1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Fixed rack error this evening. BB1 and BB3 can see one another now. Commencing lab no 3. SW1 does not support LACP so applying work around.

Turgon

Switching, Frame Relay and PPP sections all done. Set up nicely for IGP work tomorrow. Calling it a day as tired from work today and a very busy week in the office ahead.

Turgon

Second wind. After a breather Im pressing on. INE Vol III lab no 3 is hard on IGP work. This will be the 4th and last time I do this lab, and it expresses very well how to add routes to OSPF as /24 in 4 different ways either associated or not associated with an area. Killers on the lab if these come up. Good practice..EIGRP next..

Turgon

I will call it there. I have configured the IGPs now ready for redistribution which will be the next session. Before embarking on that I will need to get on every device and check the routing tables as Im not convinced everything is playing nicely, not least the virtual link.

This is a good lab, I had to check the solutions guide a good deal as I have forgotten so many things, but looking at the solution I can see exactly how it fits the bill. Its all revision for me and an energise of things forgotten. INE VOL III lab no 3 is a good lab.

reaper81

Turgon wrote: »

Second wind. After a breather Im pressing on. INE Vol III lab no 3 is hard on IGP work. This will be the 4th and last time I do this lab, and it expresses very well how to add routes to OSPF as /24 in 4 different ways either associated or not associated with an area. Killers on the lab if these come up. Good practice..EIGRP next..

ip ospf network point-to-point, redistribute connected, area range if it's going to other areas and summary-address if it's an external prefix. That's all I can think of right now. Anything else?

Turgon

Thats exactly it. Very impressive Daniel. I used to know this but forgot. Exactly the sort of stuff you need to have down.

More lab practice this evening, continuing with lab no 3. In my haste last night I forgot my switchport VLAN assignments. Fixing now. Then I need to make sure the IGPs are working as designed..

Turgon

Datalink is fine, and I have fixed my virtual link issue. R3 has old IOS and the router-id cant be nailed down so I made R1 VL to the highest loopback on board R3

Turgon

INE Vol III lab no 3 - DONE

Catharsis. It feels good. Fair enough some of my BGP peerings have not come up but I will take it and fix that tomorrow. The lab was a great refresher on the hazards or redistributing BGP and some aggregate-addressing situations. My redistribution recall was very good on the whole. Keep up the practice and I will pass this thing later this year.

ipSpace

CCIE is around the corner for you

Turgon

ipSpace.eu wrote: »

CCIE is around the corner for you

Another 500 hours first. Much I need to go over again which I forgot. Much I need to study in more depth and learn better. But nothing difficult for me, just need to find the time to be regular about all this. Let's see.

Turgon

Had another go at getting all BGP peerings up. All resolved now. R5 had a missing network statement in EIGRP so nothing to redistribute into OSPF! All good. I will see if I can engineer a BB2 tomorrow as we need one for some of these labs.

The switching sections are light in Vol III. No spanning-tree hassles, no PVLANs, no QinQ, no dot1q authentication, but we can cross that with dedicated study on the topic in three weeks time. I have the hardware at home for that, and the notes to follow. For the moment, just happy to be regular with lab practice and getting the core work going well..which it is.

Turgon

I went over my blog. This is the 130th lab I have done of consequence. By that I mean either a full lab or a full core lab or mock. I have done many other sessions as well, often concentrating on specific technologies across a number of labs in a work book by loading the config for say BGP for say lab 1,2,3 etc, or studying non core topics for a single lab like IPv6, Multicast, Security, System Management, IP services.

I dont count these.

My lab hours as of 16/10/2009 were at 819. Today they are at 956. So for over two years my lab hours have only been 137!
This is no surprise to me. Job changes in that period, a second child and a house move all took priority. On the work front I threw everything I had at the cause. But things are finally moving again so that's good.

Lab 131 next. INE Vol III lab no 2.

