12 replies to this topic

[adabbas]

In this post I will try to summarize all I know about who to do the CCVP for anyone considering to start this path. Many has already found some of this information very useful so I’ve gathered it in one post. And I may update this post later on if I develop more opinions:

Time Needed:

It took me around 12 months to finish my CCVP. But I am a newly-married full-time-employee doing his MBA…

You can still finish it in a reasonably short time with good understanding and skills if you are dedicated and ready to put the effort.

CVOICE, GWGK and TUC needs around 3 weeks each… CBT Nuggets for Cvoice is GREAT, and I advice you to go through Knet Express for the CVOICE, GWGK and TUC. Then read the Quick Reference Sheets and go for the exam.

CIPT needs much more time… it took me around two months of hard study for this one… I’ve practiced using VMware on home PC and work Laptop (which I started to carry home everyday for this)… it is not advisable to skim through this one, you need to know this application as good as you know MS Word if you are to succeed in this business.

You may be able to do your CCVP faster, but it should achievable in: 3 weeks (Cvoice), 3 weeks (GWGK), 4 weeks (QoS), 8 weeks (CIPT) 3 weeks (TUC)… i.e. total around 5 months [4 if you do not count QoS].

The Important Skills You need to master in each exams. If you master those skills, then you will be able to do well as a CCVP:

CVOICE: Dial Pears
GWGK: Gateway, Gatekeeper configuration and gateway registration with gatekeeper
CIPT: Is all about the Call Manager; learning the menus, submenus, their locations and what they do… the most boring stuff you can imagine… it is like memorizing where to find ”insert table” in MS Word, what it does and few of the different tables you can create!!! The best way to learn about Call Manager is to do some live installations and test everything (this is the way I’ve done it, and the only way to make some sense out of it).
QoS: I felt this exam is more about concepts than skills, it will tack some time to study (around 4 weeks of hard work) but it is enjoyable…
TUC: You need to become really skillful in tracing logs.

What to use for study:

I did not read any of Cisco Press books for any of the exams; I usually use CBT Nuggets (if available), then go to Knet Express for more details.

When I do not understand the explanation of a slide (or doubt it, because some of them are wrong) I go to the Student guide and read the explanation from there (I anyway listen to explanation from the Knet Express while following it from the student guide as they may neglect very important info and tips).

I hit the dumps as a last step; I hate printing papers (as I hate killing trees) but I usually print AT, I read the question while hiding the answer to test myself... AT provides explanation to some answers which acts as a review… P4S is a last night preparation, at this stage and after all this reading I score more than 85 easily in Virtual Exams.

I also read the Quick Reference Sheets before I do the exam, sometime before or after P4S. I keep reviewing those Quick Reference Sheets every few weeks after I pass the exam just to keep the info present in my mind.

About IP Phones:

You will be surprised how little CCVP has to do with IP phones … It is not the focus of any of the five exams; you get to learn something about them in the CIPT exam, but not enough to get you going in the field for sure, and it is not an objective of the exam.

Practice Simulators

There are no simulators for IP Telephony; kNet Express has some good practical scenarios where you can apply the commands… I imagine you can practice for GWGK and QoS on Dynamips, but I believe there is no need to be that extreme…

You can use Virtual Machines or real servers to install Call Managers:
What is really important if you are going to use VMs is to have fast PC(s) with a lot of RAM and able to run few Virtual Machines to host your Call Managers and Soft IP Phones; this what will enable you to acquire the needed skills for the CIPT and TUC exams and the real life...

The Cvoice exam does not need a Call Manager; all you need for a CVOICE lab is two Voice Routers with FXS Ports (and maybe one FXO). You need to connect the V-Routers together, connect few analog phones to the routers (two phones will be more than enough) and connecting one of the routers to the PSTN using an FXO port will be a nice to have.

Of course, this setup may not cover the entire cvoice exam subjects, but it is more than enough to give you decent practice on the basic concepts.

