1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Things are working out. It has been a lot of effort getting the home lab operational and getting it's bugs out but I have done so. I will add BB2 over the weekend now the 4000 is working out as a 2 port ethernet router.

Im going to look over my notes and see about using the environment for some dedicated topic study. With the IOS version a lot of stuff is out but I could do switching and it would be good to get *that* topic nailed. Graded labs for the rest. But for Vol III study the homelab is just fine and it's helping my core.

Turgon

The weekend. Lots of things I need to attend to in the house, but also plenty of study time. Already made a start this morning. Im focusing on switching today starting with dot1q tunnelling.

Forsaken_GA

Turgon wrote: »

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

Well, there's also the impact the new tracks had on it as well. Voice and Security people probably weren't terribly interested in getting R&S certified, so when CCIE tracks for their field came available, that's obviously going to pique interest. Since the tracks don't carry seperate number counts, long story short, you've got more people interested and attempted, and that's going to boost the number of people passing.

Turgon

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Well, there's also the impact the new tracks had on it as well. Voice and Security people probably weren't terribly interested in getting R&S certified, so when CCIE tracks for their field came available, that's obviously going to pique interest. Since the tracks don't carry seperate number counts, long story short, you've got more people interested and attempted, and that's going to boost the number of people passing.

It helped bring numbers up. Historically the R&S exam carried a lot of components we now see in the other tracks.

Turgon

I think have dot1q-tunnelling down. Two exercises. Making a router cdp to a far end router ignoring the switches inbetween, and a more challenging exercise getting a portchanel up from SW1 to SW4 with intermediate SW3 and SW4 inbetween. Seems to work out. Used ping with df-bit set for verification between R1 and R4 ping 10.1.1.2 size 1500 df-bit

Had to put my own topology together for these as my routers do not have twin ethernet ports. All good practice.

Spanning tree variations next..

Turgon

Spending more time practicing switching configurations on my lab. Almost done with spanning-tree for today. MST next after I get some housework out of the way. Im using the notes I compiled last year when I went through the topic configurations in the Vol II workbook. They are proving useful!

Turgon

Very good practice on switching this weekend. Feeling better about all that. The only issue was getting the hardware to take the private vlan configurations but I think I have that down now anyway. Will stick BB2 into the lab tomorrow and recable for INE Vol III lab no 4. Once that lab is done its more dedicated topic practice from my notes. My hardware has limitations so it may be gradedlabs again for a few sessions.

Turgon

Did a bit of reading. After the next core lab, it's the nasties..Security up first..uggh..then IPv6..then QoS..uggh..then Multicast..then MPLS..with Vol III core labs in between. IP services and Systems Management matters, but is easy revision later down the track. It ain't difficult stuff.

Turgon

Lab 133. INE Vol III lab no 4.

Rearranged my homelab for this so making a start this evening now work is done.

Turgon

Bridging and WAN done. Having to make compromises on the homerack. Virtual templates dont work on IOS between R4 and R5 but the lesson is learned anyway. Next up is an IRB scenario that promises trouble. I will need to check my backbone BB1 configs. If wrong. Fix. If unable to support, just read exercise and press on. My R6->BB1 is just HDLC instead of FR due to lack of frame switch ports.

Turgon

Lab 133 INE Vol III lab 4 - DONE.

Clattered it out. Heavy on confederation work, virtual templates, bridging. My routing tables and peerings are not good, so I will save the lab and get the bugs out during the course of tomorrow. A good troubleshooting exercise! The important thing tonight was to complete this one on a Monday night after work, and inside three hours which I did. The solutions have reminded me of things I had forgotten but are back in focus now.

This lab was last undertaken on 3/3/2009 according to my notes so quite a sabbatical but I reckon I did better this time than last in terms of smooth process. Getting there. I need to get the Vol III workbook nuked and jettisoned to a shelf where it belongs, then back on with topic practice on remote racks before a mock exam. About 5 hours work to do a Vol III on the home lab. One has to study topology, assess the changes, recable, clear down racks, re ip address devices, reprogramme frame switch. At least BB2 is running now. I imagine once Vol III is done, it will all be remote racks here on in. Its just easier. Getting BB2 built today was fun. Old IOS not supporting prefix lists which were needed for the route-maps and distribute lists so I used standard access-lists instead. Its all practice. I estimate the 10 Vol III labs will get me to 1000 lab hours, which is good as I need to energise. 1000 - 1100 hours will really get me closer to where I need to be.

Turgon

I will press on and prestage the home rack for Vol III lab no 5 today.

onesaint

Is the exam within reach after those 1100 hours? Glad to see your getting on well again. And better than in 2009!

Roguetadhg

How's the work, Turgon?

Turgon

Roguetadhg wrote: »

How's the work, Turgon?

Its going well. Im in the middle of a lab at the moment after work. Should post in a couple of hours.

Turgon

Lab 134 INE Vol III lab 5 - DONE

My old gear at home forced lots of compromises with this exercise as it was riddled with router subinterfaces. But routing protocols dont care about that abstraction so felt I did a good lab regardless. A complex lab with virtual templates and dialers, again my hardware hurt me there but the lessons available in the lab were learned. OSPF tunnels a plenty. BGP peering was labour intensive. Switching went well. The WAN aspects were involved but I get it. Im halfway through this workbook now and so far my objectives in just less than three weeks have been reached..I built the homelab again, I lab every day, my process is working, Im halfway through the Vol III workbook with 5 labs down. Good. I will ease off the pace for a few days now. I have a business trip coming up and after three weekends alone doing all this stuff Im spending time with family this weekend. I do need a break.

