Help from Your Peers

No one ever knows it all or has the answer to every possible question, but there is strength in numbers . A group of people often cover each others' gaps in knowledge. An excellent set of minds is available for you to interact with at two different locations:

• www.securityie.com You can register and enter the forums from the home page. Although the site is organized to support those going for the Security CCIE, very few people take that exam without passing the CCSP first. There are forums for firewalls, intrusion detection, VPNs, AAA, general security, the CCIE written exam, and a catchall , miscellaneous forum.

• www.groupstudy.com The Professional group is your best bet at this site. You can subscribe to the mailing list, view and reply to the postings with a news reader, or participate via the message board on its Web page. The group here tends to be CCNP-oriented, but remember that the CCSP was originally a specialization of the CCNP, and you need to understand what routers and switches do (and don't do) to earn your CCSP. This, too, is a good community to work with.

Of course, Cisco can and does update its exams periodically, so it is worth your while to review the current requirements at the time you want to take the exam. You can get there by going to www.cisco.com/go/certification and clicking on the link to CCSP; you'll find a link for the CSI exam itself. Anything that has been added to or changed in the Exam Description and Exam Topics is something you will have to pursue , but the resources at Cisco's Web site are likely to be too many rather than too few. Use Cisco's search engine, and tailor your keywords as tightly as possibleif Cisco thinks a subject is important enough to test CCSP candidates on, you can be sure there is material there covering exactly that subject.