1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

More good news on the non vendor workbook front. Tonight I got one of my 4000 routers to recognise a 4 port serial card. This means I can cobble the topology I need on the home rack to complete the 4 remaining labs in the Cisco Press book by Duggan and Gorito. I finished Duggan lab 2 back in March. I anticipate starting lab no 3 from this book before too long. Examples from books by Duggan, Solie, Doyle and material on CCO has served me well on the homerack over the last year. I find this a very important part of preparation aside from commercial labbooks which I find need a foundation behind you to be truely useful preparation aids.

Should be back on with lab 'U' by IPexpert tomorrow. Once this laborious lab is finally complete the rack will be reconfigured for Duggan lab no 3. Attempts on Duggan may have to wait until later next week as I have racktime scheduled for IWEB Vol III labs no 2 and no 3.

If I can keep the momentum going through September we may be ready for mock exams sometime in October.

Turgon

Lab 'U'. Got through the BGP section. Educational covering lots of path maniplulation scenarios. Brushed up on community and peer groups. Backbone router peerings are playing up. I need to look into that on the next session.

Turgon

A busy day at work. I managed to get a network design out today. I need to polish off another tommorow. So necessarily need to keep energy levels high on the work front. Busy with the family too.

I have tonight however been able to batter out the QoS section for IPexpert lab 'U' on the homerack. This is going well and I think I will get it all done this week. I have also saved the lab no. 2 Vol III initial configs on the remote rack routers to save time on my next session for lab no 2 with the IWEB material.

No rest for the wicked.

Tonight's QoS included DSCP marking, MQC and rate limiting.

Turgon

Lab 'U' IPExpert - DONE

The mother of labs in the workbook. I have finally worked through it plundering the solutions where necessary as it is so overengineered. A worthwhile exercise if somewhat exhausting. Certainly it leaves me with a better idea on which topics I still need to work harder on. I need to brush up on IPv6 redistribution, NAT configurations and basically prefix-lists and access-lists used everywhere not only in the security topics. My CBWFQ configs need more attention.

Overall though my thinking and awareness is pretty good and any given solution makes much more sense to me than when I started out. It's all practice, practice now to get these things down. Many of the constructs I need to provide a solution to a task are coming more readily to mind. With Lab 'U' over and done I have worked through 34 of the 39 labs in this workbook. Much has been clarified and learned. I shall leave the remaining five labs L,K,O,P and Q for a rainy day. Oh yeah I need to do the 'second half' of lab G sometime as I stopped after L2/L3/BGP on that one back in December last year.

My homerack will now be wired for the four remaining Duggan practice labs in the Cisco Press 'CCIE Routing and Switching Practice Labs' book. I completed lab no 2 back in March and got a lot out of it. I may get going with lab no. 3 soon.

For remote racks it's back on with IWEB Vol III and Vol II, following the path charted on the IWEB website.

Certainly September is fully booked now in terms of my lab preparations. I hope to take on some mock exams in October and then revisit technologies in more detail for the remainder of the year.

Turgon

IWEB Vol III lab no.2 - DONE

Couldn't get a blasted OSPF adjacency working between hosts on the same VLAN. Solution may be the ip ospf mtu-ignore thing. Not sure.

Will start on lab no. 3 in due course.

Home lab has been recabled for Duggan lab no 3. Need to configure the preconfigure the devices including frame switch so I can get started on the Cisco Press practice lab at home.

Turgon

About to prestage the homelab this evening for the third Duggan lab. On reflection the IWEB material is working well for me. The lessons in lab no. 2 were well learned on the job but I will be taking time out to update my notes on some of the solutions, particularly the filtering and manipulation of attributes. A downside was I couldn't get the BGP tables where I needed them. It's vital to get any bugs with the IGPs sorted out before BGP work. On that note I have decided to splinter my sessions with the forthcoming IWEB labs. I shall endevour to get the Switching/PPP/Frame and IGPs working well, including uplink to Backbone routers and then call it a day and save the config. I can then concentrate on BGP work the following day with more confidence in the underlying configuration that BGP depends upon to get the peerings up. I need to concentrate on BGP confident that all the preceding work is ok.

