1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

1 Switching - Mnemosyne

Good session going over my database entries. The answers to the Vol II first 10 labs need adding the next time I pass over this topic. On the whole my recall was fair but I have work to do on switching to energise what I used to know pretty well so I get the syntax down. It should all come together though. Know your spanning-tree and switchport options and you are looking good. My theory is off on some of the guards and spanning-tree flavours so I need to go over those things again. Downloading my Boson and Trancenders back onto my PC should help with some of that.

Next up, Switching using David Bombai's Command Memoriser, which should keep me busy as it has many sections. Then a hiatus from switching and the core topics in general for a few days as I hit nasty subjects like IPv6 which I haven't been near for quite a while.

reaper81

You seem to be making some good progress lately, good for you. Keep it up and 2011 might be a big year for you.

Turgon

2 Switching - Command Memoriser

Half way through the 8 sections in this thing this morning. Got spiked on dot1q authentication, MVR, VMPS, IGMP and a few other topics. Things to work on. Overall progress reasonable however and recall of general switching syntax pretty good. Some good clarification of bpduguard and bpdufilter configuration.

Turgon

Gone well today, time to take stock. The rest of the switching I can polish off tomorrow, best not to overdo it with everything I have on indoors. Overall its looking pretty positive. January for me is a preamble getting across the topics well enough so I get recall of things I previously learned as well as pick up on some of the things I knew less well. At the same time I need to adjust to the new realities at home and the wall of work awaiting me when I get back to the office on Monday. There really is a lot of hard work ahead this year in employment as we have to deliver on a major piece of new architecture. My performance will be crucial there. So we will just have to see how it all goes across January.

On the study front, with some time management I can pull off some short bursts of study most days probably for an hour, going over Mnemosyne and the command memoriser. But many days that will be difficult as there is much to engage with at work and it's a critical time in the design phase. Much needs to be worked through and worked out, and soon. Thats going to require a lot of my time and energy if it's going to go well.

Evenings and weekends will be a wash out for studies. I will be pretty cooked after work and Im needed at home, so no slack there through January. February I need to attack two elephants in the room: 1. Troubleshooting. 2. Lab fatigue.

For no 1 I need to put some time in on the troubleshooting materials I have standing by from INE. I never had an opportunity to look at these yet. This will take sometime and unless I put it in I will get murdered on that section.

For no 2, at this time I do not have the efficiency to cope with an 8 hour mock exam. I would run out of gas and attention span long before I was halfway through the mock only to fail to get through more than half of the lab before the clock would expire. Mainly this is down to lack of regular 3+ hour rack practice. It's important therefore that I find some practice lab hours through February so I can get some stamina up. I estimate one evening during the working week could be a 3 hour prep for that, with a 4 hour stint on Saturday or Sunday. Important to start February then doing lab practice so I get 4 weeks in before the first mock attempt of 2011 at the end of the month.

Then the 1st Mock. This will be end of February. I expect to be destroyed on the marks. The important thing is to get through the whole lab inside 8 hours however badly and record a score. The approach will be to go through the lab sections fairly quickly to cream off whatever *easy* marks I can land. Note and avoid the tricky things on the first pass. Return to these later and tackle. Anything really ugly, avoid until the end of the exam, have a go but be prepared to leave those marks on the table.

2nd Mock will be end of April, allowing me two months to regroup and revise the topics I suck on.

Rinse and repeat every two months. Objective is a lab attempt before year end and ideally a pass. If a pass is not forthcoming but the lab attempt was strong then have another go in spring 2012. If no lab attempt or the lab attempt is piss poor, just call it a day. Sometimes somethings in life are not meant to be, and CCIE or no CCIE I have a fantastic job and career and an amazing family. It will just be a case of my priorities overriding my CCIE ambitions. I have the ability, but Im short of time and gas because real work and family life are much more important than a number. Still think it's doable though.

So far so good.

deth1k

Hi Turgon,

Which SP are you working for if you don't mind me asking? :O

Thanks

Turgon

deth1k wrote: »

Hi Turgon,

Which SP are you working for if you don't mind me asking? :O

Thanks

Would prefer not to say as that would be unprofessional. No problems with you asking though.

deth1k

Cheers Turgon,

Can you tell us in a bit more detail what sort of work you do? I understand you do high level design and do not get involved in configuration too much is that right?

Thank you

Turgon

deth1k wrote: »

Cheers Turgon,

Can you tell us in a bit more detail what sort of work you do? I understand you do high level design and do not get involved in configuration too much is that right?

