JNCIP Certified - Finally...

Today I receive an email from Ramesh, the proctor in JNCIP exam I took yesterday. He told me that I passed the JNCIP exam. Finally....:D

Actually before he sent me that email, after the test was done, I've already felt very happy :P. That's because I'm confidence that I will pass after re-checking my work repeatedly.

It was not done without any struggling.

For this test, I sacrificed my holiday a week for doing preparation thoroughly. I just want to make sure 100% that I will pass the test. Having failed two times because of not enough preparation, I learned my lesson very well. The preparation was done using excellent Sybex book pdf made freely available on Juniper website (Thank you Harry Reynolds for such a wonderful book ^_^) and olive.

So what does it means - passing the JNCIP exam? It proves three things.

First, everybody with a determination can pass the JNCIP. (I used to be OSS engineer, didn't I :P).

Second, it shows that my claim was right that I was ready and needed a couple of weeks for doing preparation. Well, actually I was worry I would be a laughing stock if I fail again this time -> that's why I couldn't sleep on the exam day. Bad for me, because it made me sleepy. That's why checking and re-checking tactics over and over again at that time works very well.

And third, if you don't want to attend official Juniper training, you may still pass the exam like me. But you have to prepare yourself mentally for facing the failure (I've told you that I failed two times, haven't I?). Among other engineers in my office, I was unfortunate to not be sent to any Juniper trainings by my company. The other engineers who passed JNCIP, all have attended official Juniper training. So when it comes to calculation cost, you can count yourself. I gained JNCIP certification by taking it three times. The other did it at their first or second time. Add training cost and you can count which strategy more sufficient for you (and your wallet :P) .

Actually there is a funny story behind my passing the JNCIP exam. On the test day, I accidentally skipped reading the OSPF area assignment because the paper was hidden accidentally under other paper. So I thought it was my task for doing OSPF design as well. After thinking for a while, I decided to separate the area according to the summarization task I have to do later. And the area name was assigned based on the clue in redistribution task. It was not 30 minutes before the end of exam time that I found the missing paper. Hurriedly, I checked the area assignment I supposed to do. Fortunately, all was correct!

So I feel very glad. It's not only I have passed the exam and gained JNCIP certification, but it raised up my confidence level of my networking skill. I'm still not an expert - though. I think I still need to learn many things anyway :).

Well for you that want to take JNCIP exam, I will share you some tips below :

1. Read Sybex book very carefully and read it until you understand not only the task for configuring the router but the essence of routing protocols.
2. Do lab practice by using M-series router or olive. It was possible to practice almost every configuration in JNCIP using olive. I have proven that since I did lab practice only using qemu since the M5 and M7i lab was occupied by my colleagues.
3. Never feel over-confidence for we are human. And human do mistakes! So always check and re-check again your configuration eventhough you feel everything have been put into the right place.
4. Enroll to Juniper official training if you don't want to face failure several times like me :)

Next target is to retake my soon-to-be-expired JNCIS-ER and to finish CCIP. Well actually since I have gained JNCIP, I think I won't push myself off limits for CCIP. I am only a human and human do need recreation time :). This year or next year won't be a problem for me because I take it only for fun anyway ;).

Enough said.