Off to prestage homerack for Duggan now. Lab no 3.

Turgon

Carry on prestaging the homelab this morning and obtaining the materials for IWEB Vol III lab no. 3. I have a remote rack slot later today.

Turgon

Back to back ATM for the Duggan lab configured. All routers and switch preconfigured on the homerack.

GT-Rob

Not sure if you have been on, but IE made a few changes on their member's site. You can now rename your saved configs which is handy. They also have configs for each task for each lab now that you can load. For example, you can start on task 4.1, and everything before it will be done already. Makes it nice when I want to come back to a specific section.


How do you like the Duggan and Cisco Press labs? I always heard they were fairly outdated.

Turgon

GT-Rob wrote:

Not sure if you have been on, but IE made a few changes on their member's site. You can now rename your saved configs which is handy. They also have configs for each task for each lab now that you can load. For example, you can start on task 4.1, and everything before it will be done already. Makes it nice when I want to come back to a specific section.


How do you like the Duggan and Cisco Press labs? I always heard they were fairly outdated.

New features there then. I have still had occasional problems loading saved configs there. Being able to load up configs that are partially complete may be useful later on if I just want to practice BGP and features.

Duggan labs are excellent. It's a fine book. Some of the technologies are off lab these days but you can do the exercises without those and the methodology and debriefings are spot on. I recommend this one to anyone someway into their practical preparations - say 6 months in, and Hutnik and Saterlee for anyone starting out. Solie is still good too. The other day I even referred to Caslow. Some of the older books still stand the test of time even if a few chapters are now 'offlab'.

dynamik

So do these labs start easy and build on each other or are they all pretty advanced for whatever scenario you're working on? I'm curious if you keep working with all the various technologies, so everything stays fresh in your mind, or if once you complete a workbook, you feel a bit rusty on whatever material you were working with at the beginning.

Are you going to be able to squeeze your lab in or are you going to have to take your written again? Keep up the good work!

GT-Rob

Go for the lab! :P

Its funny, that even though the labs get harder (according to the difficulty ratings), it almost seems like they get easier as you go through, since your confidence builds and a lot of things become second nature. After the 9th or 10th time setting up a multi-as BGP network over 10 devices, it doesn't scare you anymore.

I do find though that it is good to mix it up a bit, and keep reading books/watching classes. I think people who ONLY do labs for the few months leading up to the exam run into more problems than people who are always brushing up on the theory.

Turgon

dynamik wrote:

So do these labs start easy and build on each other or are they all pretty advanced for whatever scenario you're working on? I'm curious if you keep working with all the various technologies, so everything stays fresh in your mind, or if once you complete a workbook, you feel a bit rusty on whatever material you were working with at the beginning.

Are you going to be able to squeeze your lab in or are you going to have to take your written again? Keep up the good work!

A good vendor workbook starts off with technology labs which are not in themselves easy and cover a lot of things regarding that technology. You get these done patiently and then start on the multiprotocol labs. Generally these increase in difficulty but when you start out they are all hard. IPexpert lab no 2 for example is just for switching. Looking back after all the milage I don't sweat that now but when I first took it on on 21/6/2007 there was a lot there that was tricky and new. If you got that one completely right under 4 hours I reckon you should just schedule your lab (if that is a fair assessment of your present ability across all technologies).

For me the workbooks are a useful barometer. They help me assess how well I understand a technology. I may then later focus on the technology in detail making notes about something specific that comes up in for example PPP under 'P' in my A-Z binder.

But workbooks are only one aspect of the learning. My library of books get used a great deal and I spend time looking at specifics on CCO. I find an important part of my learning is reflection and you need to invest time in that because a battery of 30 labs in a workbook covers a great deal and if you push on too quickly you will not learn or retain the lessons offered by each lab. This is why I like to mix things up by occasionally dipping into cisco press books by Solie or Duggan and perfoming their examples on my homelab.

You need to get a point where you can basically set *everything* up. At the same time you want to be good an interpreting what you are *actually* being asked to set up. Questions can be vague requiring you to demonstrate that you actually understand how a technology does or does not work so you choose the *right* solution that meets requirements.

