1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Sunday 8AM - 10:30AM. Lab no 1 INE Vol III - Incomplete.

While generally I worked quite well on this one I simply ran out of time to get through it in the time frame. I need to put more regular racktime in and have much longer on these practice labs when I do a session. I need the practice and the time to do them properly. More thoughts later.

Turgon

Flicked through the INE Vol 1 section on Multicast. I may find some time to get the configs clattered into the spreadsheet tommorow. I expect to be able to revise multicast reasonably easily. Many of the commands are known to me now, but I will need to work hard on the specifics and refresh my memory on mechanics and verification. A few new things in vol 1 to learn. Next rack session is Wednesday evening.

Turgon

Looked over the QoS section of my spreadsheet and added more content. Also added a large part of the Multicast section of INE Vol 1 to it.

Turgon

Multicast section in INE Vol 1 finally added to my spreadsheet. I then set about cutting and pasting specific parts from the BGP, IPv6 and Multicast worksheets and moving them into the worksheets I have dedicated to summarization, filtering, default routing and tunnelling.

On remote racks the sessions I wanted during the week had gone by the time I checked on Sunday. After agreement with my wife I have taken the 5pm - 11pm slot for this Saturday. On Sunday we are heading south to see a friend.

11pm slots were available during the week, but after a 12 hour day and then a couple of hours having dinner with the family and finally getting our boy settled for the night, the idea of starting lab sessions at 11pm until 2am would have been complete lunacy. So I never considered it. I have a 6:30 AM start followed by over an hours driving and a busy day at work ahead. Network design for SAN storage tomorrow.

Turgon

About an hour configuring a few QoS techniques.

rakem

Do you have a date for the lab exam in mind yet?

Turgon

rakem wrote: »

Do you have a date for the lab exam in mind yet?

Im shooting for November. Much depends on how much rack time I can get in over the next couple of months.

Turgon

7AM - INE Vol 1 Lab no 1. An early morning rack session to try and get through this lab.

rakem

Turgon wrote: »

7AM - INE Vol 1 Lab no 1. An early morning rack session to try and get through this lab.

Im sure you have probably mentioned this, but what are you using for labs in terms of equipment?

Have you built your own to match the INE one or do you rent?

Turgon

rakem wrote: »

Im sure you have probably mentioned this, but what are you using for labs in terms of equipment?

Have you built your own to match the INE one or do you rent?

Remote racks. Im done with my home rack these days.

Turgon

INE Vol III Lab no 1 - Incomplete.

Again incomplete. There just wasn't time to do BGP before the rack session ended. This is the third time this week I have tried to get through this before the timer went. But at least I got further. My redistribution was rusty but I think I have picked up some good process working this lab repetitively. I will try the whole thing one last time on my Saturday night session. Very difficult getting up for labs before a busy day at work. I had a meeting just minutes after the session ended.

Going forwards Saturday will be the multiprotocol lab day. Any time I can amass during the week will be single topic. If I run a rack session during the working day, with the distractions of work its just pointless trying for a full on lab as you need the whole thing to flow end to end. But I could concentrate on a specific technology at lunchtime I guess, so even on days where I only get one hour in at least it is well spent by focussing on just the one technology. Single technology work is rather repetitive and you can stop and come back to it later, but multiprotocol labs really do require you to have time to do them properly. You are moving from one protocol to another and you need to carry into the next piece of work what you assembled in the previous one. If its rushed, you dont get the benefit. If you get distracted, you lose continuity and the purpose of the exercise.

Trying to cram a lab early in the morning before work is too pressurised, and stopping and starting it through the day just doesn't work.

But you have to get regular hours in somewhere..so I will try and do at least one hour a day on one technology and one technology alone. I can cycle through them in a week with that approach. Aside from the lunch time thing a couple of evenings or an early morning can be 2 - 3 hour technology sessions. The weekend (with the pressure off) the multiprotocol lab experience to bring everything together.

The downside though is the terrible waste of racktime sessions. I picked one this morning and got 3 hours out a 5 hour slot. If I run a slot during a working day and only get 1 - 2 hours worth of configuration time in then the cost will soon add up. But what can you do?

All in all though, I think my progress was smoother today.

Turgon

Saturday 7PM

INE Vol III Lab no 1 Take 4

This rack session will start soon and tonight I will finally complete this lab start to finish. I have all three INE workbooks printed and bound in my study and when I do one I pull out the lab diagrams, questions and solutions from the binder. Whenever I did a remote rack session for a lab the logon details are scribbled on the diagram. Interestingly for this particular lab this will be my eighth rack session devoted to it. This particular lab has been attempted on several occasions the last couple of years and completed on at least one occasion. Going by my wall plan it was first attempted on the 16th August 2008. The second shot at it was 28th July 2009. According to my records it was never completed. I can only imagine racktime expired before I got through BGP and it was very close to my trip out to Russia. So it's interesting looking back on these things.

