How to get CCNA and CCNP in less than a year Interview with Network Engineer Ogbuanya Ernest

if you follow me on Twitter and you follow live everyday on Twitter you probably seen retweets and posts from earnest Cisco Panther on Twitter you just got a ccmp and he wants to say share his journey with you all on YouTube and I'm so happy to bring him on what's good earnest yo dawn thank you for bringing me on I'm happy to be here yeah it's been a long long time coming in I've been working hard to get to this place like you know it's been my goal to get this ccmp this year and I put in that work and you paid off thank you so much for letting me um be here today hey no problem man you definitely put in that work cuz um I see you not only I'm sharing information by helping other people and doing whatever you can inspire and it's been inspirational to me bruh yeah that's the source of this on a lot of every day it's all about I learned it from you and I mean we I believe that we can only rise by lifting each other no doubt no doubt originally you're from Nigeria right yeah I'm from Nigeria okay so Africa shout out to Africa I so currently you're living in the East Coast and the soccer let's start from the beginning about your journey and what God she went to networking in all that algebra yeah um I went to University of Nigeria and I studied computer science yeah I have a bachelor's in computer science so upon graduation I joined a company that does networking so during that time in the company I was a junior network engineer and you know how it is the senior network engineers they do all the configurations and documentation and they just pass it down to us to do some just copy and paste on the devices and then we set up the computers we run the cables and we join the computers to the demand so when when I was doing all that I I had this passion to know how they come up with these documents that they passed down to us so that was what got my interest and so I started looking I started asking questions I started going to the senior network engineers I told them I want to know what they're doing I want to learn it so one of them introduced me to CBT Nuggets back in Nigeria so that was when I started looking Sudha when I'm copying and pasting something on the device I wanted to know what is what am I what I'm trying to achieve okay that was how I started learning about networks okay I think it's being in that type of opportunity to where you basically had senior network engineers as your mentors so now I know that was some great experience that you got yes yes I was there for three years and ten months man that's boots on the ground and shout out to you but yeah alright so right now you're you just achieve your CCMP congratulations thank you so much ah you're welcome you're welcome could you share your journey to achieving your CCNP how long it took the struggles in everything that you faced along that journey um first of all when I got to the United States um I knew that for me to break into this industry in the United States I needed more apart from the experience I got from working in the network industry back in Nigeria so I started looking for resources to UM start my journey so I remember I went to a school somewhere here in New Jersey to enroll for CCNA classes and ccmp it was gonna be a one-year program and they charged me $21,000 oh the one you curse and I told my wife like we're not doing this so I love I said looking on YouTube then I saw you and I saw Network truck and you were talking about how to do it yourself like get a home lab get the books read so I thought I'll talk to myself I'm Leigh I can do this oh I got genus 3 and I got the booze and that was how he began I started from icnd1 because I remember network chuck advise us to go the to exam part not to do the composite exam so I Adibi icnd1 and I studied for three hours every day for three months so I I started January and I wrote the icnd1 March and then as soon as I've finished the icnd1 I started the icnd2 and I wrote the second exam June okay so it took about it took you about six months to change the CCNA yeah okay but you had a little experience and understanding behind that all right yes I did I did okay so for someone that may be looking to get the CCNA in the same process as you you study for three hours a day how did you take notes and out I did sir all I did the old traditional way I wrote on my books like I wrote the notes with pain and pepper I didn't I didn't go to ditch the way I I just made my no and when it's I'm close to the exam I go back to read my notes so I basically took on the traditional way of writing notes down okay cool so once you got your CCNA your progressions again a year CCNP how do you what made you decide to go onto the CCP oh what made me decide to go ccmp is that um when I was looking at the topics on the ccmp I came to find out that um it was just they started adding a little bit to the check that we already learned in the CCNA so I wanted to know more occurs when I looked at the on the exam topics for the Casas and the CMP I'm like wait I really need to know this cuz it's like we just got the foundation in CCNA so I wanted to know more that's why I decided to go for the ccmp take for example OSPF they didn't go much on stop OSPF stop areas on the CCNA right but when you get to the cmp they start introducing you to the LSA types and all that so all that good stuff made me I wanted to know more that's why I want for the CMP a man I was in the same boat you know I was working in my position in a lotta stuff that I was actually implementing was on the CCMP so once I got my CCNA and I started looking at it I came to the same conclusion and as you it just builds on it a little bit more you go deeper yeah you go deeper desolate yeah it was so but the one thing that I did find in the CCP and I want your thoughts on this yeah it didn't really go as deep as I wanted it to in BGP what are your thoughts yeah I think um Cisco um really took a lot of the BGP