Exams in order:

The different ”logical” orders and why anyone would chose any of them are:

If you are a CCNA, aiming to achieve your CCVP in the easiest way by building each step on the previous step, and since CVOICE and GWGK has a lot in common, the best way to go is:

CVOICE -- > GWGK -- > QoS -- > CIPT -- > TUC

If you are already a CCNP or a R&S person with exposure to QoS, then it will be very easy for you to start with QoS, i.e.:

QoS -- > CVOICE -- > GWGK -- > CIPT -- > TUC

If you are already or will be soon employed in the VoIP flied, and in desperate need for a crash course to handle the day to day work or get things going then you may start with CVoice then CIPT; as they contain most of what is needed for a single site and centralized call processing model with few sites, then move on to the ”more advanced” stuff. In this case you will find yourself forced to go for:

CVOICE -- > CIPT -- > QoS -- > GWGK -- > TUC

It depends on your needs… but I do not think that anyone will advice any other orders.

What I felt about each subject:

CVOICE the most useful exam
GWGK the hardest to master
QoS the most interesting one
CIPT the most boring
TUC the easiest to do.

Edited by adabbas, 24 May 2008 - 08:04 AM.

[franco64]

thanks very much for the info well worth looking through and should be made a sticky in my opinion. So many of us ask these question's and a clear way would be something like this that people can reference too

great job

[adabbas]

thanks very much for the info well worth looking through and should be made a sticky in my opinion. So many of us ask these question's and a clear way would be something like this that people can reference too

great job

Glad you found it useful, that exactly why I re-organized and posted this info.

A friend of mine will update it soon with more LAB details

Edited by adabbas, 29 April 2008 - 03:50 AM.

[adabbas]

Wow Nice right up

You can use Virtual Machines or real servers to install Call Managers:
What is really important if you are going to use VMs is to have fast PC(s) with a lot of RAM and able to run few Virtual Machines to host your Call Managers and Soft IP Phones; this what will enable you to acquire the needed skills for the CIPT and TUC exams and the real life...

just one question how much ram do you mean when you say allot 1g,4g 8g,16g ?

About 512MB minimum for each call Manager for making it work smoothly (just for learning, not for production environment), you need at least a publisher and a subscriber call manger so two 1GB of RAM for both of them (I think 256MB for each can work, if you are ready to wait few minutes each time you want to click something).

You need at least two Machines (one of them could be your host machine) to install soft IP phones; I used my laptop as the 2nd machine with the Soft IP phone, but you can use a 3rd virtual Machine with 256MB of RAM for that

It depends on who you want to set it, but 2GB on one Physical Machine may get you going slowly, but I believe a 2nd physical machine will be very nice to have especially to the see the two machines calling each other and hearing the sound coming from the 2nd machine speakers. One virtual machine calling another on the same physical machine does not feel very impressive.

I hope make much sense, as I’ve just wake up and feel very sleepy and tired

[Tricon7]

Question - I just bought the Cisco self-study book on Gateways/Gatekeepers, and it's a fairly thick book at 600+ pages. You said that 3 weeks should cover the GwGk exam (something like that), but it would take me a month just to *read* the book and underline pertinent items, much less go back over it or study anything else. How do you propose getting through all the material in 3 weeks time?

[adabbas]

Question - I just bought the Cisco self-study book on Gateways/Gatekeepers, and it's a fairly thick book at 600+ pages. You said that 3 weeks should cover the GwGk exam (something like that), but it would take me a month just to *read* the book and underline pertinent items, much less go back over it or study anything else. How do you propose getting through all the material in 3 weeks time?

Dear Tricon7,

As I've said in my main post above "I did not read any of Cisco Press books for any of the exams; I usually use CBT Nuggets (if available), then go to Knet Express for more details. When I do not understand the explanation of a slide (or doubt it, because some of them are wrong) I go to the Student guide and read the explanation from there (I anyway listen to explanation from the Knet Express while following it from the student guide as they may neglect very important info and tips)."

Reading books are sure a lot better, but not really needed to gain the knowledge or pass the exam. Some people can do it better with CBT, some prefer books.

