1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

jimmypizzle83 wrote: »

I want your job.

hehehe..you can have it. I will never be a CCIE at this rate. Too many 75 page designs to review and approve. It's all good though.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

hehehe..you can have it. I will never be a CCIE at this rate. Too many 75 page designs to review and approve. It's all good though.

That's a lot of paperwork, but the experience has to be extremely beneficial.

Turgon

Updated my notes on BGP this morning. There are many more config examples for all the protocols that I need to put into these study notes, but if I can get the remaining topics I have recorded in mnemosyne in there then the document is looking good. QoS next, then security, system management, IP services. The little things

reaper81

How much revision are you doing. Do you look at the notes daily? How long do you figure you would need labbing to give it a shot at the lab? I hope you can find that slot some day.

jovan88

Quick question Turgon, you've been chasing this for a while now - how do you stop going around in circles?
What I mean is lets say you study BGP and you have it all covered, then you study OSPF and have it covered, then another topic etc, etc. Eventually you realise you have covered everything, but its been so long since you have looked at BGP, so you need to go back and the whole process starts again.

Is this something you encounter? Any tips?

Turgon

jovan88 wrote: »

Quick question Turgon, you've been chasing this for a while now - how do you stop going around in circles?
What I mean is lets say you study BGP and you have it all covered, then you study OSPF and have it covered, then another topic etc, etc. Eventually you realise you have covered everything, but its been so long since you have looked at BGP, so you need to go back and the whole process starts again.

Is this something you encounter? Any tips?

Every CCIE candidate has that problem. Rotation of topics and recall. This is why daily revision is so important. Most CCIE candidates never pass the lab exam, I think in the nearly 4 years I have been on TE less than 10 regulars have accomplished it out of hundreds of wannabees. There is a reason.

For my part I have never been as regular at this track as I would have wished, mainly due to marraige, two babies, demanding jobs and job changes. But I expected that going in so I decided to study in such a way that even if I didnt have the regularity I needed to get upto CCIE lab pass standard, at the very least I would learn many things that would be useful for my work and my career. I have to say that has been the case because even when I slowed right down, I always do enough to stay on the chart. Studying for this thing has certainly helped me professionally.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

How much revision are you doing. Do you look at the notes daily? How long do you figure you would need labbing to give it a shot at the lab? I hope you can find that slot some day.

Not as much as I would like. Im leading a million pound MPLS migration at present and it's crunch time at work.

I estimate that 3 months solid lab prep would take me there. Finding the time is difficult right now.

TesseracT

It seems like some people (me included) are working towards the CCIE to get a job like yours, but now you already have it I'm guessing it's not the highest priority.

I haven't had the chance to work with MPLS in the real world, how different is is from the labs? I'm assuming you'd have QoS on top but what are the other things you have to worry about?

Have you come across any vpls or otv networks in your travels?

Turgon

TesseracT wrote: »

It seems like some people (me included) are working towards the CCIE to get a job like yours, but now you already have it I'm guessing it's not the highest priority.

I haven't had the chance to work with MPLS in the real world, how different is is from the labs? I'm assuming you'd have QoS on top but what are the other things you have to worry about?

Have you come across any vpls or otv networks in your travels?

It's not a priority at all. I was hired without the CCIE and my boss has no requirement for me to get one now I have proved myself. MPLS is easy if you are simply taking CE's from a provider. Its a gateway and there is very little for you to do. Designing an MPLS core is a different kettle of fish. Im lucky to have the chance as many CCIE SPs never do. You really do need MPLS experience if you want a job of significance in that area. The certs along dont cut it. Traffic Engineering is one worry, there are many others. Yes we are using VPLS and have encountered OTV.

Turgon

Busy putting QoS examples from mnemosyne into my notes this morning. In a hurry because the whole family will want things doing today, which is fine. I notice that I left a lot of BGP content in Mnemosyne that I will need to go back for.

Turgon

heheh..Mrs T has rightly encouraged me to help with the kids, the house cleaning and the gardening. On with the dusting now. Study plans for the day destroyed

Turgon

Well after getting through some chores I have finally managed to get my Mnemosyne flash cards on QoS moved across into my word document which is now 160 pages in size. A lot of QoS problems and solutions in there now and a tedius process to get them in. Just the small stuff left to do..security, systems management, IP services. The notes are nearly there at draft level. Good. Then its revision. Time for a beer now, its 9.21 pm on a Saturday night and I had a full day.

bertieb

Turgon wrote: »

Studying for this thing has certainly helped me professionally.

