1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

reaper81

Sweet. Precious times. I helped my fiancees dad today with the boat, taking off the mast. Season is over. Went for a quick trip with the motor only, my son enjoyed it

Turgon

Flat out at work today. No time for studies.

Turgon

It's interesting. I had an exhausting day at work with meetings, certainly no time for studies. And I worked late, and when over far too burnt out to study. We priced up half a million dollars of equipment today..

The CCIE is a wannabe cert. The support professional that wants to get on. The NOC night owl stuck between games and facebook all night and a couple of changes or all night workbook labs on the dollar. The Cisco employee who needs a CCIE inside two years or gets slotted as a lamer, or indeed the person Cisco needs working all hours god sends turning and burning for customers while idle employees enjoy lunch and get the CCIE on the dollar..those guys earn less at Cisco than the CCIE's there, work three times as hard, go home and lab evenings and weekends until their wives walk out..

I saw a post today on TE deriding an Architect position that people were applying for and everyone that was interviewed. I guess some people just dont understand what being a Technical Architect really means. About 5 years ago I would have bought the replies from the TE members as I would have felt the same. 'Yeah, you gotta know more and more about less and less.' Today as a time served lead architect I see things differently. An Architect is not a subject matter expert. It is a strategic, commercial role. Should an Architect be technical? Sure, and certainly very good technically, but they are primarily the 'solution owner' of massive infrastucture and solutions that no one person, even if they worked 24/7 could be expert in at every level. It's about leading teams, showing deference to individuals who have spent 100's of hours working on the details of the details, supporting them, winning their respect, protecting them and taking decisions and giving them technical direction. Design, by definition is art. Im glad I realised this 5 years ago and adjusted to get the career path I needed, or I would just be another underpaid CCIE. No certification on Earth can give you these insights. Not CCA or any of that vendor rubbish. You have to realise you need the right kind of work to get them, and then get the job to give you these insights and work hard to obtain them.

Gotta love being a Technical Architect.

Turgon

Turgon wrote: »

It's interesting. I had an exhausting day at work with meetings, certainly no time for studies. And I worked late, and when over far too burnt out to study. We priced up half a million dollars of equipment today..

The CCIE is a wannabe cert. The support professional that wants to get on. The NOC night owl stuck between games and facebook all night and a couple of changes or all night workbook labs on the dollar. The Cisco employee who needs a CCIE inside two years or gets slotted as a lamer, or indeed the person Cisco needs working all hours god sends turning and burning for customers while idle employees enjoy lunch and get the CCIE on the dollar..those guys earn less at Cisco than the CCIE's there, work three times as hard, go home and lab evenings and weekends until their wives walk out..

I saw a post today on TE deriding an Architect position that people were applying for and everyone that was interviewed. I guess some people just dont understand what being a Technical Architect really means. About 5 years ago I would have bought the replies from the TE members as I would have felt the same. 'Yeah, you gotta know more and more about less and less.' Today as a time served lead architect I see things differently. An Architect is not a subject matter expert. It is a strategic, commercial role. Should an Architect be technical? Sure, and certainly very good technically, but they are primarily the 'solution owner' of massive infrastucture and solutions that no one person, even if they worked 24/7 could be expert in at every level. It's about leading teams, showing deference to individuals who have spent 100's of hours working on the details of the details, supporting them, winning their respect, protecting them and taking decisions and giving them technical direction. Design, by definition is art. Im glad I realised this 5 years ago and adjusted to get the career path I needed, or I would just be another underpaid CCIE. No certification on Earth can give you these insights. Not CCA or any of that vendor rubbish. You have to realise you need the right kind of work to get them, and then get the job to give you these insights and work hard to obtain them.

Gotta love being a Technical Architect.

vol 1 racktime if i can get it tommorow, private vlans, qinq all the good stuff!

Turgon

Slaughtered with work today providing technical recommendations to help the big cheese get through his power meeting. Studies zero. Energy for studies tonight, zero.

Turgon

Mullered by work again and fatigued, but everyone making progress. Long live the weekend. Things should be more settled next week when hopefully I will have the gas to do some studying again.

Turgon

7:30 AM an early start for work. After sacrificing the studies for a couple of weeks to cope with the office workload things may be more sane in a few days so I can study again. Been very tired in the evenings.

Turgon

Full on day reviewing and approving a major design

Turgon

An afternoon in the DC testing some new gear.

Turgon

I have killed myself at work lately so that my studies would only take a two week hit instead of a four week one. I get up early, logon to the INE website and suffer a denial of service attack. These dudes take my money for all the tokens I buy and then wipe out all access to their racks for two weeks straight so they have equipment for their bootcamp students. Unbelievable. It looks like I will be forced to put my home lab back together again. I can at least return to some reading the next couple of weeks now things are back on track at work.

reaper81

I'm in the same boat as you. Will have to rely on Dynamips for a while. I think it's bad they can't have racks for both bootcamp students and other people renting racks.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

I'm in the same boat as you. Will have to rely on Dynamips for a while. I think it's bad they can't have racks for both bootcamp students and other people renting racks.

