David's CCIE: R+S Thread

gorebrush

I'm still here.

ONT progressing slowly, but it is progressing. Managed to get through Chapters 8, 9 and 10 over the weekend.

I'm doing it a bit out of order admittedly, but the wireless section was dead easy having done it a few times in the CCNP now. I felt that getting the wireless section out of the way would mean 30% of the chapter count done, and then I know I'm making good progress.

I think I'd gotten up to halfway through Chapter 3 anyway, and 7 on AutoQoS looked a doddle.

Round up of the work situation: -

My boss resigned, he's finished. They not replacing his role. Only 2 of us left in the department when there were 4 there when I started 2 years ago.

It really is time to move on, but competition for posts out there is seriously difficult. I've just been turned down one working for a massive IT Outsourcing/Consultancy firm. Bitterly bitterly disappointed as I had a friend working on that team who more or less got me an interview, but the guy who got the job apparently had slightly better experience. I can't do anything about that.

Then on Friday I had an invite for another interview massive interview process though, but I'm relishing the challenge.

At least I know I'm *kinda* comfortable where I am for now - I report into the Finance Manager and he has told me straight up that he is not technical, and he will need me to be his techy on the ground.

It could have gone so much worse - we have a parent company which like to centralise everything.. fortunately we have 20 servers and ERP systems that they cannot support, so I think the local business has decided that they would prefer to have a guy on the ground to help.

Tough times, but getting there, I hope.

Exam is now July 19th, cutting it fine, but I've got 19th through 31st for resit if I make a hash of attempt #1

gorebrush

I'm still here and slowly plugging away.

Covered most of the ONT book now, with about 4 weeks to go. Got about 2 chapters to go through, and i've read the rest.

Hopefully put the CCNP to bed on the 19th and then I'm not sure what to do.

Dying to get in there and clean up the MCITP 2008 upgrade... Though, I need to get my ass to the gym and lose some weight for my wedding!

So much to do... so little time..

gorebrush

Another interview.... another disappointment.

laidbackfreak

gorebrush wrote: »

Another interview.... another disappointment.

on the positive side, another practice for the right job

Nuul

gorebrush wrote: »

Another interview.... another disappointment.

Same here. I'm 0 for 2 post CCNP at this point. I'm getting a little frustrated at people wasting my PTO by asking me to come in during the work week for an onsite interview only to not hire me.

rogue2shadow

Sorry to hear that you guys. David keep up the momentum! CCNP and CCIE will be yours!

gorebrush

Yeah I know my interview skills are now top notch after 0 in 3 interviews this year.

Disappointing, but I can do well at interview. It's always the same problem that stops me getting hired though - someone else with slightly more experience - I've got a lack of experience in a certain area, etc.

The certain area that has dogged me this last two times is VMWare. So, I've been thinking about a VMWare project for my current workplace (to hell with it - If I can't get a job with VMWare on my limited personal experience, I will create a VMWare project here).

I've looked at the VCP certification and then learned that in order to pass the certification you needed to go sit a training course as well. Guess it's a good thing for VMWare, but means £3K course fees. However, as soon as I'd mentioned this to my dad, he said "I'll pay for the course". My fiancée supports me as well and she cheered me up yesterday since I felt so down.

I'm a very lucky man indeed.

chmorin

gorebrush wrote: »

Yeah I know my interview skills are now top notch after 0 in 3 interviews this year.

Disappointing, but I can do well at interview. It's always the same problem that stops me getting hired though - someone else with slightly more experience - I've got a lack of experience in a certain area, etc.

The certain area that has dogged me this last two times is VMWare. So, I've been thinking about a VMWare project for my current workplace (to hell with it - If I can't get a job with VMWare on my limited personal experience, I will create a VMWare project here).

I've looked at the VCP certification and then learned that in order to pass the certification you needed to go sit a training course as well. Guess it's a good thing for VMWare, but means £3K course fees. However, as soon as I'd mentioned this to my dad, he said "I'll pay for the course". My fiancée supports me as well and she cheered me up yesterday since I felt so down.

I'm a very lucky man indeed.

Yes you are remember that as you continue on.

laidbackfreak

gorebrush wrote: »

I've looked at the VCP certification and then learned that in order to pass the certification you needed to go sit a training course as well. Guess it's a good thing for VMWare, but means £3K course fees. However, as soon as I'd mentioned this to my dad, he said "I'll pay for the course". My fiancée supports me as well and she cheered me up yesterday since I felt so down.

yep indeed life is good

fwiw I wouldnt worry to much about the VCP cert as such most places are aware that you have to do the course to get certified in this area. resellers aside your just as weel putting a project together for work it shows far more experience for those that want VMWare.

gorebrush

laidbackfreak wrote: »

yep indeed life is good

fwiw I wouldnt worry to much about the VCP cert as such most places are aware that you have to do the course to get certified in this area. resellers aside your just as weel putting a project together for work it shows far more experience for those that want VMWare.