I wish that most IT Pro's would see that learning and studying towards for a certification is much more valuable than getting the printed piece of paper at the end. Said piece of paper doesn't instantly make you good at your job, the hours of reading and practice do.

Turgon

bertieb wrote: »

I wish that most IT Pro's would see that learning and studying towards for a certification is much more valuable than getting the printed piece of paper at the end. Said piece of paper doesn't instantly make you good at your job, the hours of reading and practice do.

I think that just shows how common sense has gone to the wall the last 15 years. A piece of paper just means you are qualified. If I was lab ready and passed the exam next week I wouldn't walk away a better engineer. Just a more qualified one.

If you want to be really good at something it takes years. All great accomplishments require time. A master craftsman isn't created with a few months of cramming.

Turgon

Well I managed to take my INE Vol II config examples for security topics across from Mnemosyne into my word document today. It's getting rather large and starting to look pretty comprehensive. Working through the hundred or so security questions I had in mnemosyne I was struck by just how many I had not made the time to type the solution configuration in for. If I recall I set about the security questions I put into Mnemosyne after many hours typing in many questions for the other topics, so I suppose by that stage I was getting tired of it all. But I think also the length of the config for many security questions held me back. Nevertheless I have the Q+A for many security scenarios covering the whole range of options and security situations.

Looking at it now I really think some dedicated study of the QoS and Security configs I have in my study notes will really pay off. If I can master those difficult constructs I think all the rest is downhill from there on in. Im relatively strong on R&S and just need a refresher course on those things.

Postscript. This thread has had 147000 views. Wow.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

Well I managed to take my INE Vol II config examples for security topics across from Mnemosyne into my word document today. It's getting rather large and starting to look pretty comprehensive. Working through the hundred or so security questions I had in mnemosyne I was struck by just how many I had not made the time to type the solution configuration in for. If I recall I set about the security questions I put into Mnemosyne after many hours typing in many questions for the other topics, so I suppose by that stage I was getting tired of it all. But I think also the length of the config for many security questions held me back. Nevertheless I have the Q+A for many security scenarios covering the whole range of options and security situations.

Looking at it now I really think some dedicated study of the QoS and Security configs I have in my study notes will really pay off. If I can master those difficult constructs I think all the rest is downhill from there on in. Im relatively strong on R&S and just need a refresher course on those things.

Postscript. This thread has had 147000 views. Wow.

This is an extremely useful thread. Thanks!

Turgon

No problem. More CCIE note taking now to unwind in the evening after work. Everyone get some studying done..

Turgon

Got the system management Q+A, 120 of them out of mnemosyne into my CCIE notes. We are well over 200 pages worth of config now. It's clear INE love SNMP. That just leaves IP Services to do and a few Q+A sprinkled across Mnemosyne cards I need to go back to and evacuate into my word document. BGP, FRTS are topics that need a revisit, I didn't get all the content over the first attempt. For some topics in my mnemosyne I got Q+A down for the first 10 labs in INE Vol II, for others only 3 -5 questions worth, so there is plenty of INE Vol II labs still to plunder.

I have to tell you that it took me many hours over many days to type up all the INE Vol II configs into Mnemosyne when I started it last Christmas. So if you are considering flash carding the INE Vol II workbook questions and config answers as I did, or trying to type configs into your own consolidated set of protocol notes, I suggest you cancel your plans for weeks. But for the moment at least, at think what I have is more than enough to be pouring over, and having it condenced in one place is going to help a lot over the course of the next couple of months. Time for some serious configuration reading in the weeks ahead I think. It should jog my memory as well as help me understand a lot of little things I really didn't spend much time on before.

jamesp1983

you should sell your mnemosyne cards when you get your number. sounds like you're definitely in the zone at this point.

Turgon

Sunday 6:30 AM.

IP Services Q+A taken across from Mnemosyne into my notes. We are heading towards 300 pages now. With the rest of the lab exercises of INE Vol II still to document I think we should have a document upwards of 800 pages all in when I get around to those. Labs 11 - 20 have not been recorded.

