1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Went out for sunday lunch. Bath and bedtime for the youngster out of the way and now back on with the test questions again. Took a real pasting from the Policing and Shaping questions. Forgot the small crap. Working these again now..

Turgon

Monday morning. Working over the remaining sections in the Odom practice test wasteland. Took a pasting on QoS, forgot the arithmetic. Took a clattering on the Frame Relay questions. Forgot the PVC numbers for ansi, cisco and q.933. Minutia. Forgot the FECN/BECN mechanics. Forgot the differences between FR compression methods. I reckon it was about four months ago when I last looked into that.

All the solutions help though. Well at least they all makes perfect sense because I have covered the theory so hard over the years. But it surely illustrates how easy it is to forget so many things. I will have to work hard on all these details or I will get battered in the exam this week.

On a more positive note Im shooting for a Thursday test and will book with Pearson Vue today. Whatever the outcome Im getting back to lab practice before the end of this week. If you want to know why so many people bdump the written just see how I get on. Sad but true. It is a lot of work and no matter how well prepared you think you are there are no guarantees on this one. Anyone could be thrown enough curveballs to fail this test. There are a lot of things to learn, know and understand really well which takes a lot of effort and a lot of regular, lengthy studytime. Most of it is understanding and then working out mechanism as opposed to memorising things and you really cant rush that sort of learning. At least all this effort should help me OEQs anyway.

Im keeping any eye on the little one while his mother gets some much needed sleep this morning. Need to attend to him now before the multicast madness. His guess may be as good as mine on some of those message flow diagrams that Odom has the hots for.

Turgon

Ok booked the test. 10:30 am GMT on Thursday. The second shot has expired so I had to cough up the money. Man, 320 dollars just to find out how much stuff I have forgotten. Back to the job search now and later the books. Presently making a list of agents to mail a CV to. Time consuming business.

Turgon

Ok well thats the emails sent to the agencies. Let's see how many of the advertised jobs are actually real..

Back on with the test engine and the intro to multicast questions. I surprisingly hit 83% on those mostly covering the IGMP v1 and v2 message madness. So I suppose I must have learned something to get that mark. Makes a change after the shellacking I got in BGP, QoS and Frame. Time for a late lunch with the family now.

Turgon

Ok Im finally though all the Odom practice test questions. Exhausting...


20 subjects. All combined I get an average of 64 on my first attempt across all those questions. I have since repeated the questions on a few subjects since then and got the marks up. Overall not too bad but this is shy of a pass mark. Some of the subjects I scored really well on. Some others were less good and few really off the pace. At the same time some of the questions were really **** missing out slews of areas I could have been tested on. Nevertheless, plenty to work on before Thursday's test. Will reflect a bit later. I clearly forgot some of the finer points and some of my understanding of mechanism is not as tight or as correct as it should be..yet.

Turgon

Wednesday we have lots of appointments so there will only be a chance to turn over notes. So today is the last day of full on theory prep before the test. Im writing up the minutia from Odom that I need to revise. I hope I do better on the test than last time. I must pass this test before it changes in October. If I can do that I will a lot more relaxed about things and then its just a matter of time while I concentrate on lab prep. If the IPexpert materials are anything to go by, the troubleshooting section in the new lab example will be very challenging to prepare for. I suppose those who support infrastructure and do tickets each day will have a bit of an advantage there but not to a large extent. The problems that will need to be fixed may well be bizarre forcing you to demonstrate that you know how the configuration of x may screw up y. I suspect that these sort of gremlins may be rather different than what you would normally encounter in the field when things don't work out. It will be difficult to prepare for I think. But this is all a distant lunar glow for me right now as so many topics still need to be mastered. Our study group has grown and several of us have young children so I think projections could easily run into summer 2010 given the limited time to study, the absence of lengthy regular study sessions and the work commitments. I think we are all ready for that, not least as a couple failed recently and are rather dispondent given the personal sacrifice preparation entailed on the family front. I think support for people with tough constraints on study time is a little lacking in the CCIE space. Someone needs to put up a board to help folks like that work together and given them guidence and at times emotional support. One for wives would be good. Im sure a few are borderline psychotic with all the timesink this requires..how about ciscowidows.com

A guy on groupstudy with FTE and kids passed recently and he missed out on a lot of important moments while his baby girl grew up. Took him 4 years on and off. Good luck to him and his family.

Turgon

Ok I brushed up this morning on a lot of details concerning, ethernet, classification and marking, congestion management and Ipv6. I was getting spiked quite badly by IPv6 details and mechanism in the practice test. I hope the effort will help me in the test as I got 50% on that section last time out.

