1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

INE Vol II labs 1,2,3 looked over today. The MPLS questions. Good reading and notetaking. Will likely lab these on my next rack session on Wednesday.

vinbuck

Turgon wrote: »

INE Vol II labs 1,2,3 looked over today. The MPLS questions. Good reading and notetaking. Will likely lab these on my next rack session on Wednesday.

The more I do with MPLS, the more I enjoy it. It's such a versatile protocol and complements OSPF and BGP rather nicely. Been doing a lot of research on implementing MPLS Traffic Engineering with OSPF and it's a pretty neat concept. How deep does the CCIE go with it? Is it focused on private MPLS in the enterprise or SP MPLS?

Was listening to packetpushers.net podcast and they were commenting about common MPLS mistakes newbies make, the first was related to MTU, which I was painfully familiar with but the second I hadn't even thought about - summarizing your IGP on the P routers can break the label switched path. Don't know if you listen to them, but it's hosted by 3 CCIEs with many other CCIE guests. I feel very smart after listening to their nuggets of wisdom

Turgon

vinbuck wrote: »

The more I do with MPLS, the more I enjoy it. It's such a versatile protocol and complements OSPF and BGP rather nicely. Been doing a lot of research on implementing MPLS Traffic Engineering with OSPF and it's a pretty neat concept. How deep does the CCIE go with it? Is it focused on private MPLS in the enterprise or SP MPLS?

Was listening to packetpushers.net podcast and they were commenting about common MPLS mistakes newbies make, the first was related to MTU, which I was painfully familiar with but the second I hadn't even thought about - summarizing your IGP on the P routers can break the label switched path. Don't know if you listen to them, but it's hosted by 3 CCIEs with many other CCIE guests. I feel very smart after listening to their nuggets of wisdom

CCIE R&S is not much help if you aspire to design MPLS cores as we do at work. Good for the edge stuff though. Enterprise focused. One of the problems with learning MPLS from books is the quality of the materials out there. Too many writers and vendors either try to cover too much, or dont have enough experience with it themselves. One learns MPLS best by doing it.

Turgon

INE Vol II, Labs 4 and 6 for MPLS looked over today. Good scenarios and documented solutions in there. No MPLS section in lab 5. 4 and 6 are good and I will start to configure them in my forthcoming rack hire sessions. Wednesday is the next one. Some Boson test questions on MPLS now to burn in the theory.

Turgon

Report for work submitted, kids in Bed. Hammering out the Boson for exam 642-691 now to reinforce BGP and MPLS theory. Rack time tomorrow, L3VPN fun.

Turgon

Good lab practice today on the remote rack. INE Vol II Lab 5 - IPv6 BGP followed by Lab 6 MPLS VPN

Turgon

INE Vol II Lab 4 MPLS VPN tunnelling on the remote rack. Fixed problem with recursive routing on the tunnel. Bad INE solution. R4->BB3 did not come up. Will fix next session.

Turgon

Configurations for the MPLS scenarios in the first 6 INE Vol II labs not documented in my config spreadsheet in the 'MPLS' worksheet. Looking good. Need to read up on the use of sham link. Multicast next..

Turgon

Multicast can wait. I will look at INE Vol II labs 1 - 5 during the week for that. Priority now is best path and filtering across all the protocols. Just one more week with a house full before I drop the family off at the airport. Wife and kids are visiting the family abroad. This means for the first time in two and a half years I will have weeks of free time every evening and all weekend to do lab practice.

down77

Very nice! Hopefully work won't keep you too busy and you will be able to spend as much time as you want working on labs. This is one of the benefits I have when I travel, 4-5hrs per night of study time (assuming the install goes smooth during the day).

Turgon

down77 wrote: »

Very nice! Hopefully work won't keep you too busy and you will be able to spend as much time as you want working on labs. This is one of the benefits I have when I travel, 4-5hrs per night of study time (assuming the install goes smooth during the day).

That certainly helps. Three job changes the last three years, one internationally, one house move and a second child have really killed my study opportunities. Evenings after work there are family priorities indoors and after that often simply rest was required. Weekends are always busy with chores in the house and time with the family giving my wife a hand. I have missed the opportunity to just close the door and do lab practice for 3+ hours straight with no interuptions.

Turgon

Notes from Doyle Vol I. Interesting to see my pencil scribbles on some of the hands on exercises I did..I labbed p435 'Address Summarisation' replacing the router names in the diagrams with the Tolkien names I had for my home rack routers on 25th February 2008! 4 years ago! Happy Days.

down77

Turgon wrote: »

That certainly helps. Three job changes the last three years, one internationally, one house move and a second child have really killed my study opportunities. Evenings after work there are family priorities indoors and after that often simply rest was required. Weekends are always busy with chores in the house and time with the family giving my wife a hand. I have missed the opportunity to just close the door and do lab practice for 3+ hours straight with no interuptions.

Oh I know how that feels. I've got #2 on the way and a rough travel schedule. I try to spend as much time with the family as I can while I am home but I did set a schedule long ago that is "dedicated study time" from about 9p - 12a. Unfortunately it means I am up until at least midnight every night.