For those of you with CCIE aspirations I have to remind you it is Saturday today and unless you study at the weekends..you wont become one.

Will report later in the evening when the session is done.

Turgon

INE Vol III Lab no 1 - DONE

Good work. I needed a bit of help with the last two questions on BGP. The logic of the solution makes perfect sense to me though and with practice will come along nicely. I do enjoy learning BGP. That's the last time I will ever do that lab, so it gets struck off now. However I will debrief the thing and take some notes in my spreadsheet to record the questions and solutions that gave me trouble. This will be a useful revision aid that will build up in the months ahead.

The regular lab practice is already paying off. I got around the topics well, economically and confidently. I took my time over the BGP peering, and I recommend everyone does that because that stuff has to come up properly. The bottom line is regular lab practice is what you need, not on and off glut sessions. I will be trying very hard in the weeks ahead to get some racktime in as often as I can. No regular rack sessions = no lab pass. The stuff isn't difficult anymore, I just need lots of daily hands on practice.

The neighbors have just staggered home drunk from an all day drinking session so I guess we both met our objectives for today. For the moment though, it's now time for me to enjoy the remains of the evening with my wife and son.

Turgon

Some rack time arranged for Wednesday night after work. A busy day today and I feel shattered so we will just have to see how that rack session flies when I finally get home in the evening. Will try and do INE Vol III version 5.0 Lab no 1, the post BGP tasks, just to try and keep up with the momentum of getting through requirements one protocol at a time.

Turgon

Racktime abandoned this evening. Had a chat session with INE support and real confusion about what gradedlabs has to offer in terms of preloaded labs for the Vol II v 4.0 workbooks. In the end it wasn't clarified and given the time pressure they helpfully returned my rack tokens which was good of them. They will email an approach in due course when they have looked into it.

Essentially I wanted to load up Vol II v4.0 lab no 1 at section 3.1 so I could just crack on with the IPv6 section, save my work and reload on Friday and do the rest.

However the scaffolded labs only seem to offer v4.1 and v5.0 labs. Confusing. Even more baffled about loading the base config on these racks for v4.0 labs as the options seem to be v4.1 and v5.0 and not v4.0 Are these empty labs or completed ones?

Im also confused about these version numbers. From my understanding v4.1 was what I bought, and the v5.0 labs were the next thing coming along and available to existing customers. But that doesn't seem to be the case from what I see in my members area. My online workbook says v4.0 now, but I guess that is v4.0 of the lab instead of the workbook version.

All will be cleared up in due course! I need to reply to my work email and have dinner with the family now.

Turgon

No news from the INE people so I will bug them with a chat session. There is a rack session scheduled for the morning. With a busy day of meetings ahead I think I will just go for some bite sized practice on tasks in Vol II version 4.0 Lab no 1, the non core topics. Saturday evening will be INE Vol III Lab no 2 which covers the core.

Turgon

This mornings rack session written off as too tired to get going early on and busy preparing for meetings at work.

Turgon

Remote rack support at INE let me down. No advice was forthcoming about rack configs to preload for the v4.0 workbook. I have booked some sessions for the week ahead.

I think today I will build out the core of INE Vol II v4.0 Lab no 1 as quick as I can using the solutions and then save the session. This can be loaded in a later session ready to do the post core tasks. If this approach works I will need to keep a record of each lab core build I have saved so I can load up the one I want for practice.

I have two evenings during the week scheduled and a couple of early mornings. With work pressure, commuting and family waiting in the evening it's going to be hard to make best use of this rack time. But if I can at least get just one hour done on each rack session it adds up, but more importantly it means Im getting some regular rack sessions in, however small. Without that, the quest is doomed.

Turgon

INE Vol II V4.0 Lab no 1 - Ongoing

Just a short break while I save my configs. The remote rack session is underway and so far so good. Will report back later. Its Saturday so I suggest if you are a CCIE candidate you get some rack practice in today.

Turgon

Just pinged gradedlabs to cancel Tuesday mornings racksession. I have a very long day at work Monday with a lot of driving and will be home late. Tuesday will be busy at work at well.

Next rack session is planned for Thursday evening once I get back from the office, with Friday morning before work pencilled in and a session in the evening as well. I will work from home on Friday.

Turgon

Preloading the last rack session now. Will do redistribution this evening but totally whacked after work and all the commuting this week. Will do half an hour on general principle. What an expensive rack session! But Im too tired. You cannot become a great pianist without regular practice on the piano. Work and family always comes first, which is why I never made CCIE in 2003. Never enough time. Work this week has been a wipeout with no time at all to think about exam prep. Get home late and tired. Next week will be bad too. Big meeting in London to prepare for.

