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In What Order Should You Take Your CCNP Exams?

sweetynico66 | 01 September, 2008 06:32

The Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI 642-901) is a qualifying exam for the Cisco Certified Network Professional CCNP, Cisco Certified Design Professional CCDP, and Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional CCIP certifications. The BSCI 642-901 exam will certify that the successful candidate has important knowledge and skills necessary to use advanced IP addressing and routing in implementing scalability for Cisco ISR routers connected to LANs and WANs. The exam covers topics on Advanced IP Addressing, Routing Principles, Multicast Routing, IPv6, Manipulating Routing Updates, Configuring basic BGP, Configuring EIGRP, OSPF, and IS-IS.

When you choose to pursue your Cisco Certified Network Professional certification, you've got some decisions to make right at the beginning. Cisco offers a three-exam path and a four-exam path, and you select the order in which you'll take and pass the exams.

While every CCNP candidate has to make their own decision, I'd like to share some thoughts based on my personal experience and the experiences of CCNPs worldwide.

The solid foundation of networking knowledge you built as a CCNP will help you a great deal on your BSCI (Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks, 642-901) exam. This is the most common exam to take first, and I'd recommend you do so as well. While there are some topics that will be new to you, such as BGP, many of the BSCI topics will be familiar to you from your CCNP studies.

The "middle" exams are the BCMSN (Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks, 642-812) and ISCW (Implementing Secure Converged Wide Area Networks, 642-825). There is no real advantage in taking one of these before the other, although most candidates take the switching exam, then the remote access exam.

I do recommend you take the ONT (Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks, 642-845) exam last. This exam will demand you put into action the skills you have learned while earning your CCNP and passing the first three exams. Again, it's not written in stone and there are always exceptions, but CCNP candidates do seem to have more success on this exam when they take it last.

Should you choose the three-exam path, you'll be taking a Composite exam (642-892). This exam combines the BSCI and BCMSN exams, and it's best to take this one first. It builds nicely with your CCNP skills.

Again, I would take the ISCW exam after the Composite, and the ONT exam last.

Whichever path you choose, you've chosen wisely in which certification to pursue. The CCNP is a true test of your networking skills, and when you make the decision to go after the CCIE, you'll be glad to have the solid foundation of networking skills your CCNP and CCNP studies gave you.

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