New guy going for CCIE

reaper81

Another 3 hours of QoS studies. Still plenty of labs to complete.

reaper81

Rack session booked. More QoS tonight. Will mix it up with a Vol3 lab this week I think. Hopefully I can reach the half way point or further of the QoS labs (80+). I am at 25 starting this week.

reaper81

Kind of slow week so far. Lots to do at work before leaving and son has been awake longer than usual in the evening. Moving along with the QoS labs. I'm at lab 34 now so roughly 50 to go.

jamesp1983

reaper81 wrote: »

Kind of slow week so far. Lots to do at work before leaving and son has been awake longer than usual in the evening. Moving along with the QoS labs. I'm at lab 34 now so roughly 50 to go.

man, you're making great progress. keep it up!

reaper81

First day at new job done. Seems to be a great place so far. I will be involved in a lot of network design at large customers. Have asked my boss about the possibility of a CCIE bootcamp and that I want to book a lab date. He is looking into it.

Got to meet the CEO who was on a visit today. Seems to be a nice guy and he used to work at Cisco! I got to present myself and he asked if I was a CCIE, not yet!

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

First day at new job done. Seems to be a great place so far. I will be involved in a lot of network design at large customers. Have asked my boss about the possibility of a CCIE bootcamp and that I want to book a lab date. He is looking into it.

Got to meet the CEO who was on a visit today. Seems to be a nice guy and he used to work at Cisco! I got to present myself and he asked if I was a CCIE, not yet!

Cool. Knuckle down in the new job for a couple of months. Once you have put some time in and got some respectable pieces of work out of the door you can start to do a bit of lab study on works time.

reaper81

Ante up.

Talked to boss and I will probably need to complete two specialist certs and CCIE before Jan 31, will be tough but doable if I get support at work. Has anyone done the Cisco Express Foundation Field Specialist or Cisco Express Foundation Design Specialist? Are they tough? Cisco Express Foundation for Systems Engineers

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Ante up.

Talked to boss and I will probably need to complete two specialist certs and CCIE before Jan 31, will be tough but doable if I get support at work. Has anyone done the Cisco Express Foundation Field Specialist or Cisco Express Foundation Design Specialist? Are they tough? Cisco Express Foundation for Systems Engineers

You need to talk to one of those Cisco Partner guys like Mike about all that. You will be on a yellow card at work for a while so I would knuckle down on the job requirements and study in the evening only if you have gas to do it. Expect to be working long hours in a new job while you get on top of things and tick the right boxes..

reaper81

Downloaded the material from PEC for the express foundation certifications. Good news is I probably know most of the stuff already. Just have to go over the sales crap like PPDIOO etc. Think I can go through these hardcore in 2 weeks and then get back to CCIE. Don't want to try to study this and CCIE at the same time.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Downloaded the material from PEC for the express foundation certifications. Good news is I probably know most of the stuff already. Just have to go over the sales crap like PPDIOO etc. Think I can go through these hardcore in 2 weeks and then get back to CCIE. Don't want to try to study this and CCIE at the same time.

I dont envy you. It might be wise to take a break and just get on top of all that.

reaper81

Yeah. Have to step up for my new company. If I succeed with this I will have brought them a lot of benefits and discounts and hopefully there is something in for it for me at the goal line. So I'm on a tighter schedule from now on but it is still doable, just need to focus even more than before.

reaper81

Just took the Cisco Express Foundation Design Specalist test and failed. First time I've ever failed a Cisco test. The test was a bunch of crap. The only material available for it is web material from PEC and I don't feel it was very representative of the actual test. Not really sure how to move forward but we'll see what happens.

jamesp1983

reaper81 wrote: »

Just took the Cisco Express Foundation Design Specalist test and failed. First time I've ever failed a Cisco test. The test was a bunch of crap. The only material available for it is web material from PEC and I don't feel it was very representative of the actual test. Not really sure how to move forward but we'll see what happens.

Sorry to hear that man. Regroup and go destroy it!

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Just took the Cisco Express Foundation Design Specalist test and failed. First time I've ever failed a Cisco test. The test was a bunch of crap. The only material available for it is web material from PEC and I don't feel it was very representative of the actual test. Not really sure how to move forward but we'll see what happens.

You might be pushing too hard. Forget the CCIE for a couple of weeks and prepare for this thing, in a new job you dont want fails. Contact whatever cisco rep you have for materials.

reaper81

Yeah. Need to get hold of some better material. Sure, I did rush it but if I had decent material I would have passed this. Will give it a new try in a couple of weeks.

reaper81

I have reviewed my weak points from the test and think I have enough to warrant a pass next time around. I'm resuming my CCIE studies on sunday. Going to try to implement this strategy:

Sun - Complete full vol2 lab or close to it
Mon - Complete Vol2 or if that is done practice Vol1 weak topics for Vol2 lab
Tue - More Vol1
Thu - More Vol1 or Vol3/4
Sun - Vol2 lab

Rinse and repeat. Doing Vol2 is great but I still think they key to passing is knowing all the technology from Vol1. If I can stick to this schedule I will have roughly 20 hours of lab practice per week.

