1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

I will look over the second half of lab 6 today, make notes and call it quits. That's a lot of notes across 6 major topics made for the first 12 labs in IWEB Vol II. It's enough. the remaining 8 labs can be looked over inbetween mock exams. With lab 6 done I need to organise all the notes by topic and spend a couple of days revising one topic at a time. After that it's a review of my layer2/3 notes made from the IWEB Vol III labs then take a punt at the mock exam. I have a rack session schedule the day beforу the mock so i may just batter out Lab 7 during that session to work on my speed. A lot of work put in the last few days.

Turgon

lab 6 latter sections reviewed. Notes completed across 12 labs now in IWEB Vol II. Whew! RMON came up again. I have work to do on the security sections that's for sure. Everything else seems to be coming together much better after this review.

Time to go over all those notes now..

Turgon

Security topics today to revise.

Turgon

What with helping with some home improvements and a visit by a family member for lunch it's been quite a busy day indoors today. Still I have managed to put time in going over the security questions across 12 Vol II labs and make consolidated notes. A useful day on security topics. It's mostly ACLs. I feel better about this topic now. Will need to look over some more dynamic lock and key examples and autocommand. One topic a day is the way ahead. It will be multicast tomorrow as Acls are used there too for many things.

Turgon

Multicast looked over. Things of note..watch out for mroute. Various filtering techniques. Will take some brief notes then a short break before looking over the QoS notes I made.

Turgon

Finished off the review of the QoS sections and made consolidated notes. Same for Ipv6. Then a quick review and more cribbing from the notes I made for BGP, OSPF, EIGRP and RIP when I looked over the 10 IWEB Vol III labs over a week ago. I think I will look over the questions and solutions to the switching/frame and ppp parts of those labs again and make some notes.

This process has been helpful, I have been at it for over a week now and things really make more sense across topics that had gone off the boil. I have three practice rack sessions ahead in the next few days before my first mock exam on the 31st. I think I will use the practice sessions to just batter out Vol II labs 7 and 8 if time allows, using the solutions to just get them in. I will work over all the verification steps in the solutions guide. Important to get some speed down in the practice sessions and concentration levels right before the first mock.

More L2 notes now from IWEB Vol III labs and solutions..

Turgon

Ok. went over all switching, frame and ppp tasks and made those notes. Notes complete for all tasks in IWEB Vol III labs, 10 of them, and all post BGP tasks for the first 12 labs in IWEBVol II. It's been a lot of work but a great aide memoir and I have straightened a lot of useful things out.

Turgon

More revision of notes today. Further consolidation of details across topics.

Turgon

i think I have a practice rack session booked today. Will check that out, and if so go over IWEB vol II lab no 7.

Yep rack session underway. 112 lab - IWEB Vol II Lab no.7

Turgon

A good session. Overall did quite well. Some useful things on distribute lists learned and other things. All L2 tasks and RIP done. Will do OSPF and BGP next session. Private VLANs I need to work on.

Turgon

Some racktime has opened up so I will press on now. The OSPF section seems fine except for a couple of tricks. Redistribution looks involved. The BGP filtering has me foxed for the moment. I may need the solutions and use that as a tutorial for this one.

Turgon

L3 etherchannel came up with ip subnet zero applied on the switches, avoiding the usually bad mask problem. OSPF done. redistribution done. A short break before the BGP adventure. Redistribution was involved, perhaps to involved. The offset-list difference across the two interfaces on the RIP router is the main lesson here. A lot of tagging going on and default route appearing on a switch not listed in requirements. TAGs needed to avoid mutual redistribution hassles. Distance command used on a couple of routers to prefer RIP over the P2P to get to prefixes rather than the OSPF routes over frame relay. Not specified but perhaps *best*. Looking over the solution this redistribution solution seems too labour intensive for a couple of points. Seems unlikely I would come up with all that. If unlikely to get optimal path selection configured properly simply go for redistribution avoiding loops. You would lose those points but its imperitive to get things talking to one another before BGP tasks.

Turgon

112 lab done. For BGP the most striking feature was the use of unsuppress map. Quite clever.

Turgon

Illness forced me to abandon yesterdays rack session. On the mend now so it's lab no 8 this morning.

Turgon

Switching and WAN all done. Switching went really well and MST came up which I think I have down now. Multilink PPP over Frame Relay the high light on the WAN section. Guests have arrived here after travelling some distance and food is being prepared. It would be rude to lock myself away continuing with anymore prep for now so I'm going to have to abandon the rest of the session. I can look over the lab notes for the IGP and BGP sections this evening. Off for a barbecue now.

Turgon

113 Lab done. Upto and including the BGP sections as planned. Took an evening rack session that opened up to complete it. Overall went quite well. I need to work on the filtering and advertisements for preferring ways into the AS.

