1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Closure on QoS and BGP by looking over my mnemosyne configurations this morning, followed by Command Memorizer work on todays new topic Multicast. One topic a day is working.

Turgon

Agent called me this morning to talk about a job. Listened and gave good reasons why I would be a good fit. Was then asked about salary. Once I obliged with what I was looking for agent said they would send me detailed job description and I could get back to them when I had time. Interesting one. It would involve a relocation which I said I would do. Agent amused me with response to this question. I said I would just move, she said 'well there's more to it than just that'. As if I haven't thought about the consequences of all that! Personal cost, hassle etc. We have looked into all that here. So show me the money.

No details of the job have been forthcoming. Suspect I was well out of the price range of the job. While there is always a chance of coming over pushy by discussing salary expectations early doors in a conversation it seems to me best off to just come right out with it. If the job is real it will fly, if the job is one which is trying to carpet bag skills for a song the agent will flee. Best off to do that in this climate. No time to waste.

Unlikely to get a start now before February. Many irons in the fire but all companies stalling on appointing anyone. I suspect this will loosen up a bit late January - mid February with senior managers starting to panic about meeting targets and getting bonuses at the end of the Financial year. Permanent teams have taken more on in the absence of contractors, are overworked and dont have the skills contractors bring.

Meanwhile with companies holding out on hires, rates are falling and there are numerous agents now trying to carpet bag contractors into permanent jobs on reducing salaries. Will hold out until February. Should be some take up by then, slightly improved rates and fewer contractors still holding out and available. Many will be installing Windows by then taking anything to pay the mortgage. If still no proper job end of February then get exploited installing windows for happy meal per hour wages. You have to eat after all

Ahriakin

Hey I managed a bookstore for a few months after Hurricane Ivan wiped out local business, like you said you do what you need to.
I agree on the money side too, and any experienced recruiter/agent knows that with someone at your level there's no point waltzing around it. Describe the job, any special conditions and then give a realistic idea of range, this isn't your first prom. I don't have time either for any that try to be coy.

Turgon

Ahriakin wrote: »

Hey I managed a bookstore for a few months after Hurricane Ivan wiped out local business, like you said you do what you need to.
I agree on the money side too, and any experienced recruiter/agent knows that with someone at your level there's no point waltzing around it. Describe the job, any special conditions and then give a realistic idea of range, this isn't your first prom. I don't have time either for any that try to be coy.

Very true, and fortune favours the brave! Things will work out soon enough.

Turgon

Ok I just got done with the two sections on Multicast in the command memoriser. I will now go over the mnemosyne notes I have on the subject. Useful session bringing a lot of multicast configurations into focus, DM,SM, static RP, auto RP, BSR, SSM etc. The tool is ok but for multicast you need more than it offers. The first section has a lengthy table covering timers and what have you. While a good referesher (if you can remember all that see a doctor), it really is the province of the CCIE written and I would have liked to see more configuration examples. Even so the few configuration examples on offer are fairly generously spread across topics within multicast although there is a dearth of ip pim nbma mode, tunnelling, rp-list and igmp generally to name but a few topics. This is why I recommend you don't go near such a product until you are well into your CCIE prep after having spent hundreds of hours reading and constructing configurations on your own. This way you get the recall when you use the tool and can see how things hang together. A useful revision aid at this stage of my prep.

Be careful of buying too many vendor products or Cisco Press books, one workbook at a time is plenty. Be patient, work hard, take your time and finish it. You can't pass the CCIE on the stair climber or playing WoW, so dont depend on video and audio material. Get your ass in a quiet room for a few hours each day, read and configure, patiently. Also, unless you can find a lot of time to study almost every single day forget about clearing this thing inside one year. It isn't going to happen. So think about the consequencies of that before you shell out on materials that will only line the vendors bank account with loot and empty yours. By my estimation, stick 50 CCIE candidates into a room, only one walks out a CCIE one day and for thousands of different reasons 49 are left behind. Eliminating reasons not to make it through is perhaps the hardest thing of all for CCIE candidates. Those that make the grade managed to do that. Work with what you have to work with and keep going!

