type dce command. Since these interfaces are acting as DCEs, the clockrate command is needed for the line protocol to come up.

Once you’ve configured your frame switch as shown and have configured the frame map statements on the “production” routers, you can test the frame switch configuration. On the frame switch, run the command show frame route.

FRAME_SWITCH#show frame route
Input Intf Input Dlci Output Intf Output Dlci Status
Serial1 122 Serial2 221 active
Serial1 123 Serial3 321 active
Serial2 221 Serial1 122 active
Serial3 321 Serial1 123 active

You should see “active” for all the interfaces. If you see “deleted”, make sure your frame switch interfaces are open if they are, check the router configs.

Keep in mind that you can still configure routing protocols to run on ports that you’re not using for frame switching. The router we used here had an ethernet port and BRI port, and the BRI port has been configured as part of the production network. Running frame switching does not disable IP routing.

Purchasing and configuring your own frame relay switch is an invaluable part of your Cisco education. By practicing your frame commands and configuring frame connections over your own frame relay cloud, you’re polishing your Cisco skills and gaining knowledge that cannot be duplicated by simulator programs

642-731 Training Material

No Comments. Posted in CCNA certification by admin on 06-11-2010.

Pass4sure 642-731 can guarantee that combined with proper effort and 642-731 preparation methods, our 642-731 practice exam modules will certainly boost your chance of passing the 642-731 exam.We are strongly confident that you will pass your 642-731 exam the first time.Pass4sure guarantees that you will pass your 642-731 exam on your first attempt after using our 642-731 training Material. It could give a boost to your career by opening new horizons of employment opportunities.

The 642-731 CUWSS Conducting Cisco Unified Wireless Site Survey exam is the exam associated with the CCNP Wireless certification. This exam assesses a candidate’s capability to plan and conduct a wireless site survey, to design the RF network and to conduct a post installation assessment to ensure compliancy. Candidates can prepare for this exam by taking the CUWSS Conducting Cisco Unified Wireless Site Survey course.

642-731 Exam Information
Exam Number: 642-731
Associated Certifications: CCNP Wireless
Duration: 90 minutes (50-60 questions)
Available 642-731 exam languages: English
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Promptly you’ve got your CCNA, you’re inclined to relocate on to the next constant, the Expert certifications. Exchange for years, Cisco had one Seasoned certification, the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification. One more time frequently, Cisco has expanded this straight of certifications to group the Cisco Certified Assurance Proficient (CCSP) and Cisco Certified Turn Professional (CCVP).

With security and publication being the two most in less than no time expanding areas of today’s networks, some late CCNAs heed booming after the CCSP or CCVP without essential adding the CCNP to their resume.

While it’s temping to fly up and gross a Cisco care or medium certification, the worst thing you can do in behalf of your networking occupation is fulfil your CCNP certification gold medal, then commit oneself to on the CCVP or CCSP.

Why? Because the CCNA is just now the gen of a entirely portly iceberg when it comes to routing and switching. It’s a identical substantial conclusion, and the CCNA is all joking aside the foundation of your networking craft, but you be in want of to combine on to that smooth out of entente routing and switching more willingly than active on to more specialized areas.

Two examples are OSPF and BGP. You learn to the theory of OSPF and some basic and intermediate configurations of that conduct in your CCNA studies, but the learning you into of OSPF in your CCNP studies is invaluable. As in support of BGP, there is no BGP in the CCNA curriculum, but it is a grievous idea to be suffering with some BGP experience in today’s networks. It’s also penetrating instead of your career.

I recognize it is a massive leading on to witter on after the insurance and voice certifications while not paying acclaim to the CCNP. Do yourself a huge favor and count up the tremendous amount of routing and switching intelligence needed pro the CCNP to your knowledgebase, and you can then manoeuvre on to the CCSP or CCVP. Even more intelligent, you’ll be better predisposed to climb the biggest certification mountain around – the CCIE!

Your CCNA certification exam efforts must include practicing with different password types and knowing how to configure them on a Cisco router – but for CCNA exam success and to thrive in real-world networks, you also have to know how to examine a Cisco router configuration and determine the level of network security that is already present.? After all, most routers you work with already have passwords set, and it’s up to you to determine if those passwords are getting the job done.

Let’s start with a telnet password.? Telnet passwords are configured on the VTY lines, and no telnet access is enabled on a Cisco router by default.? If you saw the following configuration, what would it mean?

line vty 0 4

?privilege level 15

?password baseball

?login

That small Cisco router configuration means three things – first, Telnet access is enabled.? Second, the password is baseball.? Third, the “privilege level 15″ command means that any user who attempts to Telnet to the router and knows the password will automatically be placed into privileged exec mode.? (If that command were not present, the user would be placed into user exec and then prompted for the enable password before being allowed into privileged exec.)

You may not want to give that level of access to all incoming Telnet connections.? If you walked into a client’s router room and saw this configuration on a router, what would it mean to you?

username halas password 0 bears

username ewbank password 0 jets

username ed privilege 15 password 0 mcdaniel

line vty 0 4

?? login local

This configuration means three things as well.? Each user attempting to telnet in will be prompted for both a username and password.? Each individual user must enter the password that’s been assigned to them.? For example, the user “halas”would have to enter the password “bears” to successfully Telnet into this router.? The command “login local” under the VTY lines means that this local database of usernames and passwords will be used for authentication.?

Again, by default, users who are Telnetting in will be placed into user exec mode by default.? Only users with “privilege 15″ in the middle of their username / password definition will be placed into privileged exec immediately upon login.