Thank you

Mostly high level stuff as you would expect of an architect although I still do some low level work, mostly for device interrogation or experimentation and research in the lab. We have separate operations teams taking care of maintenance, network monitoring and change control. So work is often a collaborative effort involving myself and engineers whether it's leading a call to implement networking changes for a customer, assisting with a platform emergency or recovery, or designing network solutions for a customer. Then there are the infrastructure improvement projects, and various meetings to advise customers on SP offerings as well as assess technical options for platform refresh. At the same time my low level understanding can be called upon whenever the job requires it so it really pays to understand how things actually work and how to get things done properly.

Turgon

2 Switching - Command Memorizer

The 8 switching sections in CM are complete now. Lots in there to work on and I needed a lot of help, mac access-lists, wccp, to name but a few. A fair amount of QoS and some multicast options in there also. Somewhat glad to get through it as it's a lot of stuff. There is one section called bridging which I have decided to do next time. It's rather intense on protocol mechanics so I want to be fresh for that.

A departure from the core now. The next section will be IPv6 and then I will press on with the nasty non core topics i.e QoS, Security, System Management, IP services. I hope to get to IGPs by the end of next week and doing RIP/EIGRP/OSPF and finally BGP consecutively should be of benefit to me as Im fairly good on core and just need to recall many things.

QoS and BGP promise to be the most painful topics as there is so much material in Mnemosyne and the Command Memoriser to cover, closely followed by security which I have never really enjoyed as the mechanisms are somewhat unrelated to one another.

For the moment though, a break to catch up with things at home.

Turgon

1 IPv6 - Command Memorizer

All three sections covered this morning. While I find personally that IPv6 hangs together in an intuitive way I needed a lot of help to get through these exercises. My recall of addressing, auto addressing, conversions, tunneling, messaging and NAT mechanics is poor and many of the commands and sequence of commands did not spring to mind. Much to do to brush up on IPv6.

Turgon

Done with some housework. A bit more IPv6 revision soon enough. Attention CCIE candidates it is the weekend. Cancel WoW plans and start studying.

Turgon

2 IPv6 - Mnemosyne

Good session. If I keep this up things will knit in my head. The next time I hit these topics in Mnemosyne I will be filling in the solutions to the Vol II questions I have recorded in there.

I have already earmarked the practice labs I will commence when time allows. These will be the INE Vol III core labs. There are ten of them and I will be aiming to get through them inside three hours. 2010 was a lab practice shy year due to work commitments so plenty of ring rust to shake off. I expect to look at the question, type in the solution if known. If not, check solution, hammer it in and press on. The important thing at the moment is to get through the labs, chalk up some racktime and get some momentum going so far as practical preparation is concerned.

In terms of topic revision, I have done some whiteboarding today and classified the topics somewhat to help with managing my time. We have (GOLD) - Core, (SILVER) - Non Core, and obviously (BRONZE) - this 'n' that. Once my first passes of Mnemosyne and Command Memorizer is done for all topics this will be the template to follow for future studies.

GOLD

WAN technologies
Switching
IGPs
BGP

SILVER

MPLS
IPv6
Multicast
QoS

BRONZE

Security
System Management
IP Services

Most of my revision time will be going on GOLD topics as these are the bedrock of a credible lab attempt. Unless you are strong there you cannot hope to recover by being good at the rest. SILVER gets time as well, but less than GOLD at this point as the marks there push you close to a pass or just over. The BRONZE subjects I will study just enough for now to keep my hand in. The marks there may take you over a pass mark but in isolation offer very little. I also think these subjects will benefit best by more dedicated study later in the year when I have the core topics down and the pressure is off there. Many of these features can be practiced on just a pair or single router.

ehnde

I was catching up on your latest posts...the comment about an 8 hour lab caught my attention. That would be brutal. I imagine it works the same way as the method you would use to build up your running stamina. The best way to do that is to run more

Timing yourself, setting a goal for X number of hours without stopping....that's the only way I've been able to build myself up. Running over 8+ miles I've found that my biggest barrier has been my mind more than my body. Probably moreso for you in your lab studies.

Turgon

ehnde wrote: »

I was catching up on your latest posts...the comment about an 8 hour lab caught my attention. That would be brutal. I imagine it works the same way as the method you would use to build up your running stamina. The best way to do that is to run more

Timing yourself, setting a goal for X number of hours without stopping....that's the only way I've been able to build myself up. Running over 8+ miles I've found that my biggest barrier has been my mind more than my body. Probably moreso for you in your lab studies.

Yes you need to build up to the lab thats for sure. It's a long day so its important to 'peak' at the right time. Regular practice sessions are the key so you handle so much stuff efficiently over such a lengthy period of time.

Turgon

1 Security - Mnemosyne

By a distance the various access-lists need more revision, dynamic, time based, CBAC and what have you.