stuff and reserved it for CCIE because they go they go so deep in BGP and kyo has a quality of service and the CCIE so I think they have a step-by-step way of getting you into this Technologies so I think that's why I didn't go that deep on BGP because I think bulk of the BGP topics um they moved it to the sea level you know what and I and I could see that because as a network engineer often times that perimeter edge or that where's the when engineer is the CC Aida actually designs the MPLS or whatever you may have so I can understand why you why you would say that but for someone that has a CCNP to be able to troubleshoot bgp i would like you for it to go deeper you know I mean yeah o Muslims personal like I knew when I was preparing for my route exam I took the CCIE cursors because I saw that they left some things out in the BGP like the reflectors and communities you know stuff like that I I did go to a CCI each training video to get some materials and just know more so I was just doing it for personal reasons not really to pass the exam I really wanted to know what BGP was all about I you make a great point about watching the CCL CCIE level videos to prepare for the CCNP that's very helpful what does it was very very helpful because I got deeper understanding and well then when I came back to the CCMP videos when he was when big explainer technology I get to understand him more the light bulb just went on because I already got a perspective of a CCIE level understanding and then coming back to listen the ccmp level I got a better understanding of the technology no doubt no doubt so the resources that you use to achieve your ccmp you want to talk about that sure oh wow my first go to it was CBT Nuggets although I use CQ Nuggets videos I use um irony and I used um Kris Bryant - right yeah Chris Brian boot camp I did that and I got the boots from Cisco press the official saw a guy and then another thing that helped me a lot was on the Cisco PDF like you know the press release they have on the website for the technologies they put now there so I yeah I did added reduce documents and it helps me a lot it's funny you say that because a lot of technologies that we we learn and we read from these books is classically releases it for free yes Cisco calm or Cisco on a networker somewhere you can find the documentation on everything that's listed in these books yeah I I did make use of those sources and it was really really helpful that's what sir now as far as the lab and for these CCMP um I did um it was virtual all the way I did see go ahead he gave me a lot of time like I don't have to worry about cables and devices and you know upgrades like it give me time to just get in and start learning I'm getting devices right now because I really know what to do with them so that's funny because virtual is the way to go yeah for me I had my home lab and I just kept it on all the time so whenever I came home I just the cessation to my network or I consult in so I had DMV dmvpn always running I had my vs s and H SRP always running you know so but when I was on a go gns3 was to go to in order to write how many hours a day did you spend laughing oh when I'm lobbying just lobbying sometimes I go over six hours cuz you know you know it's fun when you're doing a you lose track of time yeah but when I'm just doing like the book studies I go four to five hours every day okay so here's a question when when I was living for my CCNP in the beginning I had trouble because I was trying to integrate so many other technologies that wasn't related to my cGMP like setting up a server or setting up other devices to be a part of my network like when I was working on CCNA security I'm trying to set up ice and all these things that's not related to what I'm actually focused on did you have that trouble yeah I had that trouble because you know when you're looking at job posting and you see all the requirements that the employers are looking for you tend to digress a little bit trying to learn on so many other things so I had that trouble - like going to learn Oh microsoft visio um to do network diagrams like I had I did all that stuff I got distracted sometimes by other technologies so how did you how did you get back on focus and how did you keep your focus because essentially you got your C champion less than a year that take a high level of focus how do you maintain it yeah the way I did it was I had a time line at this guy again um okay his name on YouTube for hey Ozma yeah Jorge um has this 18 months on plan of being a high-paid network engineer okay this whole video so all your time sorry not hora hey al zaman you're talking about a network engineer Academy yes yes yeah he had this a team on some program I he laid it out how you re certifications to get to be a high-paid network engineer so I kind of modern what he he said in the YouTube video I wrote it down for myself this is where I want to be at this point of the year so I had a timeline so I knew I was gonna spend six months studying for the CCNA and then I knew I was gonna put in another six months for the ccmp so I already put the date down I'm when I'm gonna take the exam so I was working on a timeline I took it as a project and I wasn't gonna give room to anything to stop me from focusing on the project and my wife was very very supportive yeah same where I make the dream work shout out to the white man yes sir yes sir a so before we move on from this this topic of the CCP a question that I had that argued I asked a lot is that which exam would you recommend someone for someone first when they're pursuing the CCP um from my experience I think it's better for you to get the route first ah I see so many people go for the switch first because the exam topics are like half of what you see in the route but I think for me I did the route first and after I did around it was like um it was like 50% of the exam was of me like the ccmp because god has a lot of tuppy's like I always say the route is like the mini CCIE or CCMP