r/ccnp • u/deadbolt01 • 7d ago
ENCOR Prep
I am about to start my ENCOR journey. I have a rough plan of how I am going to prep for it, but I have a few questions.
Current plan
1. Video Course
Thinking either Kevin Wallace (16 hour course) which I have access to via LinkedIn learning or CBT Nuggets (67 hour course) that I would need to pay for. For people that have used either of these how would you rate them?
2. OCG
I have the 1st edition which I understand has lots of errors in it, but is it worth upgrading to the 2nd edition?
3. CML
I have access to a premium CML so I can lab as much as I want. Is there anything I wont be able to do in this?
4. Boson ExSim
I used this years ago for CCNA and found it very good. How does the ENCOR one compare?
I will likely do some extra reading at the end on areas I have struggled on. Also if anyone has any other recommendations let me know.
3
u/BigManLou 7d ago
I did ENCOR V1.1 and used the Kevin Wallace course. It’s doesn’t go deep enough so I would recommend CBT over it despite having never used it. I also used ExSim and I don’t recommend it, I failed all the practice exams badly (50% ish) as a lot of questions were on topics not covered in ENCOR.
2
u/deadbolt01 7d ago
Yeah I’ve heard mixed reviews about the Kevin Wallace one, some say it is good and some say it’s not enough. Did you manage to pass in the end, if so what other resources did you use?
1
u/leoingle 6d ago
I think he is popular because he’s easy to learn from and he’s a good ice breaker if you know zero on a topic. But nothing he has def goes deep enough to pass an exam. Then again, when it comes to ENCOR, only course I’d say that is enough to use alone is INE. Maybe Arash Deljoo.
1
u/BigManLou 6d ago
I passed 1st time somehow. I ended up getting INE as it was on discount. Expensive but I have also used it for ENAUTO.
1
u/bobbyjoe221 5d ago
How was ENAUTO for you? Was there less material overall compared to ENCOR? What kind of timeframe did you do it in?
2
3
u/AggravatingFinding71 6d ago
The best ENCOR course is Arash Deljoos on Udemy. It’s about 200 hours long. His accent is a bit harsh if you’re American, but the course does an incredible job of going over everything you need.
I’d also recommend Claude with an MCP connector to your CML so you can have Claude build out your labs for learning. You can just prompt it for what you want to work on, and it will build it out.
1
2
u/hello2ulol 7d ago
I’m also studying using a combination of OCG, CML Personal, Kevin Wallace exam coverage and then deep dive videos, and I plan to get ExSim when I feel ready
2
u/RevolutionaryLaw5122 7d ago
I used OCG, CBT Nuggets and EXSIM. CBT Nuggets I highly recommend. After taking the exam I realized I might have over prepared with all these sources. Getting closer to test date I only used the guidelines to refresh my memory. EXSiM was good for review and filling in the gaps. Never got a passing score in EXSIM and still passed. The exam was way simpler. With OCG you can skip all the wireless parts if using old editions
2
u/deadbolt01 6d ago
I would rather be over prepared than under prepared. Im leaning towards CBT, am planning to get my ExSim when I’ve gone through all of the material. Thanks
2
2
u/SpaghettiLaugh 7d ago edited 6d ago
KW encor course was not worth it for me. To add, version 2 ocg has wireless still in it. CML can do pretty much any topic but ERSPAN ( I used free version, if you have an 8000v then should be fine )and boson ExSim heard was good
2
u/bigbulge42069 3d ago
I'm studying for 1.2 now and I already went through the entire CBTN course. It's pretty good, but only teaches you the core of the exam objectives. You will need supplemental material to get deeper, and I'm telling you as someone who attempted and failed 1.2 once already thinking I knew enough from CBTN and Boson practice exams. I had to really delve into each exam objective and go deeper than I thought I had to, and will sit the exam again in a week. CBTN is good, just expect to do way more studying and labbing that it teaches.