Lecture over. We just crossed 400 hours of reading time and all is well. A short break now before diving into my mnemosyne notes to round off todays stint on multicast. IPv6 tomorrow.

Turgon

Done with mnemosyne and multicast today. Quite a good session today overall. On the contracting front an Agent responded almost immediately when I applied for a job in Holland this afternoon. After a chat he says he will put me forward for the job. Fair enough. Given the state of the market I need many more of those if Im to land something decent by February.

christino

I'm enjoying Turgon's update and it's firing me up like I'm spending too much time on irrelevant things. I gotta get working and updating as well. Nice job. Thanks for the inspiration.

Turgon

christino wrote: »

I'm enjoying Turgon's update and it's firing me up like I'm spending too much time on irrelevant things. I gotta get working and updating as well. Nice job. Thanks for the inspiration.

No problems and thanks!

Applied for a slew of jobs on the boards last night. Last chance for some work before Christmas. The rates are much lower than I usually command but with the higher rate jobs applications taking forever might as well try and get something (if I can) for a few weeks with Christmas coming up. I would have to be away from my wife and son all week though After hotel, fuel, meals and tax it doesn't leave much left over but best to be busy in this climate I reckon. Still I got one call straight away this morning and convinced the agent to raise the rate. Let's see what happens.

Ipv6 today in Command Memoriser followed by looking over Ipv6 in mnemosyne.

Turgon

headhunter came calling. Have interview for a great job with a mobile provider next week. Meanwhile getting through the Command Memoriser Ipv6 material. Got spiked on Ipv6 tunnelling and IPv6 NAT. Need to work hard on those subjects. More Command Memoriser now. Our little son is feeling unwell so will necessarily need to be off and on with studies today to look after him.

Turgon

CM for Ipv6 done. Overall I will need to work over Ipv6 some more. Mnemosyne later. For the moment though Im done looking over the blueprint for the new version of lab (you need a CCO account to view this by the way). From the looks of it I have a lot of work ahead of me to cover the new things, but it looks doable. On that note and MPLS Command Memorizer came with the CCIE one I bought, so fairly soon I will go through that thing just to get a better feel for MPLS configurations and the general suite of commands. I worked with it a little bit in the field this year and it seems to read logically at least the configurations I saw. I also covered some of the fundamental theory for the CCIE written. So Im hopeful that I can ramp up on MPLS a bit by the end of December. That's the plan anyway, there are a good deal of other things to look at too.

Turgon

A busy day today going over IPv6 in mnemosyne followed by Command Memorizer on as many subjects as I can stomach. Two or three more days of this then a mock exam. On completion of that we have a seachange in the study program. The subjects I have covered that are still 'on-lab' become steady back ground tasks between now and April. They are already pretty good and with 4 months ahead of me before my lab there is plenty of time to polish them all to a shine providing I keep my hand in with them on a fairly regular basis. But I need to free up more of my study time for the new things. This includes the new topics, the troubleshooting section of the lab and the OEQ's. So I will be investing time in these beginning in December and most likely I will purchase some workbook material to help out. Mock exams will be a feature every fortnight until the end of April now. I think I come to the end of 2009 in pretty good shape. I worked very hard this year building on the foundation I laid throughout 2008 when I get through so many labs. 2007 was an 'observational' year as it had been a long time since I had looked at so many configurations or indeed been studying for Cisco exams in any depth, so I was really getting back into things then and being introduced to a lot of topics that I had either forgotten or were completely new. With the time constraints I had on my studies once our son was born in September 2007 I had to face the fact that this was going to take a long time, with no prospect of being ready for a couple of years. It would take me that long to find enough free time to really solidify things without impacting our family life too much. So it has proved and it has been a long hard slog. The hardest part was being patient, knowing that 10 hour rack sessions at the weekend were impossible, and 3-4 hour sessions in the evenings after work would be a sporadic occurance due to coming home late, fatigue after a busy day and generally being needed to spend time with the family. I just had to crawl along and work with the constraints I had.

