My CCIE 2019 Journey

After some soul searching over the holidays, I think its time I pursue the CCIE. Step one for most certs I've pursued has been a thread on TEs, so step 1: [check].

I've been in networking for about 15 years, and have been working in a senior role for about half of that. Over the years, I never felt ready to tackle the CCIE due to family, professional career, interest in other pursuits, etc. However, now I'm in a place where the CCIE makes sense. I've came to the end of traditional education with my undergrad, masters, and the MBA I'm 2 classes away from. Plus, I don't see any career progression coming from pursuing any other mid-level certifications outside of the ones I already have: (CCNP R&S, CCNA R&S/Wireless/Security, CISSP). For the past few months, I've been considering pursuing the RHCSA for the Linux exposure, and then pivot into a Devops type role. However, the desire for a CCIE keeps pulling me back into these threads. Even if the cert is losing some of its power, it's something I always said I would obtain, so this is something I need to do more for myself than anything else.

As for studying, I will be using the following:

- A nuc8i5 w/ 32 gig of ram running eve-ng as a vm on esxi 6.7 (INE's topology running on vIOS images)
- INE AAP
- Skillsoft subscription for reading (First four books: CCIE OCGv1&2, TCP/IPv1&2)
- Cisco 360
- Quizlet for flashcards (I would like Anki, but I can access Quizlet when I study at work)

The game plan is to take the written August 2019, and then the first attempt at the lab in December 2019.