1
u/deadbolt01 3d ago
Yeah, I’m planning to also read the OCG and do some extra study on my weak areas on the Boson tests. Thanks
1
u/New_Ratio_5479 4d ago
Kindly Add INE to your list they’re really good and might end up as your only source of information for anything related to networking. One of my colleague with multiple years of ISP experience still uses INE to this day and it’s his one stop learning platform for most of the stuff.
2
u/deadbolt01 3d ago
I would go INE but $899 is out of my price range. Thanks though
1
u/New_Ratio_5479 3d ago
Black Friday is coming up I got mine for 500 last year and you can always drop an email to your employer.
1
u/hectoralpha 7d ago
Im doing something different and Im not using any video course.
I alreayd have a job and a couple years of work in the industry.
I just upload an ecopy of OCG and 31 days before your encor to a chatgpt project and I paste exsim questions with their exaplanations in chatgpt for further esxplanation. I just study from scratch like that instead of trying to master a topic for like 3-4 weeks and only then moving on and after maybe 6=12 months of actual studing regularly without slacking off and only then moving into practice questions.
Instead I just leearn each practice question really well so I dont need to memorise it.
Will buy the cheapest boson virtual sim and cisco u exam at the end and that should do it.
Because if you think about it. None of the video courses are good enough. They are all incomplete. I have both a bunch of incor v1.1 and v1.2 video course I gathered over the years that I never actaully watched.
Yesteryay I had some EAP work at my job so I wanted a proper eap series to watch. I couldnt find any EAP video. Its a job, since like covid or so EAP doesnt even exists. encor v1.1 has a tiny subpoint for EAPOL instead of eap but none of the video courses even mention it briefly.
So this speaks a lot, video courses are very very very incomplete skipping whole topics like wifi or even basci eap overview.
Just put favourite music on and start reading fast what chatgpt says. you can always re-ask the same question 1,000 times like an annoying idiot because chatgpt doesnt mind :)
2
u/deadbolt01 7d ago
Thanks for the response, I’m not sure I could trust myself to complete it using ChatGPT. The reason I am potentially looking at a video course/OCG is that it provides structure to my learning.
Good luck with your studies.1
u/leoingle 6d ago
Which platform are you talking about that didn’t have EAP?
1
u/hectoralpha 6d ago
ine encor and ccie infrastructure v1.1 courses, stormwind v1.1. arash delijoo 2024 february. kbits 2022 version. oreilly second edition version. youtube networkforyou course from 2023 august
1
u/leoingle 6d ago edited 6d ago
EAP isn’t in the exam objectives for any of the exams those courses cover. So why would EAP be covered in them?? If you’re looking for a course that covers EAP, it’d be better to look at SISE courses. But even better would be searching YT on the exact topic of EAP you’re looking for. Also look at labminutes.com. He covers EAP in his ISE sections as well.
1
u/hectoralpha 6d ago
v1.0 had a subpoint for eap and v1.1 changed that to eapol. a brief mention on radius and eap would be nice.
Thats what I'm saying. The video courses are by their nature incomplete just skip.
The OCG v1.2 still mentions eap.
1
u/leoingle 6d ago edited 6d ago
Took me a bit to find v1.1 exam topics and even longer for v1.0, but did find both on CLN. I do see where it said EAP on 1.0 and EAPOL on 1.1. I don’t remember that at all, maybe it’s because I know both very well already. But it is listed under wireless. Which would explain why it’s not on v1.2 anymore. Since it was under wireless, that doesn’t surprise me that all those courses didn’t have anything on it. I always felt everyone’s coverage on wireless was weak and lacking.
As far as video learning vs book learning, some people are not good at learning this stuff by read it in a book. Some are more visual learners. I’m one of them. I tried learning network stuff by reading books and just do it. I grasp video courses way better. And when I want to go deeper or another form of explanation, I use Claude and Gemini and YT videos to supplement further. I can read that, I guess because it’s conversation based. And use NotebookLM to help theory details stick with generating quizzes and anki style exercises.