Turgon

2 Security - Command Memorizer

Only one section available for security in this tool but still useful. More of the same.

A recent blog shows just how committed you need to be on daily rack time. It's something Im going to be struggling with in the months ahead to fit in. I couldn't possibly keep this up without having fatigue at work and causing problems at home so will need to be more measured..

'Read Vol 1 during my commute (2 hours per day). 4 hour lab session every night. I think I only missed 1 night during the past 6 weeks. This is when I got the bulk of the work done. 20 hours a week on top of whatever I could squeeze in at work.

I also did reviews every day. I want to emphasize how important reviewing is. Whether your preference is physical flash cards, a software SRS program (Supermemo, Mnemosyne, Anki, etc), mindmapping, or even jotting down traditional notes in a notebook, make sure you incorporate reviewing into your routine.

Weekends

I usually did two 3-hour sessions each day, one in the morning and one late at night. This way I still had time to do “normal” stuff during the day and not drive myself crazy by labbing 24 x 7.'

Turgon

Some DocCD work the last hour.

In the lab you have access to documentation. Historically this was the univercd link or DocCD. Cisco have screwed around with the documentation for a few years so I understand this is the link to use in the lab these days.

Cisco IOS Software Releases 12.4 Mainline Configuration Guides - Cisco Systems

I have created a spreadsheet with worksheets for each blueprint topic with a link to the appropriate configuration guide. I have also downloaded all the ones I deem relevent for the CCIE in R&S to my laptop. I intend to read a good deal of these and use them for my lab work.

Interesting how the list of configuration guides has changed over time. We have MPLS and lots of voice and wireless guides in there. ATM, ISDN, DecNet, Appletalk even Novell IPX/SPX are in there although no longer tested. They were on the list when I revised for my written back in 2001. I was thinking about that time while I did this work as some music was playing that I listened to when I did my written back then. It was Moby, Porcelain. Heady days back then.

Since then we have seen ISDN dropped, ATM out, Voice moved to the CCIE in Voice, IPX/SPX dropped and token ring, DLSW+ dropped, IPSec VPN moved to the CCIE in Security, Cat 5000 replaced by 3550 and later 3560. All these things were on the CCIE lab radar when I first got interested in this track back in the day. While these topics were jettisoned many more were added or became more advanced. Switching is much more involved these days, MPLS has come in as has IPv6, BGP is more complex as is multicast and the features for security, management and ip services become more rich.

Turgon

qos today

Turgon

Full day of meetings, mileage on the car and late home. No studies today. Up early and away tommorow for more of the same. Possible hour study in hotel in the evening.

Turgon

another long day of design meetings studies wiped out

Turgon

Another full on day of design meetings and a long commute. No time for studies but they dont pay me to sit around doing that. Good results at work. Perhaps an hour available tomorrow.

reaper81

Keep up the steam, your time will come. Everything well at home with your newborn?

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Keep up the steam, your time will come. Everything well at home with your newborn?

Happy and joyfull and hectic but yes all going well thanks. I have been away a couple of days so they are glad to get daddy home this evening, and daddy is happy to be home!

Turgon

LAB work. MPLS configurations. A couple of hours.

MAC_Addy

I have heard the CCIE lab is pretty beastly... What's the process from when you get to the testing center exactly? Do they expect you to setup an actual lab and get everything configured correctly or is it all virtual?

Turgon

jamie.english wrote: »

I have heard the CCIE lab is pretty beastly... What's the process from when you get to the testing center exactly? Do they expect you to setup an actual lab and get everything configured correctly or is it all virtual?

No physical layer work these days.

Turgon

LAB work. Friday. A couple more hours with MPLS scenarios.

Turgon

LAB work.

Just an hour today with so much going on indoors at the weekend with the family. MPLS configurations didn't work out. I need some more reading time tomorrow to straighten a few things out before I hit the rack again.

Turgon

Another abandoned rack session today due to more important things to attend to indoors. This happens a lot and costs me money. Rack sessions on workstime are also difficult as I can be contacted at anytime to look over things and advise in meetings. Will just have to suck it up.

Still at least Derek kindly sent me a useful link for MPLS. Will look that over tonight. Incidently some of the INE Vol 1 examples for MPLS suck balls. Configs are incomplete and the dependencies on previous exercises not highlighted. Very confusing. Im not convinced the examples work with the topology on the gradedlabs racks. Take the exercise on ldp, basic stuff but where is the config for SW4 which sits between R4 and R6? R5 has ldp on a frame relay interface but where is the frame config, where is the termination for the DLCI at the other end. I mentioned this to Petr at INE over a year ago but it's still not fixed.

Turgon

Full on day of meetings today and a commute. Time for a beer with the design team now.