JNCIE-ENT Blueprint

I think many engineers skip a very important, yet sometimes uncomfortable step when it comes to engaging on a certification journey. And that step is a brutally honest self assessment of their strengths and blind spots against the official blueprint. In this particular case, I have chosen the JNCIE-ENT. The idea is quite simple: measure, and then close the gaps.

Juniper breaks down the blueprint into the following domains: Automation, Class of Service, EVPN, IGP, BGP, System Setup, Layer 2 Switching and Security, Protocol Independent Routing.(source: https://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/certification/tracks/enterprise-routing-switching/jncie-ent.html)

Logically I think I should attack them in this order: System Setup, Layer 2 Switching and Security, Protocol Independent Routing, IGP, BGP, EVPN, Class of Service, Automation.

Below is a breakdown of the domain and my confidence level.

System Setup – 8/10. Years of hardening SNMP/syslog/NTP in production. These are not foreign protocols/concepts to me, I just need to work on the Junos muscle memory.

Layer 2 Switching & Security – 8/10. VLAN & STP experience across other vendors. Need to add EVPN bridging scenarios

Protocol Independent Routing – 7/10. Comfortable with static/aggregate tricks. Need to practice GRE + FBF combos.

IGPs (OSPF and IS-IS) 9/10. Plenty experience working with multi-area OSPF; IS-IS is all over Extreme’s FabricEngine which I have extensive experience with.

EVPN – 5/10. Need to brush up here. Plan to folow the Day One “EVPN for Campus” guide and workbook.

Class of Service – 3/10. Rarely configure queues and policers. Again I’ll have to hit the Day One library.

Automation – 2/10. Only dabbled in Python for sports data projections, otherwise a novice.

Study Order Rationale

1. System Setup ➜ L2 – Everything else inherits stable syslog/NTP and Layer 2 reachability.
2. PIR ➜ IGP ➜ BGP – Build routing from the ground up, then layer policy.
3. EVPN – Depends on solid BGP underlay.
4. CoS – Easier to test once L2/EVPN traffic flows.
5. Automation – Tackled last

My next post will quickly go over my lab setup.