Turgon

114 Lab Mock.

Whew. Well I finished a mock exam. Overall Im fairly pleased although I simply ran out of time to do the post BGP tasks much justice today. I must have left 27 marks on the table from QoS onwards! Still Im quite pleased with my core work today, and with more practice I should do much better when I sit the next mock exam. It's good to just finally get through one. Today the DocCD came in handy but not *very* handy. Going into this I knew I needed much more work on the post BGP tasks i.e Multicast/QoS/IPv6/Security/System Management/IP Services..and so it proved today. There was a lot there that had me stumped. With no partial credit I think it unlikely I would have got many of those 27 marks in even if I had more time at it. I need to work hard on them the next few months. I left some switching questions on the table as well, broadcast filtering and such. BGP was ok. IGPs, Frame, switching generally. The rest we will work on. Some aspects of the work today i am pleased with, I worked quite well until I ran out of gas after about 5 hours in. I lost some valuable time on a PPP issue which I got resolved. At least Im not out the price of the lab exam. Some of the preference tasks left me foxed, and the tracking things. I will certainly work hard on those. Overall not too bad considering the lack of regular hands on practice of late. I have daily rack sessions booked now for the next week so it will be good to see what marks I can crab in my next mock. Now some overdue time with my family tonight. They have been very patient while we have been on holiday the last couple of weeks but they have hardly seen me all day. I hope I can shake off this horrible chest cold soon as well. It's not been fun the last three days having a hacking cough every 15 minutes!

Turgon

More momentum today as I work specifically on QoS on the remote racks for a few practice labs.

Turgon

Worked over all the MQC and FRTS sections in labs 9 and 10 this afternoon. A very useful session on QoS that.

Turgon

Polished off QoS today with the Boson questions. revisited the AF to decimal conversion which I forgot. Also looked over the Ipv6 chapter in Odom paying particular attention to Automatic 6to4 tunnels.

Turgon

More racktime today. The second half of lab no 7 to work on those weaker areas.

Turgon

A very useful session carefully covering Multicast, IPv6 and QoS sections in Vol II Lab no 7. Feel better for it. The recycling of class maps for subsequent QoS tasks is something I need to watch out for. Security and the other sections tomorrow. Will probably hit some theory this evening.

Turgon

IWEB Vol II Lab no.7 Security/System management/IP Services DONE
IWEB Vol II Lab no.8 Multicast/IPv6/QoS DONE

ncsugrad2002

When are you planning on taking the exam?

Turgon

ncsugrad2002 wrote: »

When are you planning on taking the exam?

That's a really good question. Progress of late has been very good as Im off work to concentrate on the preparation. Once Im feeling solid across all major topics I will go. I think a lab exam before Christmas is very realistic if I keep this up. With work and a youngster getting in enough daily rack time has been difficult.

kimanyd

If I had a kid that interfered with my rack time, he'd be moved to a bottle in a heartbeat...

As always, it's nice to see you're still plugging away. You're an inspiration to us all.

Since you clearly have nothing else going on, why don't you tell us a bit about your vacation in Russia? That sounds pretty cool.

Turgon

kimanyd wrote: »

If I had a kid that interfered with my rack time, he'd be moved to a bottle in a heartbeat...

As always, it's nice to see you're still plugging away. You're an inspiration to us all.

Since you clearly have nothing else going on, why don't you tell us a bit about your vacation in Russia? That sounds pretty cool.

Thanks a lot. Well he's nearly two now and very active. Breast feeding is done now, no bottles. We are staying in the Altai region of Russia with my mother and father in law. We come over each year and this is my third sojourn here. It's all very pleasant. The weather is lovely and the food and hospitality fantastic. My mother in law is a senior doctor at the towns hospital. She has just finished her vacation and has just gone back to work this week. Last night she prepared a pike for dinner! Father in law is a retired Telecoms Engineer so he's at home. My wife was an Associate Professor in linguistics at the University. She doesn't lecture now but certainly has her hands full with the little one. We have a large kitchen garden here behind the house full of produce. I help a little in the garden with some weeding and harvesting. Evenings we sometimes have shaslik barbecues with a wood fire followed by a sauna in the banya. Our son is learning Russian and English. My Russian has improved. Next year with the CCIE done I will learning the language intensely. There may be opportunities to work out here for a while if I can get the language improved. Always enjoy the holidays out here. Even had time to attend a family wedding which was marvellous. I will have had a month in Russia by the time we return to Great Britain.

Postscript lab notes..

Lab no 8 Done. Last night I read the sections and solutions I missed due to time on the rack session. This morning I got through them very easily. This approach really works well so will continue. Onto lab 9 now and the post BGP topics.

kimanyd

Wow, that sounds like a great time!

Have you checked out any Podcasts for Russian? I'm currently listening to the Japanese equivalent of this: Learn Russian - Start to Speak Russian in Minutes

It's a great way to get acclimated to the language in small, regular increments (which is important). I'd definitely check that out if you're serious about learning it.

Turgon

kimanyd wrote: »

Wow, that sounds like a great time!

Have you checked out any Podcasts for Russian? I'm currently listening to the Japanese equivalent of this: Learn Russian - Start to Speak Russian in Minutes

It's a great way to get acclimated to the language in small, regular increments (which is important). I'd definitely check that out if you're serious about learning it.

Well I have been learning Russian in increments for about three years now so it certainly helps. This is more conversations with my wife and Russian visitors who stay with us in our home in England than any structured learning. I use Russian in conversation here whenever I can. To be honest my wife will most probably be my best teacher when I finally have some more time

Turgon

Lab 9 DONE. Really good session. Some momentum building now.