Regardless enjoy the quit time and use it to your advantage! I'm bringing along Routing TCP/IP Vol I with me on the plane to read as well as my laptop to spend some quality lab time in dynamips.

Turgon

A study day lost yesterday as I has a trip to make with the family. Today, more filtering techniques for IGPs to be documented from Doyle Routing TCP/IP Vol 1.

Turgon

Im just getting dinked by too many meetings at work today to do any studying. Had to let my scheduled rack session slide today so I dont let the boss down. No matter. Home lab being assembled this weekend. Happy times ahead.

Turgon

Another hour on the remote rack helping MPLS understanding. INE Vol II Lab 4 the MPLS section. Solutions guide is incomplete. Does not mention RD or VRF forwarding requirements.

geek4god

What all are you going to have in the lab?

Turgon

geek4god wrote: »

What all are you going to have in the lab?

All my old gear plus 4 x 3550 switches. Will be fine for INE Vol III lab practice and Vol II switching practice. Routers and IOS code are old so remote racks for the non core topic practice. Another 3-400 hours should take me over.

Turgon

Updated my notes with the 'Fat' of the BGP content from Routing TCP/IP Vol 2, a book I have owned for close to ten years. All the best path and filtering configurations of note have been captured. Just the 'big stuff' left now, peer groups, confederations, route reflectors and communities. Communities are most important to get down in my notes.

Good work today. The configuration study really is easy reading these days.

Turgon

I have had a good January on the studyfront. I will be off air until Friday evening while I take my wife and kids to the airport. Then I will take stock.

reaper81

Great. This is your chance to really get the hours needed for a pass. Contact me later if you want to discuss anything.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Great. This is your chance to really get the hours needed for a pass. Contact me later if you want to discuss anything.

Sure is. Im busy today assembing my home lab, or trying to anyway. I need to get a PC basically stable so it can be the TFTP server for my Xyplex terminal server.

Turgon

A frustrating day. The PC is looking better but the TFTP/BootP app isn't offering the file my Xyplex needs to be the terminal server.

Turgon

Tried everything. This PC has had this problem before. I will see what other options I have in terms of hardware at home.

Turgon

I have resolved a power issue with an old laptop and this works fine with the xyplex. We have a terminal server. Lab assembly can proceed.

Turgon

The laptop has power issues. Im reliant on a different adapter to use it as the one it should use is broken. The screen flickers terribly. The power adapter I use is rated higher.

No matter, so long as it serves the system file to the xyplex using bootp it can then be switched off as th xyplex will be happily operational using RAM. Having all this gear in my study is impractical due to space, noise and heat constraints. Having taken advantage of some inhouse wiring Im now busy moving the whole bally lot to the bedroom upstairs. It can run there out of the way while I telnet in from my study.

IOS upgrades and lab wiring this week. I will also need to make some more console cables and get the INE backbone router configs. A tough weekend putting things together and overcoming several PC related issues..

Turgon

Happy with the progress this weekend. Upstairs resides the lab. I will do Vol 3 labs on this equipment as what I have is a little old. Intention is to use the rack for a couple of hours in the evening when the day is done, but if I have time during a work day I will turn it on. Having independence between my work laptop and my lab PC helps there.

My non core topics need a lot of work..security, QoS, Multicast, Systems Management, IP services. MPLS and IPv6 has improved a little but Im less concerned about those at the moment. More reading for these topics I think, I have the configuration notes I need for that. I may use some rack sessions just to batter them in as my home gear is off the pace IOS wise for the features. Lets see how we go in February. If my core can improve and my non core gets tighter across the month, I should be worth a shot at a mock exam in March. Interesting times ahead the next four weeks.

Forsaken_GA

Turgon wrote: »

My non core topics need a lot of work..security, QoS, Multicast, Systems Management, IP services. MPLS and IPv6 has improved a little but Im less concerned about those at the moment. More reading for these topics I think, I have the configuration notes I need for that. I may use some rack sessions just to batter them in as my home gear is off the pace IOS wise for the features. Lets see how we go in February. If my core can improve and my non core gets tighter across the month, I should be worth a shot at a mock exam in March. Interesting times ahead the next four weeks.

I don't know what it is, but multicast is my Achille's heel. Everything else I'm fairly comfortable with, but every single time I think I've got a handle on multicast, I run into scenarios that just totally screw me over.

Turgon

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I don't know what it is, but multicast is my Achille's heel. Everything else I'm fairly comfortable with, but every single time I think I've got a handle on multicast, I run into scenarios that just totally screw me over.

Personally, although multicast is an odd ball for me as my networks dont use it I find it reads pretty well for me. I just need to make sure I remember all the different RP and filtering mechanisms so I need more revision on this topic. Also mroute requirements and tunneling.

Turgon

Made some console cables. Obtained the BB1/2/3 configs and clensed them to remove content that wont fly with my hardware. password recovery on a switch. 6 routers and 4 switches ready. Crossover cables for the switch etherchannels coming tomorrow. Have some issues with my remaining hardware that need to be backbone routers but we will see. Need to dress the rack tomorrow for the topology, frame connections, ethernet. Will need to configure the frame switch.

Labwork will be an evening and weekend activity as Im far too busy 9 - 6 at work.