Yeah I think your right

We'll see

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

Yeah I think your right

We'll see

I wouldn't throw everything you have at VMWare unless you are very serious about specialising in that genre. I wouldn't drop 3K on the course. Instead, build what you can at home and see if it floats your boat. Similarly get a couple of decent books off amazon and hawk the VMWare website for white papers. Get upto speed on the platform versions and capabilities, invest some significant time in it at home.

There are many more VMWare shops that need help than there are VCPs to go around so if you like it and have put some time in to understand its capabilities and how to drive it that should tick the boxes you have been missing in your interviews.

I wouldn't want you to get too diverted from your CCIE mission!

notgoing2fail

Think real hard if you want to go the VCP route. I made that mistake late of 2009 by investing into VMware and was literally seconds from signing up with a VMware course for VCP 4.0

Don't get me wrong, VMware is the way to go and the future if you want to invest into it. I found that it wasn't exactly what I wanted to primarily specialise in. I think it makes a good 1-2 combo between Cisco and VMware if you want to know both.

I regret spending quite a bit of money building my own VMware lab. A lot of that money could have gone to my Cisco lab. Now I have a bunch of HP servers just laying around...

gorebrush

Some good advice here.

I'm only interested in the VCP to try and prove that I am a capable IT Professional. Jobs that I have applied for, and they dont seem to come up very often - they often fail due to lack of experience.

Am I applying for all the wrong jobs? I have 6 years experience in IT, and 4.5 of those years as a Senior Systems Administrator. You can see my qualifications, I've steadily been earning each of these since December of 2004...

3K does seem like a lot of money. I'd rather put the 3K towards a CCIE lab - the return on investment would be FAR greater in the long run. I just worry that I wouldn't find a permanent job as a CCIE because I'd seemingly lack the experience. Are CCIE's not supposed to find permanent work though? I'd imagine a CCIE would be more suited to contract work? I've never done any contract work before, but as long as I could guarantee a steady (and generous) income, I'd be more than prepared to go for contracting.

This screwed economy is really hampering my performance to shine.

Knowing that I have the financial backing is great - however, I can still go ahead and do a VMWare project at work without needing the VCP and this would probably satisfy most new prospective employers.

Turgon - I hear ya, the end goal is still CCIE - And I think you might be right - I probably shouldn't waste my study time on non-CCIE activities while my Cisco activity is good (And at the moment it's been great - managed to pile in 6 hours today and I'm feeling very confident)

On the VMWare project - I'm hoping to combine our current off-site DR contract and make our own off-site (as we now have the potential to have servers at our 2nd site, and have a DR facility of our own)

I am fairly confident that I can save my company more than £60,000 over the next five years in saving power, and cancelling this DR contract (£10K per annum) - I think they will listen to me when I float this number out that them, and hopefully I can invest in some new servers and creating a new (small) data centre in our second site that'll house VM's....

gorebrush

I think I may have been acting a little too hasty yesterday, going on what Turgon said "I don't want you to get too distracted from CCIE"

Ultimately I think this should still be the main target.

Maybe I won't bother for the VCP certification, but i'll certainly put together a good project for this company.

In the meantime, I think there will be an upcoming area of IT that will potentially make Network Architects serious amounts of money - and that is IPv6.

I don't think businesses have even begun to think of the implications of not being IPv6 aware, and sooner rather than later, the end of IPv4 address allocation is going to hit the world, and hit it hard.

I'm personally willing to put a lot of time and money into IPv6 research and learning about IPv6 because it is going to change the way that we use every single device - and we will need the engineers who understand not only IPv6, but how we can migrate our systems from 4 to 6.

I think potentially - this is where I could make some serious money as a CCIE - and I think this is what I should *really* be thinking about, if I am that serious about making serious money in IT.

Any thoughts?

gorebrush

Three weeks to go before ONT...

I've read through the entire ONT exam guide...

Currently working through the "Quick Reference" guide, about half way through that.

Almost ready to start bashing through the practice tests (Using the Cisco one with the book)

laidbackfreak

gorebrush wrote: »

Three weeks to go before ONT...

gorebrush wrote: »

ONT has been scheduled - June 28th 2010

What happened to this date ?

gorebrush

Good job it wasn't yesterday, I would have failed

Basically I've had too much on this last few weeks and I could see that I wasn't going to make the date.