yeah that's how I try to talk about a route so I think when you if you can put in our work and get the route out of the way the rest too is gonna be breezy for you like the switch on the troubleshooting because they're basically interrelated the switch and troubleshooting I see I see first okay I feel I took the OSI model approach I started from the divide-and-conquer yeah hey that's all sir okay so now that you knocked out just ccmp what's next for you as far as the technology wanna learn and what you want to do um right now I'm focused on learning stuff on automation going on dev net and reading of materials that they have up there and learning Python and how to push configurations to devices and it's pretty fun for me because it feels good something that you can achieve in one month you can do it in in one week with lines of codes so it's pretty interesting to me to learn Python and orders of automation technologies that is out there for free right now because cisco has a lot of fun a lot of technologies out there for free for you to learn so definitely it was really a good experience for me because I'm always there every morning trying to learn new stuff umm shout-out to Preston yeah Preston is putting out a lot of dope information and for those of you that are watching this this interview where earnest what I'm gonna do in the description I won't put a link to Cisco dead net I'm gonna put a link to the dev net YouTube channel because they just put out a great playlist about SDRAM and along with Preston's I think it what is HS Preston that nature Preston on Twitter yeah I'm a shot him I on Twitter yeah CCI he put on a lot of great information one thing I want to ask you about that net have you been on what is it Deb net sandbox da cisco.com yeah I've been on under sandbox and I was able to use the VPN and actually logged in and yeah it's I've been on the sandbox yeah so for those of you that are wondering about the seven of the sandbox a lot of the new technologies that Cisco is grating in the development realm they actually have Sam boxes that you can log in so some of them are read-only and and just just explore it's pretty dope what do you thought something yeah I was up there dear to be looking at Cisco prime ok yeah so I was just looking around and seeing what they're trying to do and achieve with the codes they had up there so it's a pretty good experience for anyone who goes up there to see what is going on in the automation arm Ward because that's where everything is going right now yeah true story and when he mentions about Cole he's talking about automation with api's in Netcom you know right yes yes that's that's what I'm talking about basically like you mentioned I saw you on Twitter was the other day you said when you finish your CCNA the what to do is to take your lab and then use Python to automate everything you've been in your CCNA and that's what I'm doing right now with all the labs I did for my CMP I don't need everything on Python yeah man I don't did to me there's too tight well three technologies right now that are going to stand you the set you apart from any other networking engineer when you get in into the field and when you're trying to get to that next level and that's gonna be Python automation ansible something about being able to write code basically to square processes you know st when in ice Tomatoes top three right there if you can understand those let's Cisco DNA you're gonna be leaps and bounds above other engineers that are look at that you're no you know the good thing about on this automation thing is people I think people don't really understand what it's all about they think you have to write all these codes by yourself having an understanding of what Python is doing because also this course has already been written you just have to import and you know know where to get the libraries and all these things have been already pre done for you so you have ApS you just like I said napalm ya know napalm yeah I let you know it's a lot of good stuff you just have to use the functions that they already created to work on your own code I think it's pretty good yes sir yes sir I was watching a video by I think it's Hank Preston is actually his name I was watching a video he posted on YouTube is said it was like an hourish stream and he was talking about Python automation in the reason why we're going away from the CLI is because you can't do basically API calls to pull information basically when you pull the information from a device like let's say you do show running yeah or you do show interface it's just gonna come back and a whole bunch of information that you actually have to parse through yeah yes rather than when we love when it goes that I centralized and you can go to a webpage to pull information or whatever you could take it from there and the information is already in the dictionary mm-hmm and then the JSON try to make it readable for you exactly yeah well she passes through JSON it becomes a human readable form right and you can just throw it in a dictionary use it just like that without parsing it because I often have to do with regular expressions to get the information out that I want and that's the most annoying thing especially if it's let's say you're working on a 29:21 and then you actually go to like a 2960 or something like that and the code is different so the sign regular expression you wrote on this code is it not working this one not gonna work so at that point you have to compare the devices and you create a list of devices if it's this device then run this code if it's acne you know stuff like that yeah then you gotta have try blocks in there just in case isn't either one so it gets fun man but you learn a lot the more you dive in especially in your position you're in a great position bro Thank You Man so wish your ultimate goal as far as your career um 2019 I'm I'm going for the CCIE I'm starting in January 2019 I'm going for that CCIE credo that's four so that's motivation right