I always liked the back-to-school time: new pencils, stacks of snow white paper, crisp jeans, and new sneakers that had red stripes. Everything smelled new, clean—ready for my young mind to absorb fractions, verbs, pronouns. All too soon, those first few weeks flew by and then it was business as usual: all my pencils had bite marks, papers all were dog-eared, and my sneakers were scuffed.
The sun took longer to get out of its bed and was all too eager to return to it. The school day would creep by, interrupted only by a kickball recess and a chocolate milk lunch.
What's this got to do with you? Well, school will be back in session if you're pursuing the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) title. The CCNP is the second tier on the Cisco pyramid. The first is the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), and the third and highest level is the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE).
The CCNP requires that you first have the CCNA certification (I recently wrote a review of this certification, which you can find here on InformIT). The CCNP requires that you pass four written exams that cover routing, switching, remote access, and troubleshooting support. Or, if you've eaten your Wheaties and are more than familiar with these topics, you can take Exam 640-509, the Foundations exam, which covers routing, switching, and remote access in one shot and the additional troubleshooting exam.
The exam structure is fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice questions. Exams have between 65 to 75 questions that you'll have to answer within 60 to 90 minutes, depending on which exam you're taking. If you choose to go with the Foundations exam, 640-509, you'll be faced with 130 questions to complete within three hours.
This article will introduce you to the four written exams and tell you how you can plan your own back-to-school experience.
Exam 640-503 Routing
This exam, in case you didn't guess, covers everything about routing. You need an in-depth understanding of routing principles, subnetting, and routing tables. The objectives begin with your knowledge of routing principles. You need to be able to evaluate data that routers use to route packets between networks, describe classful and classless routing protocols, and analyze routing tables.
You will encounter IP addressing and subnetting issues such as using Variable Length Subnet Masks (VLSMs), addressing schemes, and using the IP helper. The exam continues with Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)—how it compares with other protocols and why you'll want to use it. Other protocols you need to know about include EIGRP, Basic Border Gateway Protocol, and IGP.
The objectives wrap up with information on optimizing routing update operations. You need experience with different techniques to control update traffic, configure route redistribution, and use policy-based routing.
As with most vendor certifications, courses are offered to prep you for the exam. Cisco offers the certified course called Building Scalable Networks. At the end of this article, I'll also point you to some self-study materials for each exam.
Exam 640-504 Switching
This exam will test your understanding of switched networks and the protocol and data types you'll encounter. For starters, expect questions on CGMP and how to configure the protocol. The exam objectives immediately "switch" into Cisco fundamentals. You'll need experience in describing multicasting on a switched network.
Multilayer switching is another objective that will require an in-depth understanding of layers 2, 3, and 4—and how switching relates to each. You need hands-on experience in configuring a switch to participate in each layer.
A CCNP needs to be able to define and configure spanning tree, and how to configure and improve switches that participate. You will need experience with connectivity between two devices with a switch block and enabling connectivity from clients to an access layer device.
As with most Cisco exams, expect troubleshooting. The switching exam requires knowledge of troubleshooting and the IOS command set to diagnose and troubleshoot the switched network. Other objectives include trunking and VLAN operations.
The recommended class for this exam is Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks.
Exam 640-505 Remote Access
The Remote Access exam covers beginning Remote Access topics such as identifying Cisco products available to the more advanced topics such as secure dial-up between sites. In-between, you'll find questions on Cisco products for remote connections, including dial-up and WAN issues. Another objective covers the physical process of assembling and cabling the WAN components—which means you need hands-on experience to pass this section.
The Remote Access exam will challenge you on configuring asynchronous connections to a central site with modems. You need to know how to configure a central site with modems for dial-up users. You also need to know how to configure the server for dial-out access via the modems.
When we discuss dial-up access, we must also consider the level of security configured. How will users be authenticated? PAP? CHAP? You need to know both. Included with the security objective is the ability to configure multilink PPP for increase throughput—and the obstacles you'll encounter.
Other objectives include ISDN, DDR, X.25, Frame Relay, backup lines, queuing and compression, NAT, and AAA. If you're thinking that this exam covers much and could be a tough one, you're right.
The Cisco course for this exam is Building Cisco Remote Access Networks.
Exam 640-506 Support
Every network has troubles. You, as a Certified Cisco Network Professional, will be called upon to resolve these issues. This test will make certain you can.
You immediately need to know the differences between connection-oriented and connectionless protocols. (Think, for starters, TCP and UDP— and when one is used over another).
The exam objectives immediately move into pure troubleshooting. You need to know how to troubleshoot common data link layer problems in a campus network. What type of tools will be in your toolkit—both hardware and software—to troubleshoot a routed or switched network? You need to know which tool to use and why.
One tool, the Cisco information resources, can help you fix some problems, and you'll be tested on how to use it. Many of these tips and articles are part of the Cisco Web site.
Because most networks are heterogeneous, you need a grasp of the way different network operating systems talk. For example, how does chatter from TCP/IP, Novell, and AppleTalk share the network?
As expected, TCP/IP is covered in depth throughout this exam. Specifically, you need to address TCP/IP connectivity issues, Windows NT/95 clients and the problems they may encounter, and the tools you use to analyze TCP/IP.
On the Netware side of the house, you need similar methodologies to troubleshoot Novell IPX and its flow through a routed and switched network. You don't need to know the inner workings of a Novell server, but you should be familiar with IPX/SPX, SAP, and communications between servers.
You also need experience configuring and troubleshooting the Catalyst 5000. Specifically, you need to know the Cisco IOS commands to troubleshoot the router.
Other objectives for this exam include diagnostic VLAN tools, AppleTalk troubles, ISDN, WAN malfunctions, and Frame Relay. The associated Cisco course is Cisco Internetworking Troubleshooting.
Creating a Plan
You wouldn't build a house without a plan. At least, I hope you wouldn't. The same is true for the CCNP certification; you need a plan of attack. Remember: If you want to earn your CCNP, you first must pass the Cisco Certified Network Associate exam.
After you have the CCNA, evaluate the four required exams, and determine which is best for you to start with. Then take the exam objectives, and create a plan to learn each in detail. Decide early on if you need to attend the associated class or work through self-paced study material—or possibly even both.
I recommend that you focus on passing one exam at a time rather than hopping from class to class and then trying to pass all the exams. Knocking these exams out one at a time will build your confidence and help you develop good study habits.
School is back in session; new pencils and shoes with red stripes aren't required, but a daily recess is. Give yourself some downtime—but not too much. A walk around the block before, in the middle of, and after a training session can do wonders. Finally, reward yourself after passing an exam or grasping a new, difficult concept. Take yourself to the movies or a ball game, or organize a game of kickball.
Study Materials
Here are recommendations for each of the certification exams covered in this article:
For exam 640-503:
Cisco CCNP Routing Exam Certification Guide
by 
Clare Gough, CCIE.
For exam 640-504: Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks by Karen Webb, CCIE.
For exam 640-505: Cisco CCNP Remote Access Exam Certification Guide by Craig Dennis and Brian Morgan, CCIE.
For exam 640-506: Cisco Internetwork Troubleshooting by Dan Farkas, CCIE, and Laura Chappell.
For all of the exams in one shot: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/10/wwtraining/certprog/lan/programs/ccnp.html.