Moreover, you should keep on mind that people ability to read books is not the same; I can easily finish and understand a technical book with 600 pages in 6 days 10-hours-a-day without pressuring myself. Note that I am not a native English speaker, but my English is excellent for a foreign speaker (according to the TOEFEL few years ago )

Anyway you must also keep on mind what I posted in reply to you here
http://www.sadikhov....howtopic=124122

GWGK is CVOICE2 about 30% of GWGK is already covered in CVOICE, and when I studied for GWGK I went back to some of the CVOICE CBT Nuggets for refreshing.

GWGK covers a lot of configuration examples and scenarios where you can apply Gatekeepers , so studying for it will not be easy… way too many configuration examples that you need to ”understand”: and ”understand” is keyword here, it is useless to try to memorize them.

The concepts and theory is not hard at all, and is almost all covered in Cvoice

So I would say that 3 weeks of study is more than enough for this exam.

The good news is that the exam was very easy, much easier that I thought it will be, and much easier than I was prepared to face.

The simulation was the simplest possible, something that you really must be able to configure after studying well enough: a simple example of a gateway registering with a gatekeeper!!!

Edited by adabbas, 15 June 2008 - 11:37 PM.

[Steven Morse]

HI,

I was just wondering, which one is much better to take? as in the Cisco Website, there are 2 paths:

For individuals using Cisco Unified Communications Manager the following path towards certification is recommended:
642-436 CVOICE
642-446 CIPT1
642-642 QoS
642-456 CIPT2
642-426 TUC

For individuals using Cisco Unified CallManager the following path towards certification is recommended:
642-642 QoS
642-436 CVOICE
642-426 TUC
642-444 CIPT 4.1
642-453 GWGK

I am a CCNP and am planning of renewing my CCNP by taking the CCVP course, but unfortunately,.. I am not sure which path to go,..
Any feedback would be very much appreciated. Thank you all for the guidance!

regards!

[Sappa01]

Good Day All,

The prerequisite for CCVP works as follow:

1. You need a valid CCNA before the 24 June 2009.

2. After the 24 June 2009, you need a valid CCNA Voice cert.

Which mean everybody that got a CCNA cert before the 24 June 2009 that is a valid cert will qualify to do the CCVP, if you get your CCNA after the 24 June 2009, you will have to do the CCNA Voice.

e.g Lets say i pass my CCNA on the 20 June 2009, i will not need to do the CCNA Voice for CCVP.

I done alot of research on this topic, i had to get Torque IT a training and valid testing center to contact Cisco to get the correct information.

Feel Free contact Cisco.

[diya_atout]

In this post I will try to summarize all I know about who to do the CCVP for anyone considering to start this path. Many has already found some of this information very useful so I’ve gathered it in one post. And I may update this post later on if I develop more opinions:

Time Needed:

It took me around 12 months to finish my CCVP. But I am a newly-married full-time-employee doing his MBA…

You can still finish it in a reasonably short time with good understanding and skills if you are dedicated and ready to put the effort.

CVOICE, GWGK and TUC needs around 3 weeks each… CBT Nuggets for Cvoice is GREAT, and I advice you to go through Knet Express for the CVOICE, GWGK and TUC. Then read the Quick Reference Sheets and go for the exam.

CIPT needs much more time… it took me around two months of hard study for this one… I’ve practiced using VMware on home PC and work Laptop (which I started to carry home everyday for this)… it is not advisable to skim through this one, you need to know this application as good as you know MS Word if you are to succeed in this business.

You may be able to do your CCVP faster, but it should achievable in: 3 weeks (Cvoice), 3 weeks (GWGK), 4 weeks (QoS), 8 weeks (CIPT) 3 weeks (TUC)… i.e. total around 5 months [4 if you do not count QoS].

The Important Skills You need to master in each exams. If you master those skills, then you will be able to do well as a CCVP:

CVOICE: Dial Pears
GWGK: Gateway, Gatekeeper configuration and gateway registration with gatekeeper
CIPT: Is all about the Call Manager; learning the menus, submenus, their locations and what they do… the most boring stuff you can imagine… it is like memorizing where to find ”insert table” in MS Word, what it does and few of the different tables you can create!!! The best way to learn about Call Manager is to do some live installations and test everything (this is the way I’ve done it, and the only way to make some sense out of it).
QoS: I felt this exam is more about concepts than skills, it will tack some time to study (around 4 weeks of hard work) but it is enjoyable…
TUC: You need to become really skillful in tracing logs.