Turgon

Work done. Will study the lab 2 config tonight and plan the physical rearrangements for it. Hopefully not too many, then clear the configs down. I will do one more of these then leave the core practice for a few nights, to regroup and put some hours in on topic practice. The extra switching practice I can do at home, so I will probably do that. I will need the code on the remote racks for the other topics.

Turgon

Ok I looked over the lab no 2 topology. I have some serial cable swaps for my routers connected to the frame switch so that's fine. Also R1 and R2 need a serial cable and thats good too. But R5 needs 2 x ethernet interfaces. I have been here before

Im afraid Im rather fond of my stack of 2500's with the single ethernet interface, but then when I bought them back in the day..2002..they were 700 dollars a pop! I will have to recall the 4000 series from storage 'RIAN'. She has a 4 port serial card and 6 x 10M interfaces. That will do. She's big and noisy. But Im not going to the garage tonight. IOS on this router is old..so some tasks may be beyond her. I will bring 'EOWYN' back too. Perhaps with a dram swap I can make her into BB2. Failing that I have another 4000 series 'INDIS'.. Would hate to rely on her as a BB because old IOS may give me difficulty but it would be fun trying.

Turgon

I have recabled. It's the 4000 from storage in the AM to be a replacement for R5 'Melian'.

N2IT

Keep up the awesome work. The amount of work you put into this makes my endeavor seem likes childs play.

Turgon

N2IT wrote: »

Keep up the awesome work. The amount of work you put into this makes my endeavor seem likes childs play.

Every endeavour has it's trials. You and I squirrel the time required to do it into what we have to give. My requirements are harder but yours are hard too. One has to find the hours.

Im satisfied with my accomplishments in life. My career has progressed well and my personal life, all without the CCIE. At this stage of my career Im not obliged to obtain it and have actually superceded it on grounds of experience. I study for it because of what I can benefit from it along the way. If by chance I find the bandwidth to get upto lab standard then that is good, but if not, what little I actually have time to learn still helps me professionally. It's a hobby these days. My family and career keep me busy enough

onesaint

Fantastic that you got in such an efficient weekend. It really makes a difference when the wife and kids are out. There have been some weekends that I just take off to the local French bakery as it's quieter than home (even with all the patrons). Hope you get more weekends in like that.

Turgon

onesaint wrote: »

Fantastic that you got in such an efficient weekend. It really makes a difference when the wife and kids are out. There have been some weekends that I just take off to the local French bakery as it's quieter than home (even with all the patrons). Hope you get more weekends in like that.

Yeah. It really makes a difference and I should be good for weeks to come. Work is over and its quiet home. I just grabbed my six port replacement for R5 and added it to the lab. Prestaging for INE Vol III lab no 2 this evening..

Turgon

Prestaging done. Everything IP addressed. I have fixed my datalink bugs between devices. Where I have no frame relay between them Im going for HDLC setting the DCE clockrate accordingly. R3 has only one ethernet interface so I will add that to VLAN 23 so it will see R2 for the exercise. I dont know the switches inbetween R2 and R3 but would imagine some trunking in the lab exercise will let that work out. The extra interface was needed for a connection to BB2, which I dont have in my home lab anyway so no biggie.

Lab time now.

Turgon

Having issues getting my VLANs to appear on SW2. Troubleshooting..

Turgon

Lab 132 - INE Vol III no 2.

Fixed my VTP issues, done with the switching section and did all the Frame and WAN sections. Calling it a night. IGP/BGP tomorrow. It's clear I should prep my lab at lunchtime and clear things down, re-ip and get the bugs out. The evening then can be a killzone for a Vol III lab. Had to swap a few cables tonight to fix problems. Time to cook some dead animals now. 11PM and hungry.

Turgon

Lab 132. INE Vol III lab no 2 - DONE

Confederations. Always configuration heavy. Got all my peerings fixed.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

Lab 132. INE Vol III lab no 2 - DONE

Confederations. Always configuration heavy. Got all my peerings fixed.

