Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) Timers

Friday, August 1st, 2008

In your BCMSN / CCNP exam study, it’s easy to overlook some of the details of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). After all, you learned all of that in your CCNA studies, right? Not necessarily! While some of the BCMSN material will be a review for you, there are some details regarding familiar topics that you [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP / BCMSN Exam Review: Trunking And Trunking Protocols

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

To earn your CCNA or CCNP certification, you’ve got to understand the basics of trunking. This isn’t just a CCNA topic - you must have an advanced understanding of trunking and etherchannels to pass the BCMSN exam and earn your CCNP as well. Before we address those advanced topics, though, you need to [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP)

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

When you’re studying to pass the BCMSN exam on the way to earning your CCNP certification, you’re going to add to your CCNA knowledgebase every step of the way. Nowhere is that more than configuring a trunk between two switches.
You know that IEEE 802.1Q (”dot1q”) and ISL are your two choices of trunking protocols, [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Configuring An Access Server

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

As your CCNA / CCNP home lab expands, an access server such as the Cisco 2509 or 2511 is one of the best investments you can make. In this article, we’ll look at the basic configuration for an access server and discuss how to connect to the other routers and switches in your pod [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Multicasting And Reserved Addresses

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

Ever since you picked up your first CCNA book, you’ve heard about multicasting, gotten a fair idea of what it is, and you’ve memorized a couple of reserved multicasting addresses. Now as you prepare to pass the BCMSN exam and become a CCNP, you’ve got to take that knowledge to the next level and [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Switches, QoS, And Cisco’s Networking Model

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

QoS is a big topic on your BCMSN and CCNP exams, and for good reason. As more and more traffic flows through today’s networks, accurately applying QoS to both your routers and switches becomes more important.
Note the phrase “accurately applying”. You must have a plan in place before you start configuring QoS on [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: The Four (Or Five) STP Port States

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

As a CCNP candidate and a CCNA, you may be tempted to skip or just browse the many details of Spanning Tree Protocol. After all, you learned all of that in your CCNA studies, right? That’s right, but it never hurts to review STP for a switching exam! Besides, many of us think [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: The Core Layer Of Cisco’s Three-Layer Model

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

In this section, you’re going to be reintroduced to a networking model you first saw in your CCNA studies. No, it’s not the OSI model or the TCP/IP model - it’s the Cisco Three-Layer Hierarchical Model. Let’s face it, just about all you had to do for the CCNA was memorize the three [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Configuring CGMP On Routers & Switches

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

If a Layer Two switch doesn’t have the capabilities to run IGMP Snooping, it will be able to run CGMP - Cisco Group Membership Protocol. CGMP allows the multicast router to work with the Layer Two switch to eliminate unnecessary multicast forwarding.
CGMP will be enabled on both the multicast router and the switch, but [...]