So typically I got just a couple of hours racktime in from 9 - 11pm most evenings which always meant it would be slow going, and it was. Those 850 hours of racktime next to my name have been dearly bought. But finally it's worth it. We are happy at home, I saw my son grow up and didnt miss out on family life or cause *too* much distress at home by locking myself away for prolonged periods and Im almost ready lab wise. But you cant win on the homefront. This has taken several years so it's been an invasive thing for the family and very difficult at times, like something that would never end. On the other hand at least I have been available most days to spend time with the family unlike the 'hi honey Im home I will see you tommorow evening' lab candidates. That approach to lab prep just wouldn't have worked in our family and would have caused a lot of distress. It was unnecessary anyway. We are almost there now. Its really all revision now, practicing a better performance without having to learn too many new things, although there are some.

Turgon

Just done going over the security section in command memoriser. There is only one section in it but it's capable of battering most CCIE candidates, myself included. I made some note. I will need to work harder on CBAC, time range and dynamic ACLs, AAA, and TCP intercept parameters. Autocommand as well!

Turgon

Thats it for today on command memoriser. I went on to cover SNMP, RMON, NTP, ODR, HSRP, DHCP and made some useful notes. You can have too much of a good thing though so calling time. The tool is useful but it would have been useless too early in the prep. There is repetition in there but that's a good thing in the right dose. I sometimes wish the IOS programmers worked a bit harder on consistency though. It's hard enough remembering commands as it is without mac-address in DHCP being called hardware-address.

Just the core left to revise now really, OSPF/EIGRP/RIP/FRAME/SWITCHING. Will go over switching last so Im hitting the ground running for the first section in my mock exam.

Postscript. A job I applied for at a Bank came back and after a brief screening the agent is putting me forward to be considered for interview along with the other applicants by the client. Friday calls seem fishy to me, nothing seems to come of them. I have had three of these now on Fridays. I often wonder if it's just to fill the quota and get the '5' they need for the client by EOW so they take a punt on getting your approval to send you forward at the last minute. Who knows! Who cares! It's the weekend. Im off for a Vodka with my wife

filkenjitsu

Ever thought about going for one of these uber Cisco Kits? How much money do you think you have spent in the last 2 years studying for the Cisco CCIE? I guess that would include books, hardware purchased, and remote router time, not so much including the insane amount of time of study and practice.


CCIE Platinum Lab Kit

Price : $7,099.00
Stock Status: In Stock

This kit is based on the exact topology, the new Version 2.0 CCIE topology of the training materials provided by Internetwork Expert, Inc. It makes use of the exact specifications as provided by Internetwork Expert to reproduce the CCIE Lab Rack topology used by Internetwork Expert, including the correct 12.3 and 12.4 IOS versions. It is intended for the serious student who will accept nothing but the best. This kit will allow the student to do 100% of the lab exercises in any of the Internetwork Expert CCIE study materials.

One of the main advantages of using the Internetwork Expert product line of CCIE preparation products is that the physical lab topology for all of the products is the same. This means that no matter which Routing & Switching product you are using you will not need additional devices in your rack, and furthermore you won't even need to change the cabling once your rack is set up, ever!

Finally an added bonus is this same lab setup maps very closely to our CCNP topology and labs. This will help you get the most value for your money. Keep in mind, we can always customize any lab to meet your needs. Below you will find the contents of this lab:

3 Cisco 2620XM 128/32 Routers

1 Cisco 2522 16/16 Router

2 Cisco 2501 16/16 Routers

3 Cisco 1841 128D/32F Routers

1 Cisco 2511 16/16 Access Server

1 Cisco NM-4A/S

9 Cisco WIC-1T

2 WS-C3560 Catalyst Switch with EMI image

2 WS-C3550-24 Catalyst Switch with EMI image

4 Ethernet Transceivers

2 Cisco Console Cable

12 DTE/DCE Serial Crossover Cables

12 CAT-5e Straight-Thru Cables

18 CAT-5e Cross-Over Cables

2 Octal Cables

13 AC Power Cables

filkenjitsu

CCIE Silver Plus Lab Kit





Price : $3,779.00
Stock Status: In Stock

Extended Warranty:
Quantity:








This kit is based on the new Version 2.0 topology of the training materials provided by Internetwork Expert, Inc. It makes use of the specifications as provided by Internetwork Expert to provide a cost effective alternative to the full blown CCIE Lab Rack topology used by Internetwork Expert, for the serious student with a limited budget. All of the routers in this kit use the Cisco 12.3 IOS and/or 12.4 IOS. This kit will allow the student to do almost all of the lab exercises in any of the Internetwork Expert CCIE study materials. There are few lab exercises that can't be done with this kit since we replaced the 3560s and 1841s that are in the Platnium kit wiht lower cost 3640 routers and 3550 switches. But you will still be able to do approximately 90% of the labs!

One of the main advantages of using the Internetwork Expert product line of CCIE preparation products is that the physical lab topology for all of the products is the same. This means that no matter which Routing & Switching product you are using you will not need additional devices in your rack, and furthermore you won't even need to change the cabling once your rack is set up, ever!

Finally an added bonus is this same lab setup maps very closely to our CCNP topology and labs. This will help you get the most value for your money. Keep in mind, we can always customize any lab to meet your needs. Below you will find the contents of this lab:

3 Cisco 2620XM 128/32 Routers, 128D/32F

1 Cisco 2522 Router, 16D/16F

2 Cisco 2501 Routers, 16D/16F

3 Cisco 3640 Routers, 128D/32F 12.4(x)

1 Cisco 2511 16/16 acces server

3 Cisco NM-2FE2W

1 Cisco NM-4A/S

9 Cisco WIC-1T

4 WS-C3550-24 Catalyst Switch with EMI image

4 Ethernet Transceivers

2 Cisco Console Cable

12 DTE/DCE Serial Crossover Cables

12 CAT-5e Straight-Thru Cables

18 CAT-5e Cross-Over Cables

2 Octal Cables

14 AC Power Cables

1 CiscoKits Exam Prep CD

Turgon

filkenjitsu wrote: »

CCIE Silver Plus Lab Kit





Price : $3,779.00
Stock Status: In Stock

Extended Warranty:
Quantity:








This kit is based on the new Version 2.0 topology of the training materials provided by Internetwork Expert, Inc. It makes use of the specifications as provided by Internetwork Expert to provide a cost effective alternative to the full blown CCIE Lab Rack topology used by Internetwork Expert, for the serious student with a limited budget. All of the routers in this kit use the Cisco 12.3 IOS and/or 12.4 IOS. This kit will allow the student to do almost all of the lab exercises in any of the Internetwork Expert CCIE study materials. There are few lab exercises that can't be done with this kit since we replaced the 3560s and 1841s that are in the Platnium kit wiht lower cost 3640 routers and 3550 switches. But you will still be able to do approximately 90% of the labs!

One of the main advantages of using the Internetwork Expert product line of CCIE preparation products is that the physical lab topology for all of the products is the same. This means that no matter which Routing & Switching product you are using you will not need additional devices in your rack, and furthermore you won't even need to change the cabling once your rack is set up, ever!

Finally an added bonus is this same lab setup maps very closely to our CCNP topology and labs. This will help you get the most value for your money. Keep in mind, we can always customize any lab to meet your needs. Below you will find the contents of this lab:

3 Cisco 2620XM 128/32 Routers, 128D/32F

1 Cisco 2522 Router, 16D/16F

2 Cisco 2501 Routers, 16D/16F

3 Cisco 3640 Routers, 128D/32F 12.4(x)

1 Cisco 2511 16/16 acces server

3 Cisco NM-2FE2W

1 Cisco NM-4A/S

9 Cisco WIC-1T

4 WS-C3550-24 Catalyst Switch with EMI image

4 Ethernet Transceivers

2 Cisco Console Cable

12 DTE/DCE Serial Crossover Cables

12 CAT-5e Straight-Thru Cables

18 CAT-5e Cross-Over Cables

2 Octal Cables

14 AC Power Cables

1 CiscoKits Exam Prep CD

I have more than enough equipment at home thanks. Suggest you post your wares elsewhere on the forum then some folks can take a look.

