Juniper JNCIA-JUNOS – Review of Exam/Study

I passed the JNCIA-JUNOS (JN0-101) exam today 🙂 after a couple of weeks study, so thought I’d knock up a quick blog post about the experience and how it compares to other vendor exams I’ve taken.

Firstly, the main reason I went after this cert is that I worked on the deployment of a new data centre network built on the EX4500/4200 range of Juniper switches late last year, and now support it.  Having come from a primarily Cisco background I wanted to delve deeper into the Junos OS and how it compares to Cisco’s IOS.

Up until a couple of weeks ago the vast majority of my Juniper config had been done via the (very polished, I must admit) J-Web GUI.  Now, as we all know any network engineer worth his/her salt uses the CLI, and laughs at those who use a web interface that “my mum could use” to configure a switch with.

So, it’s been my aim for a while to “man up” and learn the Junos OS CLI, and then lo and behold our Juniper account manager offers me a free place on an online fast track course for the JNCIA-JUNOS exam along with a free exam voucher!  Obviously, I snapped his hand off and a few weeks later here we are with the exam passed, and me thinking that **cough** J-Web is firmly in the past and never to be mentioned again.

So, what about the course?  Well, it was a very enjoyable and easy way to study, broken into 3 x 2.5 hour online sessions, and also gave you access to four online lab sessions to hone your new found CLI skills.   The tutor followed the course outlined in two study guide PDF files freely available to anyone via the Juniper learning portal website: https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_fasttrack_home.aspx.

I took the approach of reading the study guides prior to the online course sessions, and then working through the lab guides on the GNS3 website (http://www.gns3.net/juniper-jncia-junos-introduction/) after building my own Olive based lab.

The exam itself I found to be pretty straightforward, and as long as you’ve read the two study guides and had some hands on lab time, then you are pretty much good to go.  The exam does include some general networking questions, so if you have a few years experience or have recently studied for your CCNA you should be fine.  I actually enjoyed the exam as well which is in contrast to previous (Cisco) exams that have all been very stressful experiences!

All in all, I am very pleased to have passed this exam, and in the process of studying for it my knowledge of the Junos OS has expanded massively.  I really enjoy working with Juniper kit, and feel some more Junos related blog posts are on the horizon……

Thanks for reading.

Rich

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