It's understanding requirements. Knowing how to meet them (in different ways). Choosing best fit. Verifying it works. Understanding it's impact on the whole (did you possibly break something else? Will a later requirement have a dependency on what you did earlier).

Surrounding all this activity is a dependency on the candidate's knowledge of how things really work. It takes time to improve that knowledge and it goes beyond what workbooks can teach you. Underestimating the importance of this and failure on the part of the candidate to do their own research are big reasons why candidates struggle to get through the lab exam IMO. There is a tendency for people to invest heavily in labbooks and what have you and attempt to clatter through labs in the hope that they are working with material that teaches to the test. This is a mistake.

As for me, my written expires on November 4th. I have come a very long way since I started lab prep in April 2007 but Im very busy at work and at home in the evenings and weekends with the family. I need a few more months of elapsed time to cover the remaining things but will need to put more hours in evenings and weekends to get there. I need those 4-6 hour lab sessions now so I expect more evening and weekend time to go in. So Im shooting for a spring lab date. I will need to do the written again.

If I quit my job I could probably pull everything together in about 10 weeks but I got bills to pay

Turgon

Updated notes on switching, ppp and frame from IWEB Vol III lab no 3. Hell of a busy day at work tomorrow. No rack time planned Monday.

Turgon

As predicted had a full day at work today. Too tired for labwork in the evening. Expect a busy day tommorow at work with designs so we will just have to see how labprep goes this week assuming I get anytime or energy at all to do it. I have an 7 hour round trip to drop a visitor at the airport in London Wednesday evening after work is done. Fun stuff.

Turgon

Filed IWEB Vol 2 and Vol 3 labs in new seperate binders. Updated my notes on trunking PPP and Frame after looking over the Vol 3 labs I have so far completed. With scarce time available for rack work this may turn out to be a reading week. Not a bad thing as I have much to consolidate.

Turgon

A very demanding week at work and at home so far. Friday will be a busy day. There is a small chance of some racktime to start on IWEB Vol III lab no 3 on Friday if I have the time or energy. Weekend is busy with a visit to family to celebrate my son's birthday. Racktime scheduled yesterday but had to be abandoned due to demands at work/home etc.

Never mind.

Turgon

Working week is over. Far too tired to do labs and have had to skip the session I had prebooked. Hope to do better next week after some well earned rest.

Turgon

Saturday morning. Keeping an eye on my son and looking over the IGP section in IWEB Vol II lab no 3 to get the show back on the road. We are away with family for a couple of days. No lab work until Monday.

GT-Rob

I've got #3 scheduled for Thursday myself. I hate that IE charges like double for weekend sessions, but I understand why they do I guess.

Turgon

Once again the presaved configs failed to load on the IWEB remote racks. There are no configs you can preload through the beta control panel for Volume III labs so in my last session I cut and paste all the initial configs for the devices for lab no 3 and saved them to be uploaded today and save some time. But I wasn't able to load them on the rack today.

I have completed the switching, frame and ppp for lab no 3 today and saved the configuration. Let's hope it loads properly when I carry on tommorow with the IGP and BGP sections! Back on course anyway with a couple of hours of lab time put in today after a difficult week on the study front.

GT-Rob

Yeah I did my first Vol III lab on saturday and was disappointed to see there was no pre-configs.

I ended up loading the BASE CONFIG, then going in and assigning the IP addresses. Took maybe 5mins after loading the base config (sets exec levels, loop backs, etc for you).


I must say though, that Vol III labs are a nice confidence booster after doing Vol II labs lol Much easier and faster

Turgon

GT-Rob wrote:

Yeah I did my first Vol III lab on saturday and was disappointed to see there was no pre-configs.

I ended up loading the BASE CONFIG, then going in and assigning the IP addresses. Took maybe 5mins after loading the base config (sets exec levels, loop backs, etc for you).


I must say though, that Vol III labs are a nice confidence booster after doing Vol II labs lol Much easier and faster

Its not a big deal when it's initial configs, although certainly annoying. I didn't save my work today offline so if the control panel doesn't load my halfway lab tommorow I will be mildly irritated

Turgon

GT-Rob wrote:

Yeah I did my first Vol III lab on saturday and was disappointed to see there was no pre-configs.

