My CCIE Data Center Thread

21ctl

lol, don't worry about the missed getaway, the job of passing shall overwhelm you. if only CCIE knows what people sacrifice to study and lab!!!

Legacy User

Good luck for round 2! 1 point difference from passing means you misinterpreted one question. So you got this in the bag.

ande0255

Looking forward to your pass, worked long enough towards it, you definitely deserve it. Your perseverance to this cert keeps me hopeful I can work my way through the CCNP, and eventually take on the CCIE R/S some day when the time is right

Krones

Thank you for continuing to share your progress with us. really inspirational. Also great to hear Mrock is doing well - was always impressed by many of his posts. I hope you feel better and not that you need it but good luck on your test.

fmitawaps

Good luck for tomorrow! I am confident you can get the pass.

spiderjericho

Good luck, Iris. You're going to knock it out. You're a motivator, Semper Fi.

gadav478

Today's the day! Best of luck! Thanks for sharing your experiences with us by the way, the insight you provide is very illuminating and motivational.

CCIE # .......

mik.net

Good luck with the exam, hoping for the best

Iristheangel

Passed

And so did Mrock.

Mow

Congratulations to both of you!

Network_Engineer

Congratz!!! What are you doing for a CCIE celebration?

Iristheangel

LoL. I'm flying home, cleaning my house this weekend, getting caught up at work, starting that "Zero to Hero" security class... and probably start gameplanning my CCIE R&S which I plan on taking next

mistabrumley89

Congrats!!!

coffeeluvr

Congratulations!!

fmitawaps

Congratulations on the pass! Time to schedule that meeting with the boss to discuss your $30,000 pay raise!

Dieg0M

Congrats! Welcome to the club

JoJoCal19

Congrats on your amazing accomplishment Iris! Did you tally your hours on prepping for the written and labbing for lab portion?

Iristheangel

Nope. There was NO way I was going to be able to keep track of that. One thing that kept me from becoming super anti-social or giving up was Routergods. Most of the guys on there are studying for their R&S but we kept each other company on Hangouts or Slack and met up at local bootcamps. Was fun. Now I get to join them on R&S since I was the only one in the group going for Data Center

kj0

Congratulations. Was it similar to your first take?

fmitawaps

Yes, I am curious to hear how similar this attempt was to the first one. How much of the subject matter you were tested on was the same, and how much was different.

Iristheangel

Yes it was. Without breaking NDA, there's several ways of achieving the same thing in the exam or in the DC world. They might be different commands but down to the protocol level, it's the same. Even Cisco docs will say doing it both of these ways accomplishes the same thing. I got 60% on the storage section the last time and there was a task where I could have used one method but I used the other. The first time I took the lab, I did my default method of doing it that I always do. The second time, I read the question very very carefully and one single word in the task indicated that it wanted me to do it the other way. The math made sense that if I missed that questions, I would have gotten 60% on that section. Doing it the other way this time, it seemed to have made the grading script gods happy.

Also, I got done super early again and I wasn't feeling very secure about Nexus 1000v like the last time. I was so fried by the time I got out of the last lab that I didn't really remember what they were asking me to do so I didn't really do much to improve myself there over the last month. Since I wanted to wait until Mrock was done, I start killing time and reading config guides for 1000v. While playing around, I came across the answers to two things I didn't know on 1000v and I probably earned 5 points on that.

Since I passed, I don't truly know what my score is. I probably earned 8 points back on storage which would have brought me up to an 87% (7 points above a pass). if I got those other 5 points, I would be at a 92%. I don't think I did anything different in terms of Nexus or UCS. I probably just took my time and made sure everything was correct but I couldn't see anything on a technical level that I did wrong in either of those sections.

Iristheangel

Also, Mrock and I got really nervous going in there. Some guy was there for his 5th attempt in 3 years on the DC lab. We were both like "ffffffffff....."

I was a bit more worried about Mrock because he came out thinking he failed and I don't think he was studying as long as I was but was SUPER happy to hear that he passed. That's his second CCIE that he passed on the first go. I didn't think I failed but I was unsure since I felt so sure the last time. Honestly, if I had failed this time, I honestly wouldn't have known what to improve on or what I could have done differently with UCS, Storage and Nexus.

I will say this... the IPExpert Lab workbooks? Way harder than the lab itself. I think the hardest part of the lab was the vague wording but the technical tasks aren't as crazy as the Rick Mur and Jason Lunde workbooks. You just need to understand the protocols and read through the BS. If someone doesn't understand how SAN, NX-OS or UCS works and read some of these questions at face value, you'll configure yourself into failure. There are times you have to stop reading key words in a sentence in that exam and actually force yourself to read the wording of the entire sentence... I found quietly sounding out the entire sentence made me stop focusing on the key words that are meant to confuse and actually focus on what they were asking.

ninjaturtle

qamar115

Congratulations

joetest

I want your dedication. I still remember your CCNP R/S threads from not long ago. Congratulations - you deserve it.

Perhaps one day I can get it too.

Zorodzai

Congrats...definitely well earned.

gorebrush

Well earned on both counts. Congratulations to you both, and welcome to the club. Now, who is going to join the 2nd CCIE club? I've now finished upgrading my ESX lab so I've got the horsepower for Security. Starting tomorrow at work as I'm on the weekend shifts. If all goes well there's no problem with potentially clearing 40 hours of reading. Optimistic but I am lagging.

Well done

MrAgent

Congrats!

Mooseboost

Congrats! The pass is well deserved.

d4nz1g

Congrats!