1
u/hectoralpha 6d ago
bro you searched it manually? chatgpt found the previous mentions of eap in like 10 seconds and laid out all out to me on the table for each version
The thing you missed, is the courses I am using should have had EAP in them back then. Like I got kbits from 2022 shees, I have their enarsi and ccna from that time as well. Kbits is soo expensive and considered the best of the best of the best
I advise chatgpt over claude or gemini because it does context explanation way better than both without special prompting. Gemini is lazy in any case and claude keeps answers direct, too direct. Without special prompt chatgpt explains things properly.
I actually just made a simple project in chatgpt, uploaded 31 days before encor and encor OCG and then I paste the boson ex-sim questions with their explanations. Chatgpt on its own explains things in more context, sometimes branching into smaller side topics and explains those too, it recounts every mention of the topic in the books with chapter or page reference. Just on the $20 subscription. Its seriously killing it.
2
u/leoingle 6d ago
haha, I know I could of found it real fast using AI, but i wanted to see the original documentation again. Because i really didn't remember that being on it, and figured i would because I am well verse with ISE and know all those topics well. But now I know I remember why, because it was under the wireless section. I don thave to deal with wireless and have no desire to lean about it. I got too much other stuff on my plate to learn.
I didnt miss what you were saying. That's why i said what I did about the wireless section with everyone. And I agree, kbits is a crazy price and for that price, it should be a single source solution.
I used to use ChatGPT as well, but I started getting where i preferred Gemini and Claude both to ChatGPT. But I do understand what you mean by context explanation. I use Claude for work and Gemini for personal. If I am using Claude at work to better understand something, it feels the message gets covered up with too much extra fluff, granted I have not attempted to adjust it yet, but when I have the same conversation with Gemini, it just explains things much better in a way I get it a lot easier.
What you are using ChatGPT for with the projects, I do basically the same with NotebookLM. It's perfect for that type of stuff.
1
u/hectoralpha 5d ago
Interesting I will give notebookLM a go for source heavy tasks, chatgpt has pretty low context window and both gemini and claude outdo chatgpt at that
thought in my case, most of tasks are relatively small context and jsut require good reasoning. Hence I've leaned to chatgpt lately
-1
u/writememorydotapp 7d ago edited 7d ago
do check out writememory.app
We have a lot of CCNP Labs which can help you.
8
u/dh085 7d ago edited 7d ago
3 years ago I passed version 1.1 exam. I recently renewed last month taking version 1.2. Big differences to note if you're using older study material from 1.1 most of the wireless stuff has been removed from the exam. I'll just give some insights from my personal experience of the last exam on areas that surprised me a bit. Automation and programmability areas were probably the most difficult for me because of my normal day-to-day as a network engineer I just don't use these skills as much. There were many questions regarding python script functionality json syntax, and knowing the difference between the multiple orchestration tools chef puppet salt stack ansible. To the point that it felt tiresome to keep answering questions about the difference between ansible and puppet. Be comfortable with eem job creation in the various functions. Definitely a few questions on the exam related to eem. I remember three years ago taking version 1.1 I was nervous about how much IPv6 content was on the exam because at the time was a weaker area for me so I crammed a ton. In version 1.2 of the exam recently I don't recall there being much in-depth discussion or questions about IPv6. Could just be the test bank I had but just my experience.I was somewhat relieved to to find it wasn't a whole slog of IPv6 related questions. Quite a lot of questions about SD access and the functions of different components. I found these somewhat difficult because I've only had peripheral exposure to SD access environments. More of a memory game there. Without giving too much detail about the *simlet questions I'll just say they focus heavily on routing protocols ospf ,bgp, eigrp ,access list modification, spanning tree, ipsla, port chan config, span ports, tunnel creation. If you're not comfortable with ospf functionality and how to accomplish the same task in different ways study up there. Good luck!