Getting fatigued and bored with it all now. In my last test I did really badly in bridging and routing questions so given that and the lack of time and energy left I think I will throw most of what I have left at those subjects now. Stuff like Multicast and MPLS I might only get an hour or two at tommorow although honestly even if I spent all day at either of those it probably wouldn't do me much good. Law of diminishing returns. I know what I know about multicast and for MPLS I have a long way to go. Neither topic will improve much between now and Thursday morning and Im short of time on the core topics now.

I imagine a couple of months after passing a CCIE lab most candidates have difficulty deciphering the flags and details of a show ip mroute anyway, much less be able to draw all the flows on a PIM-SM or PIM-DM architecture.

My last showing on the written was interesting. It was in February and I got badly spiked. I gave myself just over a week with Odom's book and the test engine and was curious to see to what extent labprep might assist me in the test. I thought why not as the second shot offer was on at the time. What I found was that labprep helped me with some of the questions, but for a lot of the theoretical stuff it hadn't helped at all and many things had been forgotton. The tests are very different. But I still like the written because I found that at least early on when the stuff was fresh it did help me work my practice labs better and understand the configurations better. I think we have to face down theory anyway or there's a real danger of knowing how to configure things as opposed to knowing when to configure something in a certain setting to best meet a particular requirement. That to me is the real skill and certainly requires a deep understanding of how things actually work and behave in different situations.

When I get bored with the theory Im reminded of this sentiment expressed on a board back in 2003..

sic 'I think the biggest problem in this industry is too many of the "professionals" don't crack a book. They think they know how it works, but when pressed for the technical details or asked to open and read a network packet, these "engineers" don't have a clue.'

Turgon

Tension in the house as Im so tied up studying and unable to spend as much time helping out as I should around the place. Switching today, then Multicast and MPLS. That's it then.

ncsugrad2002

I imagine a couple of months after passing a CCIE lab most candidates have difficulty deciphering the flags and details of a show ip mroute anyway, much less be able to draw all the flows on a PIM-SM or PIM-DM architecture.

One of my friends who has his CCIE (works at Cisco) told another guy I know, after passing his CCIE lab, to "Have fun forgetting it all", lol.

So, very true. The CCIE is crazy in the way it makes you do some things almost with one hand tied behind your back. Such weird ways of working on things that you'd nearly never do in the real world. I guess it makes you a true expert though.

Ah well. Good luck.

Turgon

ncsugrad2002 wrote: »

One of my friends who has his CCIE (works at Cisco) told another guy I know, after passing his CCIE lab, to "Have fun forgetting it all", lol.

So, very true. The CCIE is crazy in the way it makes you do some things almost with one hand tied behind your back. Such weird ways of working on things that you'd nearly never do in the real world. I guess it makes you a true expert though.

Ah well. Good luck.

Very true. That happens a lot, but at least by completing the CCIE journey you do have reference points there that will help you. Something to dredge in the back of your memory should you need it. As for the written, it seems to put a lot of CCIE's off. I have known three who would not recert without bdumps. Sad but true. A lot of work to keep all that stuff fizzing in your head, especially if you don't use it regularly.

dynamik

Turgon wrote: »

Very true. That happens a lot, but at least by completing the CCIE journey you do have reference points there that will help you. Something to dredge in the back of your memory should you need it. As for the written, it seems to put a lot of CCIE's off. I have known three who would not recert without bdumps. Sad but true. A lot of work to keep all that stuff fizzing in your head, especially if you don't use it regularly.

Wow, that was the 1000th reply in this thread. Pretty sure that's a record!

Turgon

Probably. Might get 200000 views before I pass this thing at this rate.

Turgon

Enough studying now. Did my best in time alloted, we have been back from vacation for one week. Let's see how tomorrow goes. If I don't make the cut it's another bone up before the exam changes early in October. Oh yeah and I need to spend some time looking for a new gig.

Turgon

What an exhausting test. As expected I didn't get through but I was really not that far away. Just a few questions more and I would have crossed the line. A good number of little things to bone up on for next time. Probably about right, have only been at it a week since we landed home from vacation. Should sit again in a weeks time. Back to the job hunt now..

veritas_libertas

Turgon wrote: »

What an exhausting test. As expected I didn't get through but I was really not that far away. Just a few questions more and I would have crossed the line. A good number of little things to bone up on for next time. Probably about right, have only been at it a week since we landed home from vacation. Should sit again in a weeks time. Back to the job hunt now..

Okay, following this thread is exhausting me...

Turgon

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Okay, following this thread is making me exhausting me...

hehehe theres no place 127.0.0.1

From the looks of the job boards there's not a lot of work about. Go figure. Just back from a meeting with the bank. No it's meal time, play time, bath time and bed time for the little one then back on with the job search. Oh yeah I need to think over some of the sucky questions I encountered later too.