It is indeed very bad.

Turgon

The working day over, the kids in bed. Reading INE Vol 1 Switching this evening.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

The working day over, the kids in bed. Reading INE Vol 1 Switching this evening.

you have a nice evening ahead of you. How many hours are you able to get a night at this point?

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

you have a nice evening ahead of you. How many hours are you able to get a night at this point?

We will see how it goes for a few days. Its been zero for a couple of weeks. I have either been too knackered to study, or needed to think things over about work, or work late, or simply force myself to switch off so Im rested for the next day at work.

Turgon

I will leave it there tonight. Got as far as 1.18 and the beginning of the STP examples. Trunking, etherchannel, QinQ, VTP all safely negotiated. Most likely I will revisit the whole section again to plunder a list of verification commands to bolster my notes.

Turgon

Early start and back on with the reading. Will try and get through INE Vol 1 switching inbetween meetings at work today..

tearofs

Turgon wrote: »

An Architect is not a subject matter expert. It is a strategic, commercial role. Should an Architect be technical? Sure, and certainly very good technically, but they are primarily the 'solution owner' of massive infrastucture and solutions that no one person, even if they worked 24/7 could be expert in at every level. It's about leading teams, showing deference to individuals who have spent 100's of hours working on the details of the details, supporting them, winning their respect, protecting them and taking decisions and giving them technical direction. Design, by definition is art. Im glad I realised this 5 years ago and adjusted to get the career path I needed, or I would just be another underpaid CCIE. No certification on Earth can give you these insights. Not CCA or any of that vendor rubbish. You have to realise you need the right kind of work to get them, and then get the job to give you these insights and work hard to obtain them.

A+ Well said

Turgon

When I had time today to read bits of INE VOL 1, it made a lot of sense. How many rush CCIE's who have stalled in their careers can say the same two years after they passed? I know one 9 month fulltime study CCIE who a year later said he had forgotten frame relay...a clever guy too. But if you dont use it, you lose it. You can do too much in one sitting. Being a player in networking is a long game. 10+ years.

Concentrating on my career and not the CCIE has served me well. I read Caslow in 2001. Ten years elapse and 10000 new CCIEs are minted. I understand the stuff and have a job that outranks many CCIE's, and Im good at it. No rush to become a CCIE. I dont need it, but the process is certainly worthwhile. Besides..becoming a Master craftsman takes many years. It's all good.

Turgon

On the road today for a design meeting. Busy day ahead.

Turgon

A tiring day of meetings. Stuck in the hotel tonight feeling knackered. More meetings tomorrow then a long drive home.

Turgon

Read Vol 1 Switching. No issues, picked up a few things. Doubt I shall read it again, but it would be good to batter in some of those configs when I get some racktime. Feeling good on switching.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

Read Vol 1 Switching. No issues, picked up a few things. Doubt I shall read it again, but it would be good to batter in some of those configs when I get some racktime. Feeling good on switching.

Anything tripping you up at all?

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Anything tripping you up at all?

No. At this stage I understand the technologies well enough. There are some things in there that don't spring to mind in terms of remembering how to configure something. All I need now between now and lab exam time is enough regular rack sessions to batter in the configs so I get repetition practice. Give me three months off work and I would pass the lab as I would have plenty of practice time. I will keep working and see how my lab hours pan out between now and Christmas on the remote racks.

yuriz43

Hey Turgon,

How often do you review INE VOl I? I'm just about done with Vol I, and ready to move towards Vol II. There is definitely a lot of material in Volume I, and it seems like a good strategy to continually review the material. Do you just pick random chapters to review, or do you start from the beginning again?

Turgon

yuriz43 wrote: »

Hey Turgon,

How often do you review INE VOl I? I'm just about done with Vol I, and ready to move towards Vol II. There is definitely a lot of material in Volume I, and it seems like a good strategy to continually review the material. Do you just pick random chapters to review, or do you start from the beginning again?

About every six months I go over the stuff again. Each time it makes more sense:)

Will do as much reading of Vol I as I can today inbetween stints looking after the kids. Just done giving my eldest breakfast, time now to get the baby

Turgon

Ok Vol 1 Switching, PPP and Frame Relay reading over. Time to have breakfast and play with my 4 year old for an hour as he is driving my wife crazy. Vol 1 is ok, but a lot of things are not there. VACLs for switching for example. Perhaps it will appear in the security section, I will find out later. No multilink in the PPP section either. But they have to draw the line somewhere. Vol 1 gives you some breadth of knowledge, but the real work comes in Vol 2. It's a good refresher for me nontheless.

yuriz43

Are you just reading over them? or doing the labs again?

Turgon

yuriz43 wrote: »

Are you just reading over them? or doing the labs again?

Reading. I dont have time to do the labs.

Turgon

A busy day at home again today, but will try and get a couple of hours reading in spread acrosss the day.