It's July 19th

laidbackfreak

no worries these things happen lets hope nothing else gets in the way

gorebrush

I know... last day is 31st July...

chmorin

gorebrush wrote: »

I know... last day is 31st July...

Not leaving much time for error. That is what, one retake if the worst happens?

Baaaah what am I saying. You don't need no stinkin' retakes

gorebrush

chmorin wrote: »

Not leaving much time for error. That is what, one retake if the worst happens?

Baaaah what am I saying. You don't need no stinkin' retakes

Well no indeed, I am kinda playing it a bit dangerous

Worse comes to the worse, I'll go take TSHOOT if I fail ONT.

Not ideal, because we all know TSHOOT is a radically different exam and I don't really fancy a change of methodology towards the CCNP considering I've hit the other three already...

Still, we'll see

gorebrush

OK another week is at an end.

Before I set off to do my weekly chores at 8, best post some thoughts.

I've now finished reading the ONT guide and the Quick Reference Sheets and well, all I can say is that if I have covered everything, then there certainly isnt a lot of meat to this exam.

Has been a lot easier to digest than say BCMSN, but has been very interesting. Will now need to do a post-CCNP review project at work to apply what I have learned into a production environment - useful way to ensure I still know what I'm talking about. Considering I passed the BSCI back in December of 2008, and well, I don't really get to use Routing Protocols at work (at all) that is going to leave that area of my knowledge rusty.

I'm looking to start using the practice questions soon, got my Official Cisco CD prepped and ready to go.

Post CCNP I'm hoping to steamroller ahead into CCIE. Talks with the soon to be Mrs. Gorebrush lately have reconfirmed that my effort for CCIE will longterm be worthwhile because when I get that we should be a lot better off, and in a better position to afford to have mini gorebrushes in time to come. Not that we don't do bad now - we make about ~£62K between us. Considering we are both in our 20's (I'm 27 and she is 26 this week) then I think we are doing very well already

I have the VMWare project to keep me occupied at work, but at home I will be CCIE all the way.

I've decided that if my Dad is going to be prepared to spend that kind of money on possibly putting me through a VCP - then maybe he'd be just as happy to spend that on CCIE Lab equipment for me instead...

Anyway, Exam is July 19th. Think I will take a week off, but not too long as I know what I'm like when I leave the books alone.

I'll be aiming for CCIE Written early in 2011 (I am getting married in December) and then hoping to sit the CCIE Lab early-mid 2012. Before I am 30 (May 13th 2013) would be awesome!

I would have thought the CCNP, especially being relatively fresh, will stand me in very good stead to already have a lot of the base knowledge for CCIE prepared.

I'm also betting that IPv6 will be a hot topic in a few years to come - and I'm thinking a fresh CCIE and a few IPv6 migration contracts will mean big spondoolies..

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

OK another week is at an end.

Before I set off to do my weekly chores at 8, best post some thoughts.

I've now finished reading the ONT guide and the Quick Reference Sheets and well, all I can say is that if I have covered everything, then there certainly isnt a lot of meat to this exam.

Has been a lot easier to digest than say BCMSN, but has been very interesting. Will now need to do a post-CCNP review project at work to apply what I have learned into a production environment - useful way to ensure I still know what I'm talking about. Considering I passed the BSCI back in December of 2008, and well, I don't really get to use Routing Protocols at work (at all) that is going to leave that area of my knowledge rusty.

I'm looking to start using the practice questions soon, got my Official Cisco CD prepped and ready to go.

Post CCNP I'm hoping to steamroller ahead into CCIE. Talks with the soon to be Mrs. Gorebrush lately have reconfirmed that my effort for CCIE will longterm be worthwhile because when I get that we should be a lot better off, and in a better position to afford to have mini gorebrushes in time to come. Not that we don't do bad now - we make about ~£62K between us. Considering we are both in our 20's (I'm 27 and she is 26 this week) then I think we are doing very well already

I have the VMWare project to keep me occupied at work, but at home I will be CCIE all the way.

I've decided that if my Dad is going to be prepared to spend that kind of money on possibly putting me through a VCP - then maybe he'd be just as happy to spend that on CCIE Lab equipment for me instead...

Anyway, Exam is July 19th. Think I will take a week off, but not too long as I know what I'm like when I leave the books alone.