Getting enough sleep will be an issue but as a former marine and a parent I should be used to little sleep

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

I have reviewed my weak points from the test and think I have enough to warrant a pass next time around. I'm resuming my CCIE studies on sunday. Going to try to implement this strategy:

Sun - Complete full vol2 lab or close to it
Mon - Complete Vol2 or if that is done practice Vol1 weak topics for Vol2 lab
Tue - More Vol1
Thu - More Vol1 or Vol3/4
Sun - Vol2 lab

Rinse and repeat. Doing Vol2 is great but I still think they key to passing is knowing all the technology from Vol1. If I can stick to this schedule I will have roughly 20 hours of lab practice per week.

Getting enough sleep will be an issue but as a former marine and a parent I should be used to little sleep

Decent strategy. For me the CCIE candidate goes through three phases and you are in the second. Most of your days should be devoted to studying a single topic. By all means take a complete practice lab on periodically. Weekly, fortnightly, monthy. Depends on your study bandwidth. Its useful to do a full one from time to time as that is how you get your process working better across an 8 hour session when you have to put everything together. But to become masterful at it, you want those dedicated daily technology sessions so that you have an instinct for what a question is asking of you for any given technology you will encounter in a full lab. Learn the technologies.

Turgon

Its the weekend. Study hard.

reaper81

Chilling tonight but just booked a double rack session for tomorrow. Just found out I won an iPad2 by contributing to IEOC

reaper81

Good session with QoS last night, starting to get a good feel for it. Didn't have the energy to stay awake as long as I wished. 4 hours is nothing to sneeze at as a parent so I'll take it. Got another session booked for tonight then tomorrow I'm going to watch my favourite hockey team. It's the first game of the season and might be one of the few chanches that I can see them (due to studying) so I'm taking that night off.

Turgon

Coming up on 400 lab hours now man. Excellent progress.

reaper81

Another few hours of QoS labs. Really close to 400 now. Hopefully I can finish off QoS this week and then start with the other Vol1 labs. Not sure what the best strategy is for Vol1, cover to cover or some other way?

jamesp1983

I've heard interleaving them with vol II is the best way.

reaper81

Yes, that is my plan. Do a full Vol2 lab on Sundays and then rest of week doing Vol1 labs. Not sure if I should do all OSPF and then all EIGRP etc or mix them. I'll just have to see what fits me best.

Turgon

Do single technologies every day during the week and one full Vol II at the weekend. You need a Vol II so that you learn to cope with an 8 hour lab. Cancel your plans for that day.

reaper81

Still adjusting to my new job so haven't got that much studying done. Billed my first hours yesterday so at least I have started to contribute Will try to finish QoS on sunday and from there do more Vol1 and Vol2 labs. Next week I'm booking the lab. Looking for a date late feb.

reaper81

Done with QoS labs. I really do enjoy doing QoS. It's also something not many people know too well so I hope I can use this in my career. Going to do a full Vol2 lab tomorrow and then rest of week Vol1 labs. I have roughly 6 months before lab attempt so time to get rolling.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Done with QoS labs. I really do enjoy doing QoS. It's also something not many people know too well so I hope I can use this in my career. Going to do a full Vol2 lab tomorrow and then rest of week Vol1 labs. I have roughly 6 months before lab attempt so time to get rolling.

Are you working tomorrow? A full Vol2 lab takes 8 hours at least. How will you find the time?

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Done with QoS labs. I really do enjoy doing QoS. It's also something not many people know too well so I hope I can use this in my career. Going to do a full Vol2 lab tomorrow and then rest of week Vol1 labs. I have roughly 6 months before lab attempt so time to get rolling.

On QoS I would say the QoS work I did in the field this year was way more complex than any lab requirement. QoS is something of a quagmire for CCIE candidates. My advice is to know enough and move along or it will take up too much of your studytime. It is few points and even if you blow it you shouldn't break any other sections in your lab. Know FRTS, know MQC and hiearchical QoS, know Catalyst QoS, know colour policing, know voice access-lists, know shaping, be aware of the rest and move along. Multicast and Ipv6 are the same as is security, this is not the CCIE in security. Focus on Routing and Switching, decimate those topics. Do troubleshooting practice the last 8 weeks of your lab prep and do the mock exams you can find that match the actual lab experience as best you can.

reaper81

Turgon wrote: »

Are you working tomorrow? A full Vol2 lab takes 8 hours at least. How will you find the time?

Yeah, I'm working. I'm only doing the config section so that is 6 hours. My son usually goes to sleep at 19.30 ish. So from 19.30 to 01.30. That means I will only have about 4h sleep but hey, who said this would be easy? I can also catch 30 min of sleep on the commute in. I will perform the lab as if it was a real lab. Do the stuff I know and skip the rest to lookup later.