Saturday afternoon and a massive attack on remaining non core topics in Command Memoriser followed by extensive note taking..autoinstall, snmp, bridging and more, then back to multicast and qos

Here's astradyne, music while you work..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP0Psd_lu5w

Turgon

Notes on bridging, snmp, multicast and IPv6 attended to. QoS next..

Turgon

QoS documented. The whole of Saturday afternoon spent on commands. That's quite enough effort from me helping keep Cisco's share price up. Im now off to spend what is left of the day with my wife and son. They have hardly seen me all day

filkenjitsu

Turgon wrote: »

I have more than enough equipment at home thanks. Suggest you post your wares elsewhere on the forum then some folks can take a look.

Saturday afternoon and a massive attack on remaining non core topics in Command Memoriser followed by extensive note taking..autoinstall, snmp, bridging and more, then back to multicast and qos

Here's astradyne, music while you work..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP0Psd_lu5w

I am sorry, maybe I should have explained myself better, for some reason I did not post the link. That was one of the kits from Ciscokits, one of the ads on the side of this forum. I have no affiliation with them, I am just working on my CCENT right now.

I am sorry to make you think I was trying to sell you something, I guess I was kinda looking for your opinion on those setups and how much do you think they are really worth.

Through my work I will be able to take as many Global Knowledge boot camps as I want to as often as I want to (in my free time of course). I have studied for the CCNA many times over the last 2 years, just have not bitten the bullet. I plan on taking a 5 day, 8 hour a day boot camp in January for the CCENT, then another one for ICND2 at the end of February. I have options to take some of the CCNP boot camps as well, there is one for each of the 4 different exams at the end of March, April, May, and June. I do not think I can go 30 days between each one though and hope to pass each test, but with Global Knowledge, if I fail, I get a second voucher, and if I fail again, I get to take the boot camp class again for free, so I may as well give it a shot so I can get lots of class room time in even if I fail. It is all paid for by my company anyways.

I was showing those kits because I was not sure if those were good investments to do lots of CCNP practice on and then transition to CCIE studies or if I should save my money.

I work with an MPLS network that reaches across 26 states at work, but mainly just monitoring, diagnosing, and ticketing issues to be resolved my network engineers when it comes to OSPF, BGP, and the various components of MPLS such as the tunnels, the P routers, PE routers, route reflectors, etc. I am not really involved in the hands on troubleshooting or repair.

Turgon

filkenjitsu wrote: »

I am sorry, maybe I should have explained myself better, for some reason I did not post the link. That was one of the kits from Ciscokits, one of the ads on the side of this forum. I have no affiliation with them, I am just working on my CCENT right now.

I am sorry to make you think I was trying to sell you something, I guess I was kinda looking for your opinion on those setups and how much do you think they are really worth.

Through my work I will be able to take as many Global Knowledge boot camps as I want to as often as I want to (in my free time of course). I have studied for the CCNA many times over the last 2 years, just have not bitten the bullet. I plan on taking a 5 day, 8 hour a day boot camp in January for the CCENT, then another one for ICND2 at the end of February. I have options to take some of the CCNP boot camps as well, there is one for each of the 4 different exams at the end of March, April, May, and June. I do not think I can go 30 days between each one though and hope to pass each test, but with Global Knowledge, if I fail, I get a second voucher, and if I fail again, I get to take the boot camp class again for free, so I may as well give it a shot so I can get lots of class room time in even if I fail. It is all paid for by my company anyways.

I was showing those kits because I was not sure if those were good investments to do lots of CCNP practice on and then transition to CCIE studies or if I should save my money.

