Hello, everyone!
Around a month ago, I’ve passed ENCOR. I ended up burning out so hard that I completely forgot to make a post here 
The information provided below is in compliance with the NDA I signed so I won’t say what questions I’ve encountered on the exam or anything that would breach the NDA.
I talk a bit more about resources like OCGs and NW in this thread, so here I’ll just provide a quick summary
I’ve been studying for ENCOR for around 7 months. I’ve had some personal things to deal with including university so I didn’t really manage to study it the way I originally intended (I planned for around 4-5 months).
Just like with ENARSI, this covers the entire exam blueprint. I don’t think I’ll ever study for a cisco exam without one of these, they’re very useful in terms of coverage. Although some information could have been presented better, I was satisfied with the books.
I happened to have access to this because of my job and I am very happy that I used this resource. They recently have updated their course to match the 1.1 ENCOR version and it’s excellent - more depth, simple explanations, and great practice quizzes. It helped me a lot, especially with wireless and automation
- I’ll talk about this one a bit later
These are practice exams, an excellent resource.
This one (in comparison with ENARSI) had a LOT of questions that seemed completely out of the exam blueprint - IS-IS configuration and such. I always recommend to atleast study the topic a little because these questions were created by people who have taken the exams and they’ve probably seen things like IS-IS there?
It’s hard to tell how they create these exams, something like IS-IS isn’t even related to any of the categories, it’s not even mentioned and seems completely out of scope. I am leaving this just to let everyone know that it’s completely normal to encounter things like this on the practice exams.
ENCOR is different in comparison with ENARSI due to the amount of topics that you have to know. It doesn’t go as deep as ENARSI which is nice but the amount of topics you have to know is significantly larger.
Two topics that will definitely trouble people while studying (and have been troubling them in the past) are Wireless and Automation.
Wireless is a huge topic that spans across 5 chapters in the OCG books. It’s probably one of the hardest topics that you have to understand for ENCOR and it goes really deep. It’s not about just network-related things, you have to dive in into RF characteristics (phase, wavelength, decibel calculations) which was a huge pain for me at the start.
Don’t underestimate or skip this topic, it’s completely possible that it will even take you a month to cover. It’s important to take your time and cover what your resource says.
As for the configuration part, don’t skip or skim through this. Purchase a WLC or run it in a VM, be familiar with the GUI. You should be aware that Cisco has offered two WLC platforms.
The most recent (WLC 9800) is based on hardware that runs the IOS XE operating system, while its predecessor was based on the AireOS operating system.
Make sure to understand both for the exam, as the OCG book states:
While the CCNP and CCIE ENCOR exam blueprint stays platform agnostic, you may see scenarios from either platform on exam questions until AireOS products reach full end-of-life.
If you ever ask yourself with Wireless “Do I really have to know what my resource is saying here?”, the short answer is YES!
This section is often very misunderstood and is often what I believe stopping people from passing the exam. Since I cannot state details regarding my exam attempt because I signed an NDA, I will just provide you with what the exam topics state that people often ignore.
6.1 Interpret basic Python components and scripts
6.2 Construct valid JSON-encoded files
4.6 Configure and verify NETCONF and RESTCONF
As much as some people dislike it, you will have to know Python. These 3 exam topics are being very clear about it. Don’t shy away from Python, make your own scripts, configure NETCONF/RESTCONF, basically what the exam topics state above. You don’t have to be an excellent programmer but you do have to know Python. People often think that just reading about Python will be enough but that’s far from the truth, especially with topics like 6.2 or 4.6 which literally tells you to be able to configure NETCONF and RESTCONF which are, again, configured in Python.
Rene has an excellent Python course which should be moved into the ENCOR course as it saved me so many times on the exam.
I’ve had around 150 minutes to the exam (120 by default + 30 considering that I had a time accomodation which is given to test takers from non-EN speaking countries). I took the test online and had no trouble at all (finally!).
They’ve made a slight change to the exam. You first have the practical part of the exam (labs) and then the theory (multiple-choice questions). So once you start the exam, you will have to configure the labs first which is nice since after you finish all the labs, you no longer have to worry about them.
I’ve had around 6 labs in total and none of them were hard, they were easy and straightforward for me.
The MCQs were also easy, I finished the exam in 50 minutes and had a ton of time left. I personally believe that ENCOR is much easier than ENARSI. ENARSI is often about being practical and finding the needle in a haystack while ENCOR was simple MCQs.
I was running low on time so for the last 2 weeks, I studied like crazy (which is something you should not do!) and stressed out a lot. Never do this, your last few days or even weeks should not include stress-induced studying and rushing this, it caused me to burn out for a long time which is the reason why I didn’t create a post here straight away.
NW has been my primary resource ever since I started with ENARSI. It’s one of the best resources out there for me and has helped me more than a lot. I always started my studies with NW because I always understood the explanations.
The only problem with NW is the small lack of coverage for ENCOR. This is fortunately a small problem that can be fixed by just adding more lessons. I’ll create a topic which demonstrates which topics it lacks and then link it here, so Rene and Laz know.
https://forum.networklessons.com/t/encor-exam-review/58625/1
I would like to thank you Rene for creating NetworkLessons and for constantly creating new lessons and updating the old ones. You’ve made one of the best resources for associate, expert, and professional-level content, not many people can explain things simply like you do.
I would also like to thank Laz for discussing and explaining everything to me on the forums - no matter how deep or unusual my questions were.
You guys are doing an excellent work and I appreciate all the efforts that you put into this. Thank you all so much!
David