I finally took my last exam a couple of weeks ago, which made me (finally) a CCNP. I did pretty well on the ONT- I didn’t feel like there were too many surprises. I’ve kind of taken a temporary hiatus in my CCIE prep, to focus on “lower” certs due to personal reasons and time constraints. That being said, I finished the CCNP two weeks ago, and scheduled my CCDA exam for Feb 4th. I’ve almost completed the CCDA book from cover to cover, and have to say, I’m not really impressed. The CCDA would possibly be nice to have if I had never seen Cisco material before (or gotten the CCNP), but in my case, it’s flying by pretty quick. I’ll probably continue on to the CCDP next like most people do, but I’m not sure. For this next year, I plan on knocking out some security certs, and possibly the CCIP, then CCIE written later this year/early next year. I’m trying to place the CCIP material hand-in-hand with the CCIE written. Even though I know some of it overlaps while some doesn’t, I think it would be a good idea to place them close together, to keep me sharp.

So, in the next few months, it’s looking like my plans look like this: CCDA (Feb 4th), CCDP (Mar 1st or so), CEH (May 15th or so). If time allows this year I may take the OSCP course, we’ll see. Ultimately the idea is to hone my security/pen testing skills, then come back around to the Cisco world to go full-swing into things. We’ll see how things actually play out. Hope everyone is doing well..can you believe it’s 2010? Time is flying..