What to use for study:

I did not read any of Cisco Press books for any of the exams; I usually use CBT Nuggets (if available), then go to Knet Express for more details.

When I do not understand the explanation of a slide (or doubt it, because some of them are wrong) I go to the Student guide and read the explanation from there (I anyway listen to explanation from the Knet Express while following it from the student guide as they may neglect very important info and tips).

I hit the dumps as a last step; I hate printing papers (as I hate killing trees) but I usually print AT, I read the question while hiding the answer to test myself... AT provides explanation to some answers which acts as a review… P4S is a last night preparation, at this stage and after all this reading I score more than 85 easily in Virtual Exams.

I also read the Quick Reference Sheets before I do the exam, sometime before or after P4S. I keep reviewing those Quick Reference Sheets every few weeks after I pass the exam just to keep the info present in my mind.

About IP Phones:

You will be surprised how little CCVP has to do with IP phones … It is not the focus of any of the five exams; you get to learn something about them in the CIPT exam, but not enough to get you going in the field for sure, and it is not an objective of the exam.

Practice Simulators

There are no simulators for IP Telephony; kNet Express has some good practical scenarios where you can apply the commands… I imagine you can practice for GWGK and QoS on Dynamips, but I believe there is no need to be that extreme…

You can use Virtual Machines or real servers to install Call Managers:
What is really important if you are going to use VMs is to have fast PC(s) with a lot of RAM and able to run few Virtual Machines to host your Call Managers and Soft IP Phones; this what will enable you to acquire the needed skills for the CIPT and TUC exams and the real life...

The Cvoice exam does not need a Call Manager; all you need for a CVOICE lab is two Voice Routers with FXS Ports (and maybe one FXO). You need to connect the V-Routers together, connect few analog phones to the routers (two phones will be more than enough) and connecting one of the routers to the PSTN using an FXO port will be a nice to have.

Of course, this setup may not cover the entire cvoice exam subjects, but it is more than enough to give you decent practice on the basic concepts.

Exams in order:

The different ”logical” orders and why anyone would chose any of them are:

If you are a CCNA, aiming to achieve your CCVP in the easiest way by building each step on the previous step, and since CVOICE and GWGK has a lot in common, the best way to go is:

CVOICE -- > GWGK -- > QoS -- > CIPT -- > TUC

If you are already a CCNP or a R&S person with exposure to QoS, then it will be very easy for you to start with QoS, i.e.:

QoS -- > CVOICE -- > GWGK -- > CIPT -- > TUC

If you are already or will be soon employed in the VoIP flied, and in desperate need for a crash course to handle the day to day work or get things going then you may start with CVoice then CIPT; as they contain most of what is needed for a single site and centralized call processing model with few sites, then move on to the ”more advanced” stuff. In this case you will find yourself forced to go for:

CVOICE -- > CIPT -- > QoS -- > GWGK -- > TUC

It depends on your needs… but I do not think that anyone will advice any other orders.

What I felt about each subject:

CVOICE the most useful exam
GWGK the hardest to master
QoS the most interesting one
CIPT the most boring
TUC the easiest to do.

R u Jordanian
Plz need your help if u dont mind if u r?
i was wanna send u PM but i saw in your page that u want
thanks
if not..i wanna take ccvp course in india or prefer it to take as self study

[hay]

if you can please share your resources such as cbt nuggets for ccvp

[rockers]

if you can please share your resources such as cbt nuggets for ccvp

Type the querry in google e.g 642-426 cbt nuggets free download, you can get the [nofileshares] links.

u can also try torrentz.com and download with torrentz.

Regds
Karthik

[rye]

hi,

do you know where i can get the Knet Express for CIPT1 v6.0 and CIPT2 v6.0?
thanks.

rye

[mobzi]

hi,

do you know where i can get the Knet Express for CIPT1 v6.0 and CIPT2 v6.0?
thanks.

rye

Wherever you get it from, it won't be Knet Express anymore... its gonna be either SkillSoft(definitely) or NetMasterClass(probably).