I'll be aiming for CCIE Written early in 2011 (I am getting married in December) and then hoping to sit the CCIE Lab early-mid 2012. Before I am 30 (May 13th 2013) would be awesome!

I would have thought the CCNP, especially being relatively fresh, will stand me in very good stead to already have a lot of the base knowledge for CCIE prepared.

I'm also betting that IPv6 will be a hot topic in a few years to come - and I'm thinking a fresh CCIE and a few IPv6 migration contracts will mean big spondoolies..

Try and do some Cisco studies every day and you will be fine!

gorebrush

Excellent day's study today. Managed to do 2/3 hours yesterday - did a few practice tests and am hitting 85-90%

Then decided to have a QoS review with Jeremy Cioara.

Today I've covered the entire 6 hours of QoS in the CBT Nuggets package and it's only midday.

I can see my only real weak point being Wireless (Again with the wireless, how are you supposed to get your hands on the full on WCS based system?)

Some minor points include the SDM QoS but nothing too worrying.

Looking forward to nailing this exam next week and finishing off this lovely little cert.

gorebrush

Just to beef out my post above. I have indeed had an amazing days study, and I have now proven to myself that I can get a good 7-8 hours in on a Sunday. My fiancée generally works a double shift on a Sunday so she is out from 6:30am until 9:45pm.

I take her to work, so it means I can get my ass out of bed. If I didn't get up, I'd be tempted to stay in bed until 9/10am because the weekend means a lie in... But 6:45am I was here and got on with the ONT QoS review. Pretty much watched the entire section on QoS straight through just as a review, and it helped quite a lot.

Once I'd done this, I had dinner, then came back and entertained myself with some VMWare training. Pretty much got an idea of how to put together a test model at work so I can demo VMWare and get some substance behind my documentation that is trying to save the company at least £60,000 over the next five years if they are willing to commit the £20-30K hardware investment. Long term it will pay for itself.

Am very pleased with my progress today, I know I have a long week as I'm out on the road Tuesday, but hopefully it is just minor review between now and July 19th for ONT.

The weekend after, fiancée is working a double shift weekend, so that will be the *perfect* opening to start CCIE.

Watch this space, for I am going to bring it on, and bring it on big. (As it says in post #2 - I remembered that quote LBF )

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

Just to beef out my post above. I have indeed had an amazing days study, and I have now proven to myself that I can get a good 7-8 hours in on a Sunday. My fiancée generally works a double shift on a Sunday so she is out from 6:30am until 9:45pm.

I take her to work, so it means I can get my ass out of bed. If I didn't get up, I'd be tempted to stay in bed until 9/10am because the weekend means a lie in... But 6:45am I was here and got on with the ONT QoS review. Pretty much watched the entire section on QoS straight through just as a review, and it helped quite a lot.

Once I'd done this, I had dinner, then came back and entertained myself with some VMWare training. Pretty much got an idea of how to put together a test model at work so I can demo VMWare and get some substance behind my documentation that is trying to save the company at least £60,000 over the next five years if they are willing to commit the £20-30K hardware investment. Long term it will pay for itself.

Am very pleased with my progress today, I know I have a long week as I'm out on the road Tuesday, but hopefully it is just minor review between now and July 19th for ONT.

The weekend after, fiancée is working a double shift weekend, so that will be the *perfect* opening to start CCIE.

Watch this space, for I am going to bring it on, and bring it on big. (As it says in post #2 - I remembered that quote LBF )

Good work. The weekends is where the CCIE is won and lost. Study as much as you can!

Nuul

Gore: you're avatar is epic. I have a sudden desire to set mine to Moss.

mikej412

Nuul wrote: »

I have a sudden desire to set mine to Moss.

Moss is already in use by a couple people -- but you can have first dibs on Roy or Jen

gorebrush

Nuul wrote: »

Gore: you're avatar is epic. I have a sudden desire to set mine to Moss.

FFFAAAAAATTTTTHHHHEEERRRRR

Hahaha

I LOVE The IT Crowd.

It is pure, win.

gorebrush

Well time to add some more interesting bits.

I met with Central IT today, and for the first time met the IT Director for our parent company. Overall I think they are keen to exploit my Cisco skills of networking AND VoIP as he told me that "we are very weak in Networking/Comms and completely empty with VoIP"

At one point I did want to do a CCVP - This could be a PERFECT opportunity to get involved with multisite rollouts of VoIP and Cisco networking for our parent company and is a MASSIVE opporunity for my career development.

I absolutely bloody love VoIP, and would definitely do a 2nd CCIE in Voice.

This, has been a bloody good day.