Notice that zero in each of the username / password statements?? I didn’t enter that when I configured these statements.? This number indicates the level of encryption the password is currently under; a zero is the lowest level of encryption, indicating that the passwords aren’t encrypted at all.?? There’s a single line near the top of a Cisco router configuration that tells you why.. which of these three is it?

service timestamps debug uptime

service timestamps log uptime

no service password-encryption

Simple enough!? The password encryption service is off by default.??? To turn it on. just run the command service password-encryption.? Let’s do so here and then take a look at the configuration.

R1(config)#service password-encryption

username halas password 7 1415170A1E17

username ewbank password 7 070524585D

username ed privilege 15 password 7 082C4F4A08170C121E

Now that’s what I call encryption!?? Note that the zero has changed to a “7″ – that’s the highest level of encryption on a Cisco router, and as you can see, it’s very effective.

Knowing how to read a Cisco router configuration is a valuable skill for both the CCNA certification exam and working with production networks.? Keep practicing, keep studyingFree Articles, and you’ll have the coveted letters “CCNA” behind your name soon!

Hp Cse Certification Guideline

No Comments. Posted in HP Certification by admin on 06-05-2010.

Most recently, there is a great demand for HP CSE certification within the IT industry. Over the recent years, the CSE certification has established itself as a global standard for a number of successful IT companies around the globe. Therefore, it can prove to be a significant milestone in the careers of networking specialists to secure their CSE HP certification.

Implementation the CSE certification track successfully can help you to fulfil the CSE certification testing requirements. CSE certification is eagerly sought after by a large number of professionals since it is deemed as the most prospective window to further their career prospects and secure jobs paying high salaries. There are a number of free resources available online for training and preparation for CSE examinations. However, a few organisations have developed the most reliable and proven fabric that offer the leading edge training solutions helping you pass the HP CSE exams. Actually, some renowned firms are offering the most accurate and recently updated CSE certification HP0-S20 course material with a 100% Money Back Guarantee!

If you are look forward to become a CSE HP certified professional, there are a few things you need to note to significantly bring down your CSE certification cost. Always take assistance form those organisations and sites that have a proven experience and expertise in the field. Discussion forums across the net can help you gather the views of those who have benefitted from the material supplied by different firms based on which you can make your choice. While selecting the training material, first go through the syllabus and ensure whether it deals on all the aspects of the examination with a focussed approach.

You also require to protector yourself against being fooled by depending on outdated and inferior quality free CSE certification guide resources available on the internet that claim to guide you for the CSE examinations. Practice tests offered by established training firms can be of good use to put you in the winning edge to clear the test with great ease and confidence. Never hesitate to pay for the training material supplied by established firms which can enhance your chance to succeed.

Cisco certification candidates are introduced to BGP at the CCNP level, but the reaction to its introduction always reminds me of something I see often as the CCNA level.

Whenever I teach distance-vector protocols in my Ultimate CCNA Boot Camp or Fast Track classes, I make sure my students understand the many rules of distance-vector routing thoroughly. After that, we move on to OSPF and link-state routing.

And what do I tell my students before we move on to OSPF and link-state? “Take all that great stuff you just learned about distance-vector routing and put it aside, because none of it applies here!”

That’s about the time I get astonished looks and a few things thrown at me. :)

What’s this got to do with BGP? Well, when you start studying BGP, you have to put a lot of preconceptions aside. It sounds like just another routing protocol, like RIP or OSPF, but it’s not.

So… before we start studying BGP and looking at some of its many features, let’s take a look at what BGP is and what it’s not.

What BGP Does And Who Uses It

If you’re in a position where you’re used to seeing or working with routing protocols such as EIGRP and OSPF, you’re probably now working with BGP. BGP is not a protocol you’re going to configure at the office LAN. BGP is used to connect autonomous systems, which are very large “collections” of networks. (Those of you who have studied IGRP and EIGRP are familiar with the concepts of an AS.)

As opposed to routing protocols such as EIGRP and OSPF, BGP is an exterior routing protocol. BGP is not used to find a specific network instead, it’s used to find the AS where that given network can be found.

A good way to look at it is that networks are contained in Autonomous Systems BGP helps you find the AS where a given network is found. Routing protocols such as OSPF and EIGRP take it from there.

BGP Terminology

You’ll be happy to know that BGP has a terminology all its own. Well, you might not be happy about it, but it does! I’m not going to throw a bunch of terms at you right now, since these terms are better introduced to you when you can see what they do. Having said that, here are a couple of basic BGP terms that will help you make the transition from IGPs to BGP.

aggregation – This is just the BGP term for summarization. You’re familiar with route summarization from your CCNA studies, and if not, it’s time for a review from my Ultimate CCNA Study Guide. I told you you’d be using those skills for a long time!

IGP – Interior Gateway Protocol. These are routing protocols that run within an Autonomous System, such as OSPF and EIGRP.

EGP – Exterior Gateway Protocol. Remember from your CCNA studies that EIGRP routes are indicated by the letter “D” in your routing table? Ever wonder why? EGP, that’s why. Run show ip route and take a look at the routing table key. EGP was BGP’s predecessor, and is still in the routing table. EGP was there before EIGRP, so that’s why “E” in the routing table doesn’t indicate an EIGRP route.

We’ll be adding to this list a great deal in the next few weeks.

Now that you’ve got a grasp on the differences between BGP and the IGPs you’ve been working with up to this point, it’s time to start looking at some basic BGP concepts and configurations. Look for Part II of this BGP tutorial over the next few days!