CCIE DC Rack Rental

hyperSCSI

Hello,

I have my lab exam date coming up in about 3 months, and I'm almost out of rack tokens from INE. I've noticed availability can be hard to come by for the DC rack rentals from INE if you add anything onto the base N7K/N5K setup.

I wanted to get some feedback or recommendations on other companies that do CCIE DC rack rentals so I can look at other options before buying more tokens from INE.

Thanks!

ccie14023

In my experience INE has the best setup, but they really are hard to rent and there are very few options. I also had a horrendous time with their tech support when I had a problem. The guy I dealt with could barely form a sentence and was incredibly rude. Not what I'd expect from them. Alas, there are only a couple of rack rental companies and they tend to get booked. I'm sorry, it's a tough cert in that respect, but on the plus side when you pass you can be glad because you passed one that didn't just require you to fire up GNS3 on your laptop...

gorebrush

I have to admit I don't envy anyone who has to try and book lab time for the DC.

Is your employer a gold partner? You could try the mPEC labs, I hear they are good for DC.

Iristheangel

ccie14023 wrote: »

In my experience INE has the best setup, but they really are hard to rent and there are very few options. I also had a horrendous time with their tech support when I had a problem. The guy I dealt with could barely form a sentence and was incredibly rude. Not what I'd expect from them. Alas, there are only a couple of rack rental companies and they tend to get booked. I'm sorry, it's a tough cert in that respect, but on the plus side when you pass you can be glad because you passed one that didn't just require you to fire up GNS3 on your laptop...

They might be for R&S. Definitely NOT for DC. They don't allow *big* topics of the lab to be configured on their racks like VDC creation, VDC templates, storage VDCs, etc. They also didn't pay for licensing so they ride the grace period to the end and the best I can figure, they go buy another Sup 1 off ebay. Problem is that they don't always figure it out until it's too late and someone has already scheduled their pods. Not to mention the scheduling nightmare... it's is an act of god to get the entire topology at one time. They've broken the rack rentals out in three: Nexus, Compute, and Storage. Finding an open spot to rent all three at once is something I've never been able to do.

Oh and their full scale DC lab workbooks are not compatible with their racks...

When it comes to the DC track, IPExpert is king there. Both on the videos, lab workbooks, and the rack rentals. There's another member here (Joelsfood) who did both vendors videos, workbooks and rack rentals and probably feels the same way.

gorebrush

^^^ - Wow! That's pretty bad.

Iristheangel

Yep... I spent almost $2K on rack rental tokens. Only to find out AFTER trying to book time that I couldn't get on the racks without paying for the workbooks too. At the time, they forced me to pay $500 for the workbooks that were pretty bad.

...I'm not bitter at all.... 2 years later, I barely have used any of the rack rental tokens thanks to the scheduling issues. At least I'll have no problem with using them for R&S.

joelsfood

IPExpert is definiteyl the way to go on DC rentals. INE racks have scheduling conflicts, licensing issues, and racks are a mix of 5020s and 5548s, and you have no control over which pod you get, so even day to day between racks you might have different capabilities to be able to practice things.

IPExpert is the way to go for full rack rentals. For free options, PEC Labs is great if you work for a partner. The Fabricpath lab in particular tends to have good availability and gives you two 4ks and a pair of 7k VDCs to practice Fabricpath, OTV, etc. Dcloud is available to everyone and can get you into a 7k. Labgear is available for Cisco partners too. And of course definitely make use of UCSPE and your Nexus 1000V VSM on your local machine. Don't waste rentals on UCS only stuff (iother than when you're ready to actually practice booting, etC).

joelsfood

If you reach out to one of their sales guys, you might be able to sweet talk them into extending the sale that just ended yesterday at midnight, and get 3 for 1 rack rentals.
Huge 2-Day CCIE Training Promotions 

Try something along the line of "I had to wait on my boss's boss to approve the expenditure, but I meant to get this order in before midnight". Can't hurt to try.

hyperSCSI

Thanks for the responses everyone. I do have access to the PEC GOLD labs, which I've been using for a while now, but the full scale DC lab is hard to come by. Everyone is trying to pass this lab exam before v1 expires. I'm constantly checking between 3 internal resources to get rack time but it's becoming a hindrance to my studies.

I hope the INE bootcamp is better than their rack rental availability. I have that bootcamp scheduled for next month.

@joelsfood Thanks! I saw that promo last night during my research but didn't pull the trigger. I didn't know it was ending last night. I may just have to call them today and see what they can do for me.

joelsfood

Sure thing. Something else you might also mention is that you were looking at more INE tokens too, but had heard better things about IPX. Never hurts to stroke an ego. Plus it's simple fact that their racks and availability ARE better.

gorebrush

Iristheangel wrote: »

...I'm not bitter at all.... 2 years later, I barely have used any of the rack rental tokens thanks to the scheduling issues. At least I'll have no problem with using them for R&S.

