1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

7AM - Tuesday. Back on the home lab configuring lab "A"

Turgon

7:19AM. - Switching and IGPS in lab "A" on the home rack.

Turgon

A damn busy week at work but at least after work I have got done with switching, frame, RIP and OSPF on the latest lab. Redistribution and EIGRP to do when I have my next session after I have done with a network migration for my client in a few hours time.

Turgon

With an all nighter migrating an ISP network out of the way and some rest Im returning to homelab practice today on lab "A". Easter is a time for family but I hope to get a few hours in today. On Saturday I have a mock exam planned. Sunday we are off to visit relatives and Monday a shopping trip planned after which I need to catch up on some designs for my client. So it's a very busy weekend. I hope you have a happy Easter!

Turgon

Thats the IGPS and redistribution carefully done on this lab. Time well spent. Rest of the evening with the family now.

Turgon

Way too busy at work and at home this week to crank out any study hours. Lots of work out of hours, pressing deadlines and many things to do after work to make arrangements for a family trip abroad have left me feeling very tired. Should have a gap early next week to return to things.

Turgon

Ok, well after a demanding couple of weeks time wise on the work and homefront I now have a good gap opening up for me for study hours over the next 10 weeks! At this juncture things are good and going well. I have some definite goals planned over the next 10 weeks and if things go well I should after a vacation be in the run in for a 1st lab attempt in the autumn! Over the last year I have concentrated on taking time out to learn things in depth and patiently, accumulating rack time. Im fortunate in that I already hold down the sort of position that a lot of CCIE candidates aspire to obtain, so it's been important that my CCIE efforts after work haven't encroached on my ability to perform at work in terms of sapping my energy levels! As a consequence it's been slow but certainly steady progress.

It's all good and now I look forward to the final run in. I expect to be ramping up the study hours over the next couple of months!

Turgon

Spent a little time working on FRTS and CBWFQ problems

Turgon

Ipexpert LAB A - DONE

Finally returned to the home rack and knocked out the redundancy, network management, multicasting and QoS tasks.

Turgon

Ok well we have a mock exam scheduled for Saturday.

It's been an extraordinary journey in many ways. I have covered most things by now. Im now working harder on a layered approach to my work. Essentially I plan to get down the basics of most technologies across the piece with particular attention to the core..

Switching
Frame
PPP
IGP
BGP

It all stems from there. There are so many ways to 'adjust' the basic things..

redistribution
summaries
filtering
BGP attributes

Then there are the security aspects.

IP features make more sense.

Multicasting seems to be coming together. Few commands.

QoS methods seem to come a little easier.

I will be working harder on basic configuration and the manipulation of things in the weeks ahead.

Turgon

Lab B - Ipexpert. Looked over the whole lab, made diagram. I will configure tomorrow evening after work.

Turgon

Work over. Tramping on with lab 'B' now.

Turgon

Revising redistribution approaches.

Turgon

More work on Lab B. Interesting how communities were set and used for BGP<-> OSPF redistribution to prevent route feedback. The local-as no prepend solution does not meet requirements.

Turgon

Lab B - DONE. Im now prestaging the home rack for Lab 'S'. Once this is complete I will work on the BGP filtering configurations in Doyle Volume II .

Turgon

Im pleased with my progress so far. Clarity comes in lots of ways and on different levels when you prepare for this.

Requirement clarity - the ability to interpret what is actually required
Configuration clarity - knowing what to configure and to how to configure it

Working really hard on both over time provides better awareness on what you still need to work on.

Im close to 300 hours on racktime now spent working examples from books and practice labs patiently accumulated over one year. On top of that I have probably put a similar number of hours in reading and researching IOS applications of specific technologies, on groupstudy helping members where I can and doing many end of chapter exercises and studying configurations.

I hoped the 300 hour mark would be a transformation from where I was at 200 hours and I believe it has. Back to work now, fine tuning things. I think when I hit 500 hours I should be good to go. Exponentially now things are coming together with each session on the rack.

dynamik

Is your time line for the lab staying around what you imagined it would be?

Are you targeting a summer lab date?

Impressive work and dedication regardless. Hang in there!

Turgon

dynamik wrote:

Is your time line for the lab staying around what you imagined it would be?

Are you targeting a summer lab date?

Impressive work and dedication regardless. Hang in there!

Thank you my friend. You always know I appreciate your comments on my log. I have something of an advantage when it comes to CCIE preparation as I have already accumulated many years experience. Nevertheless to pass any exam one need to prepare specifically for it.

I already hold a demanding job down, one that many CCIE aspirants would hope to do so on that note it's been very important that my CCIE efforts outside of work hours do not drain on my ability to be on top of my game during office hours. Im needed at work and a lot of people rely on my performance.

So to that end my study approach has been measured. At to which as a new father Im rather busy after work with my baby son.

But I would say that yes..thing look good for a lab attempt before long. I anticipate Autumn now!

All is good, and thanks for asking!

Turgon

Another busy day in the work of contract network design over. Evening here 9PM. Time to don the ear plugs, turn on the home rack and prestage the rack for the insanely complex lab 'S'.

Gotta love it. Laters..

