Service Provider tracks

Hello Guys,

I have recently changed job and also environment. At my last job i was more in an environment where i did the data center for 1 specific client and the campus LAN. So the technology is not different but the approach is.

I am now working for a service provider and the designs are of course somewhat different. I feel like i have a bit of a gap in service provider routing: eg. BGP, Peerings and MPLS.

I was thinking about reading through the learning stuff of a CCNA Service Provider, since most of the gear we use is Cisco related anyways. On top of that i become more and more involved in Juniper SRX and Palo Alto as data center firewalls.

So my plan of "attack" was:

• Get through the CCNA Service Provider data
• Try-out some deployements in GNS3 (see what my system can handle of course)
• Read some implementation guides for BGP/MPLS (if anyone can hint me a few instead of just the Cisco whitepapers).

Then progress on Palo Alto and the designs and lay-out there.

Anyone here did some sort of the same track? What were your experiences? What helped alot?