there that's motivation yeah I mean I believe I can do it you can't oh man that's all it takes I believe I can do it so imma just dive in a lot so I have faith I can do it hey you you touching on a great topic you know prayer in effect having both of those and then you got a strong woman behind you to force you it's all the way in weep really fast for these things before my ccmp um I had prayed a lot and you know did a lot of spiritual work apart from the reading and the lobbying I had to put God first too because you might get all this understanding and then you get into the exam and something happens and you you don't come up with that pass and you don't know why so I had to make sure every stone is on top it starts right right there that's what's up man I mean your story your journey is inspirational you know following you connecting with you has been a blessing Thank You Man I'm praying that twenty-ninth saying you get that CCIE you get the position that you desire and you become everything and more that you envision yourself to be bruh sure sure yeah and um I want to also thank you for everything you're doing for the community like you know you give you a lot of time because time is something you can't get back and I thank you for having all this time to like help others like reply to text messages retweets like look at what other people are doing and try to support and help and going the extra mile to research on these technologies and passing down information is really really inspirational and I want to thank you for that it's it's not easy thanks man you know whatever I can do to help is what I'm about so I want to wrap up this interview but before I do what I want to you know do is give you an opportunity to share with those coming behind you your advice knowledge wisdom or whatnot um what I would say is one thing that hit me that you said when I was starting my journey is you said that if you do something every day it's gonna become second nature and that's what I've done all this all this year like every day wake up I do laughs like everyday we go so if you wake me up in my sleep I can stand up OSPF EIGRP and when i look at the the config i know what is going on so I did it every day every day every day I kept building on it I kept going back like take for instance my t-shirt laughs I I basically built that that's apology for the exam almost 30 times right Andy yeah I did do that apology 30 times I knew what was gonna go wrong every part of the network so what my advice is if you want to be in this industry you got a lab every day that's that's the way to go when you're reading the books for the understanding of the technology you still got a lab every day is that's the understanding once you do it every day he's gonna become second nature man true story man to start that's it it's it is when I when I understood that and I applied it to my life my life changed yeah you know I mean I'm in a position now where my life is changing again it's going to next level and it requires a whole nother level of understanding and faith yeah yeah all you got to do really is just embrace the journey everything that comes to you know that it's gonna make you stronger and make you better and you're doing just that yeah like I get excited when I'm sitting down with my wife and somebody called me on the phone and they'd be like oh um I'm Lobby no picture sarpy and I'm having this problem and I go I told them everything about hit your therapy on the phone like I go from top to bottom tell them the timers what could go wrong how the fellow what happens like I feel good when I do that because I know in myself that you you understand this technology right now - spit it out on the phone and when I'm gonna text message I'm telling somebody how gel BP works like this stuff inspire me to do more because I know right now because they said if if you can't teach something then you've understood it so I love teaching other people and helping them understand just like last night I was sitting down with Dario you know they were right Daria the other guy is here in New Jersey I think he's true the name is out there like yeah dirt yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll send out with him gonna be he was studying for his own switch exam and we got on the topic of something and I showed him my own way of something the end and he was very glad because he was fast and he was so happy he said he hasn't seen anybody do something like that and he understood it more and he's never gonna forget so stuff like that is what I derive joy from yes I'm trying to impact other people and and learn to from other people Thanks thanks man keep doing it man we need more people sharing our knowledge and just helping the next generation so shut up you man keep keep going brother thanks for man hey if there's anything that you need for me you already know you can hit me up and I'll do my best to help him man and I want to shout out to my mentor our tech lady she know she up my journey a lot Erica yeah Eric we shut off the Erica shut up Darryl shoutout to Calvin yeah Tony and Tony oh yes we're gonna tell ya and ultimate shot out to my wife because I wouldn't be here doing all this own technology stuff without her support she held him down while I was in putting into work amen that's what it's all about I said all the time teamwork make the dream work yes sir so a man we're gonna wrap up this interview I thank you for coming on much if you need anything for me hear me I'm a thank

Channel: Du’An Lightfoot

Views: 12,704

Keywords: How to get CCNA and CCNP in less than a year Interview with Network Engineer Ogbuanya Ernest, A+ | Sec+| ITILv3 | MTA | MCP | CCNA | CCNP, duan lightfoot, du'an lightfoot, comptia or ccna, ccna, The ccna changed my life, ccna routing and switching, college or ccna, how to get a ccna, ccna certification, how to get cisco, #hangoutsonair, Ogbuanya Ernest

Id: LYbUm3eGKuE

Length: 31min 0sec (1860 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 28 2018