Turgon

Lab 'S' - cranked out a few hours this evening. The lab work was a good refresher. I have a mock exam tomorrow. It's my second. It's early days for mocks but certainly time to try them. My first mock I simply spent the session familiarising myself with the remote rack and all the materials given. Speed is not my priority at the moment so I patiently attempted just the switching and frame sections and called it a day ignoring all the other sections. I got a good deal of the marks on the sections I attempted. Now I have the hang of these things I will try and tramp through the mock tomorrow. I have to say that from the look and feel of all the sections in the mock exam Im there or there abouts at least in terms of topic awareness and understanding requirements.

I do need to get through tasks quicker but that will come with practice and I need to pull together everything I have covered and learned the last year. I should be able to do that across the next 8 weeks. There are a few things to straighten out, and some finer points to research but overall I have a solid foundation now. Redistribution is stronger, IGP and BGP constructs, PPP and Frame, Switching. QoS/Multicast/Services and Security less so but I will get there. Main constructs overall are good, filtering is fair but I need more drills for that. Also some reading on manipulating switching paths for traffic between VLANs..priority, root, cost..that kind of thing. I have just bought the IWEB workbook Vol II to give me a change from IPexpert so Im looking forward to turning their secenarios and examples over. I feel with one vendor under my belt looking at another may be useful when I step outside of the Doyle/Suggan/Solie/DocCD reading. I have some plans to work the BGP sections in Doyle Volume II on my homerack sometime in May.

With the weekend over I will batter on with more labs on the home rack, consolidate my notes and do some more reading before trying another mock in a couple of weeks time. Some momentum should be going by then so I expect marks to improve exponentially.

Turgon

Had a go at a mock exam today and rather pleased. I figured out how to get tabs running on every device (finally). Attempted the early sections and scored well there. The rest I ran out time for but that's fine it's early days. Happy to report that overall I can do the sections..I just need to work on much more speed. I overcome some very tricky things in the switching section which was pleasing!

I think I will have a fortnight now working on the core and then try a mock again, my speed should be much improved by then.

Turgon

Wow. Broke 300 hours configuration time on my home rack and remote racks. Well there is cause for celebration. 500 hours and I think Im set.

To CCIE candidates worldwide..if you are studying hard at the weekend goodluck to you. Ignore the lame comments about the CCIE from the naysayers. We are a different breed

Turgon

Researching multicasting configurations today.

Turgon

Reinforced the multicast reading on Sunday by tackling the multicast section on lab 'S' tonight on the home rack. A useful session.

Turgon

Considering Ipv6 configurations and routing

Turgon

I just bought 10 sessions from proctorlabs for their remote racks. While not the cheapest I did get a discount as an existing customer. The racks work and sales and support staff are in my experience prompt to respond and helpful. I have exhausted my home rack for the remaining IPexpert labs I have on my timetable. I don't have 4 switches so I will need the remote racks to do those.

Just about to finish off lab 'S' at home tonight. BGP and IPServices.

Turgon

Lab 'S' - DONE. Some useful BGP work in there regarding communites, prefix-lists and ASPath filtering.

Turgon

Well Im abandoning the home rack now except for Duggan/Solie and Doyle cisco press work. It is rather noisy but has been a fine servant.

But for the remaining multiprotocol labs in IPexpert I need the equipment that remote racks offer. I have a remote scheduled for Saturday there. As an aside I have purchased the IWEB workbook and some racktime so I shall be embarking on a few of their labs remotely. It will be good to compare styles. I expect my time with IWEB will be more a case of reinforcement of things covered by IPexpert and my cisco press and DocCD work on my home rack. I shall be looking over the scenarios and solutions guides with interest to see what insights can be had in the weeks ahead.

I think I will do 1 x IPexpert lab and 3 x IWEB lab and then try a mock exam again. I hope my speed has improved somewhat by then.

As for the homerack..well still here for ancillary learning. As a Tolkien fan all my routers are named after female characters from The Silmarillion. Can you guess their names?

Turgon

Presently working on an IWEB lab for some variety via a remote rack. Im concentrating on switching at the moment. My approach is to look carefully at the switching tasks, offer a solution then check the IEWB solution guides for the truth. It seems Im mainly 'on task'. The IWEB solution guides are comprehensive and some of the explanations there are clarifying a few important things. I do like the verification commands.

I expect to be spending a good deal of time with switching for a little while yet. The tasks in themselves may not amount to many points, but they are timeconsuming and as a consequence one could make mistakes. Add to which, problems with the switching configuration can really cost you later on in the lab.

I have a solid foundation. Aside from prior experience I used CCO examples, DocCD, Cisco Press and the IPExpert lab book. IPexpert has one technology lab dedicated to switching. They really need more than that. Add to which, the later labs, in my opinion do not really stretch you in terms of switching capabilities. They do to some extent, but not enough. This whole business of traffic to vlan x via switch 2 and switch 3 really needs to be explored and illustrated in the Ipexpert workbook much more thoroughly. Nevertheless I have Ipexpert labs useful for technology labs, and the multiprotocol labs are challenging. I use only the configuration solutions provided, I have not bought the proctor guide. I find in themselves the solutions are often enough. Anything Im not sure of I check the DocCD.

Turgon

Sometime this weekend configuring switching scenarios across 4 switches from IWEB.