I work with an MPLS network that reaches across 26 states at work, but mainly just monitoring, diagnosing, and ticketing issues to be resolved my network engineers when it comes to OSPF, BGP, and the various components of MPLS such as the tunnels, the P routers, PE routers, route reflectors, etc. I am not really involved in the hands on troubleshooting or repair.

Better off with dynamips or remote racks in my opinion than shelling out all that money on equipment. Just my opinion. If you can afford the bootcamps do them as instruction is always valuable.

Today for me lots of work starting with IP services and Systems Management revision in mnemosyne.

Turgon

IP services and Systems Management revision using mnemosyne covered. Now looking at PIX/ASA material.

Turgon

Thats enough on PIX/ASA today. The examforce testprep has helped me get my feet wet with some of the terminology. I will be using that some more spending time looking at the explanations in detail. Tomorrow I will start to turn over the ASA fundamentals study guide I bought today and I will order a decent book from amazon. I may put an hour or two in on a remote rack to play with PIX and hopefully ASA. I looked at Hacki PEMU briefly but I just dont have time for all that messing around and I cant justify the purchase of a PIX much less an ASA off ebay right now. Remote racks it is or that networksim tutorial I found which looks quite useful as it has exercises.

With what gas I have left today Im going to start turning over the MPLS command memoriser. About time I started to look at this technology.

EMcCaleb

filkenjitsu wrote: »

I am sorry, maybe I should have explained myself better, for some reason I did not post the link. That was one of the kits from Ciscokits, one of the ads on the side of this forum. I have no affiliation with them, I am just working on my CCENT right now.

I am sorry to make you think I was trying to sell you something, I guess I was kinda looking for your opinion on those setups and how much do you think they are really worth.

Through my work I will be able to take as many Global Knowledge boot camps as I want to as often as I want to (in my free time of course). I have studied for the CCNA many times over the last 2 years, just have not bitten the bullet. I plan on taking a 5 day, 8 hour a day boot camp in January for the CCENT, then another one for ICND2 at the end of February. I have options to take some of the CCNP boot camps as well, there is one for each of the 4 different exams at the end of March, April, May, and June. I do not think I can go 30 days between each one though and hope to pass each test, but with Global Knowledge, if I fail, I get a second voucher, and if I fail again, I get to take the boot camp class again for free, so I may as well give it a shot so I can get lots of class room time in even if I fail. It is all paid for by my company anyways.

I was showing those kits because I was not sure if those were good investments to do lots of CCNP practice on and then transition to CCIE studies or if I should save my money.

I work with an MPLS network that reaches across 26 states at work, but mainly just monitoring, diagnosing, and ticketing issues to be resolved my network engineers when it comes to OSPF, BGP, and the various components of MPLS such as the tunnels, the P routers, PE routers, route reflectors, etc. I am not really involved in the hands on troubleshooting or repair.

Save your money, that equipment is so overpriced it's criminal. You would have hard time giving away those 2500s. Those switches and 2600s still have a bit of value but nothing close to the asking price. Please don't buy that equipment.

ncsugrad2002

EMcCaleb wrote: »

Save your money, that equipment is so overpriced it's criminal. You would have hard time giving away those 2500s. Those switches and 2600s still have a bit of value but nothing close to the asking price. Please don't buy that equipment.

Agreed. 2500's are like $10/piece of LESS on eBay..I just glanced through the buy it nows and saw prices that low. 2600's are all over the place depending on which model..but yea, they're very cheap on eBay. Do not be afraid of picking out equipment on your own. eBay has a few sellers that honestly sell some cheap kits..just look around and get the most for your money

holy crap, just checked their pricing.. $169 for TWO 2501's? That should be illegal. GO TO EBAY!

Turgon

Yep seems like a lot of money to me.

Anyway..this morning briefly went through the configuration solutions for the problems in the MPLS Command Memorizer. At this stage I just wanted to pour over a range of configurations for this topic, and while it does not cover everything on the blueprint i.e no VRF-lite, it was a useful session. I find that MPLS configurations read quite well, at least I can can follow the logic. I think with a bit of CCO reading and some hands on I should be ok with that stuff. Either way it's good to stop putting the MPLS learning off, I feel better for getting my toes wet in it.