I ended up loading the BASE CONFIG, then going in and assigning the IP addresses. Took maybe 5mins after loading the base config (sets exec levels, loop backs, etc for you).


I must say though, that Vol III labs are a nice confidence booster after doing Vol II labs lol Much easier and faster

Are you sticking to your January timeline? From the sounds of things you get the opportunity to put in some significant study time on works time between now and then don't you? That will certainly help if you can take full advantage of it.

The times when I can study are pretty restricted with little or no time for any decent learning between 9am and 7pm because of work and family commitments so its looking like March/April by the time I have covered everything properly. I should be starting more intense weekend studies this month and a couple of regular evenings to ramp things up until the new year. I will probably start mock exams at the end of October.

GT-Rob

I THINK I am going to try to stick to the end of January. My work schedule is perfect for studying. I work 12hr shifts about 3 days a week, so theres lots of full days off to do labs. Even when I am here though I get a fair amount of downtime to put in 3-4hrs of reading or watching videos.


We'll see. If I can keep this pace up to the end of October then I am going to pay for it and book the hotel/flight. I kind of want to push the date back a month or two, but I have a lot going on in feb/march next year that I am afraid it would be pushed back to sometime in the summer (which makes for a better 2nd attempt if needed lol)

Turgon

GT-Rob wrote:

I THINK I am going to try to stick to the end of January. My work schedule is perfect for studying. I work 12hr shifts about 3 days a week, so theres lots of full days off to do labs. Even when I am here though I get a fair amount of downtime to put in 3-4hrs of reading or watching videos.


We'll see. If I can keep this pace up to the end of October then I am going to pay for it and book the hotel/flight. I kind of want to push the date back a month or two, but I have a lot going on in feb/march next year that I am afraid it would be pushed back to sometime in the summer (which makes for a better 2nd attempt if needed lol)

That's a great arrangement. Im envious! You certainly have a lot of window there to get lots of regular studying done during the best hours of the day. I wish I could say the same. Get as much studying done as you can and lets see how things go for both of us in the months ahead! I think I will finish lab no 3 tommorow.

GT-Rob

haha ya I hope so. I have about 900 tokens left with IE, so the goal is to use them up. I also have the 3 weeks leading up to the date booked off (unpaid ) to do a last final cram/push.


Time is coming up fast though!

Turgon

7AM. Doing some lab time before work starts.

Turgon

IWEB Vol III lab no 3.

Useful toil completing the IGPS. Calling a halt for today as I want to look at the BGP section carefully tommorow when Im refreshed. Some good things covered in this lab, notably the various ways to inject loopbacks into OSPF overcoming the default behavior of host route injection. Some other things as well; Area 0 loopback interface required, fixed router-ids to get the Virtual Link up, eigrp summary addresses, RIP offset list, RIP no validate-update-source. Redistribution and filtering made sense. Managed to load the previous config with no problems today. Switches required a reload to light up the trunks between SW2 and SW3 and get the BB3 RIP routes over. I find that when configs are loaded on different racks that the IP addresses of interfaces assigned to the backbone routers no longer match with the subnets used on the rack routers. show ip interface brief on the BB routers identified this. I adjusted the IP addressing on the non-BB devices to get the links to backbone routers working, eigrp adjacency + authentication etc.

Looking forward to a good morning with BGP tommorow.

Turgon

7AM. Another early start before work. Time to finish off the IWEB Lab no 3 BGP section.

Last night I prepared the diagram for the Duggan and Gorito Lab no.3 which I will undertake next on the home rack. I looked over the early section, figured out some config and checked the solution when I was stuck or unsure. What Im finding is that the solutions offer many things Im familiar with now and make a lot of sense. So really Im now at a pivot point in my preparations. All I really have to do is keep at the practice until more of these little things get engrained so that I understand things off the top of my head better and I can recall those details.

I have decided to do a Duggan lab next for a change, and to see to what extent the work put in on the last seven IWEB labs has helped my preparations.