Turgon

Got a call about someone about a very interesting opportunity on Friday. Ok now the written. Hopefully it's third time lucky for me. The first attempt I wasn't at all prepared well but it's a loss non the less. Will try and get a seat for this Friday. Theres lots of small things to work on across protocols. Difficult to say precisely which questions I got wrong but I can recall the areas that were tricky and most probably I putzed out on. In the main though I simply had problems with things I had forgotten. Perhaps a couple out of three required answers leaped out at me but the third could have been x or z depending on what I could remember. Some of my deep understanding of a few things was off. Will work on those things wife permitting. With a bdump and a morning free I could go through it and sail through this test next week but I dont believe in them. Its a carbon copy of what you get on test day. The downside of testing 'clean' is all this time away from family beating your brains out and then no guarantees on not having to resit. Still, you gotta know your theory really, really well either way.

Looked over Odom again and got some technology white papers off CCO

Turgon

Brushing up on some multicast questions now. Did an overview of Multicast this morning. Also a little IPv6. Yesterday looked over bridging and switching things. Areas to improve on; general networking theory (surprisingly), bridging and switching, multicast, MPLS, IPv6.

On groupstudy David passed the lab after 6 years at his 8th attempt. Good luck to him.

Turgon

I have brought in some reinforcements... I have Boson CCNP switching on the computer but have not looked at it since..oh must be sometime early 2007. Anyway going over the multicast stuff in there now. I went over the VLAN and STP questions before the test the other day and found them quite useful for tightening things up. Briefly handled the Kennedy Clark book this morning. I should read through all of that thing someday.

Turgon

Well thats the groceries done. Time for more study on Multicast and BGP.

Turgon

Had a go at one of those Transcender tests that so many of you put so much store in. I think its the Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers one for CCIP. Scored 74% first time out. Not bad.

Turgon

QoS looked over today with Odom's Cisco QoS book and a Transcender. Policing and Shaping, Marking, Congestion Avoidance and Congestion Management brushed up. Useful toil.

EdTheLad

I'm booked in for thursday, got a fair bit to go though over the next few days.If i don't pass my girlfriends gonna kill me, if i have to reschedule she's also gonna kill me.
Yesterday was multiacst,qos,fr.Today mpls and ipv6.
Highlights of yesterdays study was learning how a router picks a rpf neighbor when an equal cost multipath exists back to the source,just something i never taught about before.

Gotta get back to study before i'm caught on the net, good luck!

Turgon

EdTheLad wrote: »

I'm booked in for thursday, got a fair bit to go though over the next few days.If i don't pass my girlfriends gonna kill me, if i have to reschedule she's also gonna kill me.
Yesterday was multiacst,qos,fr.Today mpls and ipv6.
Highlights of yesterdays study was learning how a router picks a rpf neighbor when an equal cost multipath exists back to the source,just something i never taught about before.

Gotta get back to study before i'm caught on the net, good luck!

Yup. You spend a lot of time preparing for these things. Lets hope your nuts are not in the crusher when you get back Thursday! Missing by a few marks sucks. It's ok so long as you dont forget too many things. You want to know how everything works on a high level and how to pick a solution at a low level.

Turgon

Sometime spent today going over QoS teminology in the Trancender. This evening raiding the IWEB Vol II labs and making notes on obscure switching configurations.

Turgon

Switching documented across all 20 IWEB Vol II labs. A couple of rack sessions booked for the next couple of days starting at 5pm. Hopefully not too many quarrel indoors about that. Today more work on the job search, the morning spent on that. Now back to note taking before the rack session. The WAN subjects across 20 IWEB Vol II labs. Will call Pearson today about that written resit.

Turgon

WAN notes made suprisingly. Just the IGPs and BGPs left to do in the IWEB Vol II workbook. Will get on with the rack session once the little one is asleep, there will only be a couple of hours left on the session so thats a useful speed drill! Will do Vol II lab no 1. All core topics until BGP. It's all about the core between now and Christmas.

Turgon

Passed the written today. Cool.

Turgon

Worked through the OSPF section in IWEB Vol II lab no 1. Very educational. Calling a halt now. It's been long day and the broadband connection and the PC tripping out regularly have beaten me tonight. Tired. EIGRP tomorrow.

Turgon

Graded Labs racktime is wiped out the next couple of weeks so I will have to cobble something together at home to practice. I managed to get slots on Friday, Saturday and Sunday but after then there are none left for a while. I will try and locate a rack provider for some switching work. October is core technologies month. I will take a punt at another mock exam in four weeks time.