At least you are making the best of the situation by doing that!

joelsfood

Of course, most R&S racks are just CSR1000V VMs, so you could always runt he same thing at home for free....

hyperSCSI

Update: I spoke with IPX and they were able to honor the promo from last night!

Ended up getting both workbooks and 300 hours of rack time. I paid for this out of pocket and am planning on using another company which was recommended and referred to me from a few colleagues (which work will pay for). The plan is to use up all of my INE/IPX tokens by Mid March and then INE bootcamp late March leading up to my first lab attempt. If I don't pass then I'll sign up with that other company for rack time and hopefully will be able to find a slot somewhere for a 2nd lab attempt in May/June/July.

It's not looking good for lab exam slot availability though

gorebrush

joelsfood wrote: »

Of course, most R&S racks are just CSR1000V VMs, so you could always runt he same thing at home for free....

Or she could use them to beast through Security.......

joelsfood

Makes sense to me. I'm sure Narbik would be happy to help her get ready.

DPG

Is it just the DC track that INE isn't up to par on? They seemed to get crapped on a lot by some members of this forum. I have had nothing but good experiences with INE using their R&S and SP material.

Iristheangel

I think R&S is their bread and butter. My understanding from the mumblings on their forums that they haven't finished the v4 SP track for 6+ months now. Security is pretty far behind but to be fair, that's up for refresh soon so I wouldn't waste time on it if I were them. For collab, they're wayyy behind. They have collab workbooks they've been promising people for 2+ years now. I suspect Mark Snow leaving is a big reason for the delays. He was their collab guy.

Iristheangel

To be fair to INE tho, with Brian Dennis not around at the moment and mark Snow gone, I am sure it can't be easy for Brian Mcgahan to pump out content, run bootcamp, build racks, get new content, write workbooks, etc all at the same time

DPG

Less demand for collaboration might be the reason. Cisco has been losing market share in the voice arena.
No excuses for the SP v4, though.

Mow

Paid for the Collab workbooks a year and a half ago. Can't get the money refunded. Can't get a different track. 1/10 Do Not Recommend.

Iristheangel

I haven't heard anything about Cisco losing market share in the collab space. Everything I've read in the last couple years have stated that they've regained the lead in the market (2014) and gained more market share (2015):
Cisco Regains Top Seat In Enterprise Collaboration Market From Microsoft - Page: 1 | CRN
Cisco continues to hold off Microsoft in collaboration market - Enterprise Apps Tech News
http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/cisco-widens-lead-over-microsoft-collaboration-market/2015-09-14


Did I miss something? I know I work at the company but I try to keep reading other news sources so I don't get trapped in a bubble

Iristheangel

gorebrush wrote: »

Or she could use them to beast through Security.......

I probably will use the racks for a combination of R&S and security. I still don't see myself using all of them though to Joel's point: The CSRs can be built out at home. I actually ended up giving out my tokens to people in the last year who were close to their labs. A year later, I still have 1437 tokens. :P

joelsfood

INE is looking for new people to create material if you want to step into Mark's shoes and help Brian out (or if you want to create training material on other subjects)

Just saying.

http://www.ine.com/call-for-instructors.htm?platform=hootsuite

Iristheangel

3-4 years to make $120,000? Nawwwww. Plus it would look bad if I ended up getting paid to produce content for a non-Cisco learning partner.

Kinda funny that Brandon Carroll is in that picture. Wasn't he there for all of 2 seconds? He was teaching a local Brandman CCNA course last year for a hot minute and then ended up ditching that to go do Pluralsight videos I think.

joelsfood

haha.

yeah, it's an interesting idea, but I've passed up the chance to teach before, and still not really looking for a teaching job. I'll leave that to the rest of my family.

chrisone

Where did Mark go?

Mow

Mark went to consulting, I believe. It's no wonder if you believe the glassdoor reviews of INE.

joelsfood

Correct, Mark moved back to a consulting role, though for a while at least he was still helping out with some of the bootcamps.

Iristheangel

Mark is the CTO of Lumos now. I actually saw him in the office a couple weeks back for an ACI training. He grew an ACI beard

I think the last I checked, he's deployed the majority of all large ACI deployments on the west coast...

joelsfood

I stand corrected. I need to pay more attention to my Linkedin Update emails.

Iristheangel

I've got this weird angle that looks like I have 2 chins in this photo but yeah... my shameless selfie of myself, Mark Snow and his ACI beard