But I have a thermo nuclear weapon. If I can get through the next couple of months limping along like this I should have put enough in at work to get on top of things there and finally write my own ticket..then I can spend one afternoon a week on works time doing labs. They are supportive, but with my job responsibilities and so much that I need to attack there..I cant divide my attention just yet!

Turgon

In the end I was just too tired to do the work. The rack sessions went to waste. Up early this morning and rested so will crack on now with the lab..

Turgon

A truly shocking week on lab prep. I ran three sessions back to back on Friday but got very little done due to things at work. Once we had dinner in the evening and the little one was asleep I blew off the rack session and relaxed with my wife. It's been a very tiring week and I just wasn't up for it.

But Im home now and after an afternoon with the family my rack session is loading. A quick bit to eat while that happens and then I will crack on this evening and try and make up some time. Next week will be difficult for lab prep hours due to work commitments. The following weekend we have guests. I will just have to keep limping along until things settle down at work.

But we have this evening..For those regular readers may I remind you today is Saturday, so get some rack practice in!

veritas_libertas

Turgon wrote: »

But we have this evening..For those regular readers may I remind you today is Saturday, so get some rack practice in!

LOL, it's always a nice reminder for me to get started on my studies as well

Turgon

INE Vol II v4.0 Lab no 1

Redistribution - DONE
BGP - DONE
IPv6 - DONE
MPLS - DONE
Multicast - DONE

A good session and good work. So long as I can continue to get the hours in somehow, somewhere and keep things on track at work and at home, I will pass this exam.

10:30PM. Tired. Some office work to catch up on tomorrow morning followed by house cleaning and food shopping. Time to spend what is left of the evening with my wife. She's been working hard in the kitchen tonight processing all that fruit we harvested this afternoon. We just brought the washing in which was hanging outside. Supper time and TV together now.

Turgon

INE Vol II v4.0 Lab no 1

Security - DONE
RMON - DONE
NTP - DONE

Turgon

No studies this week as too busy at work and visitors at home this weekend. Will pickup some study time in the week ahead.

Turgon

Work is intense of late depleating my reserves of time and energy. One comes home tired with no inclination to study as rest is needed. My work pays the bills not CCIE prep. I will try and end the study hiatus today.

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

Work is intense of late depleating my reserves of time and energy. One comes home tired with no inclination to study as rest is needed. My work pays the bills not CCIE prep. I will try and end the study hiatus today.

I think this is one of the reasons that most IE's I know have been lucky in getting that sponsorship to work from home for 3months to study for the lab. How I wish I could find an employer like that but they are becoming scarce these days.

Turgon, quick question for you I know a little of your background and skillset and I think we all know your more than capable of holding the tittle "CCIE". Do you think the IE will add anything to your skillset\resume now ?
Dont get me wrong I'm not questioning the value of the cert but we all know the experience counts (outside of the channel at least). I guess what I'm asking is this now a personal challange rather than a professional requirement?

I know when I passed my CISSP (and indeed most fo my certs) they may have started out as a professinal requirement but they quickly evolve into personal goals.

Turgon

laidbackfreak wrote: »

I think this is one of the reasons that most IE's I know have been lucky in getting that sponsorship to work from home for 3months to study for the lab. How I wish I could find an employer like that but they are becoming scarce these days.

Turgon, quick question for you I know a little of your background and skillset and I think we all know your more than capable of holding the tittle "CCIE". Do you think the IE will add anything to your skillset\resume now ?
Dont get me wrong I'm not questioning the value of the cert but we all know the experience counts (outside of the channel at least). I guess what I'm asking is this now a personal challange rather than a professional requirement?

I know when I passed my CISSP (and indeed most fo my certs) they may have started out as a professinal requirement but they quickly evolve into personal goals.

A very good question that. I was in London at a gathering of architects recently and my boss made it quite clear that in his opinion he has no reason for me to get the CCIE, but if it's something I really *want* to do then he will be supportive. He doesn't see a lot of value in it per-se as there are people who have demonstrated capability to him without it, myself included and others he has worked with over the years. So it's not a game changer in his eyes. But I think this is a slightly skewed view as I know that CCIE training has really opened my eyes to capabilities and insights that you only get if you truly pummel that certification track, and this is something he doesn't appreciate, and come to that neither do some of the timeserved people who receive his rightly earned praise. So there is a lot there that those people dont understand!

That alone makes it worth doing, as well as it being something I just *have* to get finished. It's been a long held ambition but always impacted by the jobs I have held down, they just haven't provided the gap to study for it. But they have paid the bills and provided tremendous experience, to the extent that I really 'get it' these days when I do have time or energy in the evenings to study CCIE lessons. It gilt edges things.

But yes, I have been doing CCIE level work for a while now and work alongside a number of them.