Back to the CCIE Command Memorizer today. Core topics (at last) ahead of me this afternoon. I covered BGP some days ago so I will start with OSPF and work backwards through the exercises for the suite of IGPs; OSPF, EIGRP, RIP. Once done it's frame relay and finally Switching. Along the way Im dumping any commands that come up that are particularly useful or require dedicated revision into a notepad file for each protocol. These should server as excellent revision aids. Command Memorizer gives you practice solving discrete configuration problems, which is good, but it isn't the best revision aid. It cant be searched or looked at very quickly. For that you need to harvest commands into lists and go over those yourself. Mnemosyne is useful for the flash card approach so I may **** some of these commands into it at somepoint. All these tools and the hours put in are helping me improve my IOS vocabulary for each topic, as well as pinning down a reducing number of things that Im struggling on. All of this effort leaves me with a master list of commands that *will* require location in the DocCD so I have a reference point on lab day. You can't master everything. rmon syntax is one such thing and there are others.

Turgon

Had a look on the jobboards today and applied for a few. As predicted it's getting real quiet now even for this time of year. Rates are down and companies are still trying to carpetbag skilled contractors by offering permanent jobs on low salaries. Anyway, with that chore done it's time to get something to eat before I knuckle down with OSPF revision. At some point today I will chit chat with a vendor sales rep about their troubleshooting practice offerings. With the new lab version my study approach will be to focus hard on improving my readiness on the OEQ and Troubleshooting sections so I can slaughter them. But I need lots of daily practice to do that. The configuration part which comes after TS I should be solid on by the end of April, but you really need to be starting that part of your lab feeling good about things. At the moment the new lab is shooting candidates down in flames. The new format and the new ways of doing things require adjustments to study approach. So that is mine. Nobody has passed the R&S lab since it changed five weeks ago. Only 10 people in the World have passed the Security lab in the last 5 months since it changed. I fear if this keeps up that some of the Vendors will be out of business by this time next year. They have struggled with all the illegal sharing of workbooks going on as it is.

Turgon

Two agents called me today. One permanent job, one contract. Both in London. Might not be put forward for the contract job because Im too honest about what I can and cant do for people, but not terribly bothered either way. The agents really need to start doing their jobs properly and have a look at my CV before they pick up the phone and call me.

Finished OSPF in command memoriser today. A really useful session this afternoon that flowed quite well, primarily because of all the core practice I have put in the last few months. Even so I picked up some very useful things doing it and created a decent OSPF notepad file with key commands. Dialer list for ISDN came up which is off the lab these days. It's funny that after all these years I finally understand how dialer group actually works. It can be used for PPP so watch out. ISDN was one of the most poorly explained subjects in any of my many books at home. A short break now for time with the family, another morning and afternoon consumed with MPLS and OSPF revision. I may get at EIGRP a bit when the little one is in bed this evening.

Postscript. Talked to agent and got put forward for the contract gig.

wirerat

Nobody has passed the R&S lab since it changed five weeks ago. Only 10 people in the World have passed the Security lab in the last 5 months since it changed.

Where did you get these numbers from? Is there a website that anyone can get it from?

Thanks.

Turgon

wirerat wrote: »

Where did you get these numbers from? Is there a website that anyone can get it from?

Thanks.

I made it up Seriously that's what I hear on the groupstudy mailing list.

christino

This link has a lot more to say about whether anyone has passed the new R and S Lab or not. Has Anyone Passed CCIE 4.0 R/S - IEOC - Internetwork Expert's Online Community

I'm taking two mock labs in December to know if I should save my bucks and do the v4 written cos the casualty list seems to grow bigger by the day. I think we'll begin to see less 16 year old CCIEs now.

I wish Turgon could read for two

Writing boring Cisco Unity Connection exam this morning, then I can get back on the R and S track. I'm seriously thinking if I am to spend this much time on R and S, I can as well look at the Voice Track along with Virtualization (VMware) since they are more profitable. 2 cents, anyone?