Next week I will nuke the remaining 5 labs in this workbook and then..no more workbooks for me. I have done them all several times. The purpose of the Vol III was to take something on after a long break which was achievable to remind myself how labs hang together, the sort of situations and solutions and to get through something core. I will then concentrate on dedicated topic practice as I did last weekend on switching, which works well for me, and do mock exams for the 8 hour experience. August 2009 was my best time and since then, priorities professionally and at home forced me to concentrate on both areas at the expense of my studies, with results gained at work and personally. Now I can pick this stuff up again Im feeling good about things. The last two and a half weeks have been hard though. Not least as my energies and focus are really needed at work at this time. Some rest now

jamesp1983

Great work. You've kept to it and you will have a good result.

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Great work. You've kept to it and you will have a good result.

Thanks James. We will see. No pressure on me from any departments to pass this exam, but it will be my last year at it. So far so good though! Plenty of time for daily lab practice has always been difficult and you cant pass without it, unless you put your money down and **** the lab.

Turgon

No lab work this evening. I retrenched at work and have a busy day of meetings tomorrow. I have however prepped my homerack this evening in preparation for lab no 6 in INE Vol III. The recabling will be done Thursday night and I will probably polish off the lab Thursday, Friday. My home topology forces a compromise due to hardware constraints, so I did check with graded labs, but once again they are largely booked and not for the first time this year. Labs, 7, 8, 9, 10 I can accommodate at home, but for 6 I have done my best. I spoke to Katie at INE as Im dissappointed about what seems to be an ongoing booking problem for INE racktime. I will request a refund of the tokens I can't use, and invest that money in an alternative rack hire vendor. I will use INE racks for mock exams though, but for ongoing ondemand lab practice they are no longer a good source. This is a problem as for topic practice, what I have at home isn't good enough, although it will hold together *just* for the purposes of the INE Vol III workbooks.

Roguetadhg

Turgon wrote: »

Thanks James. We will see. No pressure on me from any departments to pass this exam, but it will be my last year at it.

No Turgon!

ipSpace

Turgon wrote: »

Thanks James. We will see. No pressure on me from any departments to pass this exam, but it will be my last year at it. .

Of course it will be the last, you will pass it!

jamesp1983

ipSpace wrote: »

Of course it will be the last, you will pass it!

Turgs definitely got this one.

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Turgs definitely got this one.

hehehe..well we will see. Lack of time to do lab practice regularly has always been my achilles heel.

Im going to do some labwork now, but after being up at 6AM to attend an all day meeting and a 4 hour round trip on the road to boot Im feeling rather tired, so Im not going to overdo it tonight I can finish this lab tomorrow.

Turgon

Roguetadhg wrote: »

No Turgon!

Well you cant go on forever. I have enjoyed the process and it's made me a more accomplished engineer. I think I have the bandwidth this year to put the study hour in so I will give it a go.

Turgon

Done with the switching section on this lab. Tired now and calling it a night. Will do the vlan access assignments tomorrow. Only gotcha was a requirement to load balance for a single VLAN without using trunking.

Solution is to etherchannel using a number of access ports. In the CCNA and CCNP one is not taught to etherchannel access ports, but to etherchannel trunks. Without the experience of vendor workbooks, its likely if this appeared in your real lab exam this would fox you into a terrible solution that wouldn't work, cost you valuable time, and screw up something else in the lab. I think it's a stupid question to be honest and only worth 2 marks. My advice..

1. Buy workbooks.
2. If you dont know the solution just go for something simple that doesn't meet requirements but gets the datalink between your devices nailed up. You lose the few points, but have a working datalink for the rest.

Turgon

Had a busy week last week. Had an enjoyable weekend seeing relatives. Now finally home. A lot of driving to see my folks. Tired. It's 8pm Saturday evening so turning on the homerack again..

For those who want to be CCIE's, it's Saturday. Study.

Laters..

Turgon

A troublesome lab. My equipment specs will not support the ppp multilink and virtual template exercise in the WAN section so Im forced to be creative and throw something else together that works. The exercise is important though, although over engineered.

Turgon

Im on to IGPs. This lab is truly awful and over engineereed but pressing on. Its now 10:30 pm on a Saturday night. It's important for CCIE candidates to work, when one could instead play computer games or eat more food. To sacrifice the easy going hours and times.

Turgon

Its midnight so Im calling it now. I have BGP left to do, and looking at the requirements and the solutions its nothing more than peerings and route-reflectors and network announcements, so nothing new for me there, but I will do them in the morning.

The lab was useful upto a point as I was reminded how to do some particular things to meet a certain requirement. But it's over engineereed. I think the instructor needs to put the crack pipe down. The main thing was to get this one done. Next week I have only four labs left in the workbook to finish so progress is good. My Saturday evening went on this lab. For those of you reading who want to be CCIE's, it's the weekend, stop eating food and playing computer games, and get some work done.

Turgon

A bit of time catching up with the family then back on with BGP.