You're moving right along. Has this long journey helped you out in your career? Could you have gotten to where you are now without the ccie prep?

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

You're moving right along. Has this long journey helped you out in your career? Could you have gotten to where you are now without the ccie prep?

It's always been a journey for me more than a destination. I passed the written exam in 2001. The jobs I had along the way and the personal commitments made regular labrat time difficult for me. I decided a long time ago to focus first and foremost on expending my time and energies at trying to be effective at the *work* I was given and be less hung up about passing this exam. It has paid off. Im considered for interview in all jobs I apply for unless the CCIE requirement is stringent, and I put that largely down to my CCIE studies over the last ten years. I have learned a great deal that has helped me in my work, and while I haven't been able to put it all together in a 6 month stretch to get up to lab test standard, because I haven't had one, the knowledge has certainly made me a better practitioner, and to some extent a better Network Architect, although that role extends far beyond being a command line junkie.

Roguetadhg

Turgon wrote: »

It's always been a journey for me more than a destination. I passed the written exam in 2001. The jobs I had along the way and the personal commitments made regular labrat time difficult for me. I decided a long time ago to focus first and foremost on expending my time and energies at trying to be effective at the *work* I was given and be less hung up about passing this exam. It has paid off. Im considered for interview in all jobs I apply for unless the CCIE requirement is stringent, and I put that largely down to my CCIE studies over the last ten years. I have learned a great deal that has helped me in my work, and while I haven't been able to put it all together in a 6 month stretch to get up to lab test standard, because I haven't had one, the knowledge has certainly made me a better practitioner, and to some extent a better Network Architect, although that role extends far beyond being a command line junkie.

You mean it extends into the realm of politician? Atleast, that's what I picked up from reading/hearing about it. Which is something that comes into play with IT, that and money.

Turgon

Roguetadhg wrote: »

You mean it extends into the realm of politician? Atleast, that's what I picked up from reading/hearing about it. Which is something that comes into play with IT, that and money.

hehehe...Im not sure exactly what you mean by that. All I can tell you is we have what 25000 active CCIE's in the world and there has been a feeding frenzy on obtaining it the last 14 years. No amount of resources available. I still think that's a pretty small return actually. The time requirement is a killer. So for the weak like us, and there are hundreds of thousands of us, I think it pays to approach it a way where the process gives you some benefit. Beasting yourself to pass this exam when it isn't practical isn't always wise. If you dont get through, its what stays with you that is important, and unless one works for Cisco or a reseller, often employers are not hung up about it. They are hung up about your performance and objectives at work though.

Roguetadhg

Turgon wrote: »

hehehe...Im not sure exactly what you mean by that. All I can tell you is we have what 25000 active CCIE's in the world and there has been a feeding frenzy on obtaining it the last 14 years. No amount of resources available. I still think that's a pretty small return actually. The time requirement is a killer. So for the weak like us, and there are hundreds of thousands of us, I think it pays to approach it a way where the process gives you some benefit. Beasting yourself to pass this exam when it isn't practical isn't always wise. If you dont get through, its what stays with you that is important, and unless one works for Cisco or a reseller, often employers are not hung up about it. They are hung up about your performance and objectives at work though.

That's a heck of a lot of CCIEs. What was the catalyst for the growth?

Turgon

Roguetadhg wrote: »

That's a heck of a lot of CCIEs. What was the catalyst for the growth?

I dont think the number is that big to be honest. The boom circa 1995 onwards with people up all night getting qualified in something new started it. There was a scramble for people as all the partners tried to grab the booming sales and needed qualified staff. I imagine an awful lot of people got minted with way less production experience than some of the CCNAs on here and certainly the CCNPs. There were many problems in the field

Turgon

Roguetadhg wrote: »

You mean it extends into the realm of politician? Atleast, that's what I picked up from reading/hearing about it. Which is something that comes into play with IT, that and money.

I get you know. Yes architecture and politics are some what entwined. It's decisions and money, and implications.