But I think labs 1 - 10 is enough for now. On Ip services INE love DHCP and NAT.

Here's Eric Clapton from 1985

Eric Clapton - She's Waiting - YouTube

Turgon

Well Im satisfied with the note taking catharsis lately. I need to go over all of them and tidy up the formating this week. So we have some revision to kick off starting Monday. Meanwhile we are all about to head off to visit family for the day and to pick up 7 routers I have in storage. It's time to put the home lab back together. I think it will be very helpful to configure the solutions I have documented from INE Vol II as I go over my notes, protocol by protocol. BGP first I think for hands on practice as I read the notes. As for QoS and Security, just read my notes as my 2500's just dont support the necessary features these days.

Turgon

There just wasnt room in the car for the routers yesterday so will pick those up another time. As for today I have done some useful reading of my QoS notes and still on with it. Makes sense what Im reading so far.

Turgon

About 20 pages of QoS config studied today. It went well and there is more to do. I think at this rate it would take me just over two weeks to reed all my notes which is spot on as a revision aid. I will look at FRTS next.

Turgon

10.11 PM.

Calling a halt now. Covered FRTS quite well this evening. Just get down the bc, be stuff and the use of service policy within a mapclass and I think Im mostly there on that topic. Certainly very revisable. I found today it was most useful to cut paste the configs into a notepad file. With the questions and commands compressed like that it was very easy reading and I covered many QoS configs. MQC, CBWFQ, shaping, policing, FRTS et al.

More tomorrow to finish off the QoS review. Then security.

Turgon

7.30 AM. Back on with the revision of QoS using my notes. All the agony of producing the revision notes is already paying dividends. Im a busy guy and need a digestable format to maximize what little study time I have. Policy routing is the next QoS topic. Once done Im thinking it would be good to get some rack time and build the configs out to reinforce the learning of the topic in one long sessions. I could just do them one at time on a single router as almost all QoS configurations are ultimately applied to an interface.

Turgon

8:45 PM. Just done reading my QoS notes finally after a busy enough day at work and busy in the evening with the kids. INE are clearly hung up on legacy QoS protocols and particular FRTS and QoS variations..header compression, RSVP you name it they cover it. Must be on the exam. Glad it's over. I will fire up a rack session and configure an interface on a single router with as much of this stuff as I can stomach sometime this week. But if I tried to do it all I think I would want to commit hari kari.

It's like anything else, get a feel for what you need to know cold and batter that. As for the rest, be aware, configure once, try and understand it, make notes and look over once or twice in the future..do find on Doc CD and move on to next study topic. Expect the lab exam to throw 20% of it's required config at you in these obscure areas. Do not try to cover *everything* ad nauseum.

Turgon

I took an early morning rack session and managed to get some brief config in following my QoS notes and working on a single router. This process works and Im going to continue with it as its a great way to learn the technologies. Instead of trying to get through a lab on works time, which is futile, simply run a session and do a bit of config in between meetings. As my session came to an end I went back to INE to grab the next slot only to find it had been taken by facebook IT professional. Damn.

Back in design meetings now. I have much to do..

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

I took an early morning rack session and managed to get some brief config in following my QoS notes and working on a single router. This process works and Im going to continue with it as its a great way to learn the technologies. Instead of trying to get through a lab on works time, which is futile, simply run a session and do a bit of config in between meetings. As my session came to an end I went back to INE to grab the next slot only to find it had been taken by facebook IT professional. Damn.

Back in design meetings now. I have much to do..

You have to fit that time in when you can. I've been sneaking it in at work, but you can't really get into anything too deep. That sucks that INE was booked. Did you check Gigavelocity?

Turgon

I got busy enough at work so its no big deal. I have a INE slated for tomorrow during the day so I should get an hour or two in during the course of the rack slot. You lose a lot of rack time doing so but I dont have any choice.

I may go over security section in my notes tonight, then pummel QoS on the racks tomorrow.

reaper81

You seem to have found some time lately to get some progress in your studies. Keep going and you might have a good shot at the lab in 2012. No racks for me tonight, will do some other studying. Have a double session coming up tomorrow.