My CCIE Data Center Thread

Shoe Box

Speaking as someone who has only taken the Cisco CCT so far, the only suggestion I can give is - study the not-so-obvious things. Cisco loves to throw in oddball questions and situations and more than one right answer in multiple choice questions. I would think that all the obvious, more general CCIE knowledge won't be tested too much, it is the random, obscure, things you will see once in 5 years stuff that they love to throw on tests.

If you don't pass the first time, the test taking process will be when you really get to see what the CCIE is like, and what needs studied for round two.

Iristheangel

I'm actually not worried on a technical front. I think i'm pretty strong in all of it except maybe N1Kv which I just haven't put a lot of time into. I'll throw a few hours at it in the upcoming week. If I end of failing, it's because I didn't read the instructions closely enough. I have had a couple CCIE DCs watch me lab via Webex and throw things at me on the fly and I handled it on the fly easily. According to them, I'm more than ready so that makes me feel good.

JoJoCal19

Iristheangel wrote: »

I have had a couple CCIE DCs watch me lab via Webex and throw things at me on the fly and I handled it on the fly easily. According to them, I'm more than ready so that makes me feel good.

Wow that's a huge advantage and great resource to have. I wonder how many others try to do something like this. Good luck on your lab attempt!

gorebrush

If you can't pass this first time, then I'll be amazed. You've worked hard. Go get it.

Iristheangel

I honestly can say that if I don't pass, it's going to be an interpretation issue - not technical. I guess the moment of truth will be on Monday!

bharvey92

Good luck, sure you've got this in the bag!

Dieg0M

Good luck, I'm sure you will do well. Make sure you manage stress, sleep and all other non-technical aspects properly too and you will have no problems passing it.

Mow

Good luck!

jamesp1983

Good luck.

gorebrush

Indeed good luck for Monday, I will be looking out for your update on Tuesday given the time zone difference (UTC+0100 here)

21ctl

all the best in your exam tomorrow

OfWolfAndMan

Good luck! We're rooting for you!

Iristheangel

Thanks for all the good luck I'm here in San Jose and about to head out to a spa day. Then going to drop by the testing center so I know the route later.

I'll let you guys know how it went as soon as I get the results either tomorrow night or Tuesday

gorebrush

Top tip - don't refresh the CCIE portal. It's pointless. When you get your e-mail - that's when the result is in. Mine came at 11:40PM that day.

Iristheangel

Funny you should say that. My friend just passed but there was an issue where he never got an email and assumed he failed. He didn't know until he logged in the portal to reschedule and found a CCIE number instead

Mooseboost

Good luck! I have no doubt that you will knock it out of the park, especially with how well you are prepared.

snadam

Best of luck!

gorebrush

Iristheangel wrote: »

Funny you should say that. My friend just passed but there was an issue where he never got an email and assumed he failed. He didn't know until he logged in the portal to reschedule and found a CCIE number instead

And I thought it was bad enough when I locked myself out of the CCIE portal............ holy crap,

chmod

Good luck irishangel, you a re a very smart an determined girl you should do well on that test.

Iristheangel

Well... I got out of the test a couple hours ago. I feel good about it but we will see... Waiting now.

d4nz1g

And the number is....

ninjaturtle

I keep hitting F5!

Iristheangel

Still waiting

I am finally at my computer so I can draft out a longer reply about my exam experience.

It was fascinating actually taking the lab. There were a couple other candidates there and only one other guy was taking the CCIE DC. He seemed a bit nervous because I guess he failed a couple times previously and heard that the lab had changed. I have no idea whether that was true or not considering it was my first time taking it but given the fact that he looked like he had been gut punched around lunch time, I would say he was not having a good day.

So some of the things I found really worked for me in the lab:

1) I did not read the whole exam first. I know that's the advice a LOT of people give but I would never have remembered all the details and I would rather write everything in notepad and go section by section. This actually ended up working pretty well for me I think.

2) Verify at the end of every section. It's easy to feel rushed and want to blow past everything and wait until the end to troubleshoot. The problem with this is that in my own personal labbing, I found that this added complexity and more layers to my troubleshooting. Breathe. Verify. Make sure it's done right the first time. If it isn't, troubleshoot. If it starts to take too much time, then make a note on the scratch paper and come back to it.

3) Focus on what matters and dedicate most of your time/troubleshooting to that. It makes no sense to spend 1+ hour troubleshooting a topic that's only 5% of the total exam. Come back to it later when you have the big points nailed.

4) Take what is being asked of you literally. Don't add or subtract from it. Don't rush. Don't add things just because "best practices." If they ask you to make something work, remember the dependencies that make it work.

5) Copy and Paste is your friend And you CAN copy and paste. There's no reason you should get docked points for a whole section because you didn't capitalize a vlan name correctly. If the instructions provide a name, WWPN, IP address, subnet mask, etc and you can copy and paste it, remove the potential human error and copy and paste that bad boy


Hope that helps the rest of you guys out. I can't tell you if the above was good enough to get me a pass yet but I'm optimistic. I walked out of there after double checking my configs, with everything up, with everything spelled correctly, and to the letter of the instructions. There were only two things that were semi-ambiguous and even with failing those two little things, I think I'd still be ok. Hopefully this optimism pays off. It's been a long 1 year and 10 months of studying this bad boy. I'd like to break up with data center and start seeing route and switch again

kohr-ah

I think you've got this. We all look forward to seeing your numbers and you've been an inspiration to many on this forum.

Shoe Box

How was your time management? Did you have time to spare or did you need every last minute? I read a lot of CCIE lab stories where people run out of time. Was the lab what you thought it would be, or were there many surprises?

I just took my VCA6-DCV for the 3rd time the other day, and at $120 for the test, my heart was pounding and I was breathing hard and feeling very stressed, I can't imagine what would happen to me if I ever tried to take a CCIE!

Didn't CCIE numbers just go over 60,000 recently? Let's guess at what your number might be. I pick #60163. I think you got this.

Iristheangel

The CCIE #s are in the 50,000s, not 60,000s. Time management wasn't an issue. I was done with a couple hours to spare.

Shoe Box

Oh ok, then I change my guess to 50163. And a couple HOURS to spare? I don't think I've ever heard of someone finishing with HOURS left!

Iristheangel

Happens all the time. Depends on the time management and what the person is doing or if they fall into time sucks that eat up a chunk of their time. I internalized all the advice I got about time management and tried to approach it methodically. There were a couple of things I could definitely see doing that to a person in the test but I made sure that I memorized the location of certain docs on the DOCs CD instead of potentially shooting myself in the foot with an order-of-operations issue.

jamesp1983

I can't wait to hear the result.

OfWolfAndMan

The suspense is killing me...