New guy going for CCIE

reaper81

Great. So you will have a very good opportunity of achieving a pass during that time. Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss/want support in anything for lab prep.

jamesp1983

reaper81 wrote: »

For anyone whondering how a day looks like for a CCIE candidate pushing for the lab:

05:45 - Wake up
08:00 - Arrive at job
17:15 - Back home
17:15 - 19:30 - Spend time with family
19.30 - 24:00 - Lab
05:45 - Wake up

Rinse and repeat.

It's not an easy journey but hopefully it will be worth it.

Man, that's dedication. I'm impressed. Keep it going!

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Great. So you will have a very good opportunity of achieving a pass during that time. Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss/want support in anything for lab prep.

Will do Daniel.

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Man, that's dedication. I'm impressed. Keep it going!

It's what you will be doing once you pass the written and begin lab prep.

reaper81

Did two TS labs yesterday. My final push for lab is spent on reading/doing Vol2/TS labs. I have also bought two Cisco360 mock labs that I plan on doing soon.

NOC-Ninja

reaper81 wrote: »

Did two TS labs yesterday. My final push for lab is spent on reading/doing Vol2/TS labs. I have also bought two Cisco360 mock labs that I plan on doing soon.

How much did the cisco 360 mock lab cost?

ipSpace

reaper81 wrote: »

For anyone whondering how a day looks like for a CCIE candidate pushing for the lab:

05:45 - Wake up
08:00 - Arrive at job
17:15 - Back home
17:15 - 19:30 - Spend time with family
19.30 - 24:00 - Lab
05:45 - Wake up

Rinse and repeat.

It's not an easy journey but hopefully it will be worth it.

Aren't you tired with only 6h of sleeping ?
I tryed it for a few weeks(2) and i was really tired in the weekends.

How can you hold up ?

reaper81

They cost $373.15 each. Expensive but the closest thing you will find to the lab. Could save one from an extra attempt so cost should be evaluated in that sense but still.

reaper81

inSecure.ro wrote: »

Aren't you tired with only 6h of sleeping ?
I tryed it for a few weeks(2) and i was really tired in the weekends.

How can you hold up ?

Yes, I am tired but don't want to sacrifice too much from family. It's either sleep or family and therefore I have to sacrifice sleep. I try to get more sleep in the weekends. It is starting to take its toll though but if I pass it will be worth it.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

It's what you will be doing once you pass the written and begin lab prep.

I can't wait.

nethacker

this is building my motivation.

reaper81

nethacker wrote: »

this is building my motivation.

Great

nethacker

reaper81 wrote: »

Great

i was actually waiting to have 5yrs+ experience in routing and switch before i start heading for my CCIE but now i think it doesn't matter at all. I think it's better to start preparing for the written and by the time i am done with that, i'll have almost 5yrs+ experience. What specific materials have you been using? I have been going through INE videos on youtube just to prepare my mind for the battle ahead.

Forsaken_GA

reaper81 wrote: »

They cost $373.15 each. Expensive but the closest thing you will find to the lab. Could save one from an extra attempt so cost should be evaluated in that sense but still.

The cost may be off putting, but you have to look at it as an investment. I've had a CCIE fund for years, that's what paid for my books, my gear, and my training material.

Turgon

nethacker wrote: »

i was actually waiting to have 5yrs+ experience in routing and switch before i start heading for my CCIE but now i think it doesn't matter at all. I think it's better to start preparing for the written and by the time i am done with that, i'll have almost 5yrs+ experience. What specific materials have you been using? I have been going through INE videos on youtube just to prepare my mind for the battle ahead.

From a preparation point of view I agree it doesn't matter at all. Many CCIE's have been minted over the years with little or no R&S experience or qualifications from day one. That said, selling on your CCIE these days is a competitive thing and many holders have that experience behind them with the CCIE gilt edging things so you dont just have to take their word for it that they are an expert. That counts for a good deal when one is less experienced as few people have a CV that reads 'I suck dont hire me'

Experience will help your prep but isn't essential. Experience is more essential for post CCIE in the employabilty stakes and wage negotiations. Experience also helps you gear up for the operational realities in the field, the CCIE is more of an operational possibilities thing.

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

I can't wait.

For at least a year or more...so discuss this indoors with your significant other and rob what study time you can at work when you are in the office! Every hour done at work is one less at home.

nethacker

Turgon wrote: »

From a preparation point of view I agree it doesn't matter at all. Many CCIE's have been minted over the years with little or no R&S experience or qualifications from day one. That said, selling on your CCIE these days is a competitive thing and many holders have that experience behind them with the CCIE gilt edging things so you dont just have to take their word for it that they are an expert. That counts for a good deal when one is less experienced as few people have a CV that reads 'I suck dont hire me'

Experience will help your prep but isn't essential. Experience is more essential for post CCIE in the employabilty stakes and wage negotiations. Experience also helps you gear up for the operational realities in the field, the CCIE is more of an operational possibilities thing.

so it's better to attempt the lab after written even without much experience? In the new job that i will be resuming in 2 weeks, i'll doing a lot of BGP and IP multicast side of things(That's the team i will be assigned)

Turgon

nethacker wrote: »

so it's better to attempt the lab after written even without much experience? In the new job that i will be resuming in 2 weeks, i'll doing a lot of BGP and IP multicast side of things(That's the team i will be assigned)

Its best to attempt the lab once you are prepared for it. Experience doesn't hurt in that respect but the crucial thing is to train for the lab. For that you dont need experience. To pass the lab you study the topics theoretically and you practice them hands on. Experience can help with both but without training specific for the lab it's unlikely you will cope with lab day no matter how experienced you are. It's a test. Train for the test.

NOC-Ninja

Also, experience will help but studying CCIE lab is different. Its the WHOLE blueprint of the CCIE RS which an engineer doesnt really bump into everyday. At my enterprise, I dont deal with all the routing protocols at the same time.

I just saw all the CCIE threads that Turgon bumped. I cant believe there were that much of TE's that were going to CCIE. I havent seen them post/update their threads for a month. They might be busy or figured out how hard this journey really is.

nethacker

Turgon wrote: »

Its best to attempt the lab once you are prepared for it. Experience doesn't hurt in that respect but the crucial thing is to train for the lab. For that you dont need experience. To pass the lab you study the topics theoretically and you practice them hands on. Experience can help with both but without training specific for the lab it's unlikely you will cope with lab day no matter how experienced you are. It's a test. Train for the test.

Then i have to consider bootcamp. I will train for the EXAM

reaper81

Getting close to 900h now. Goal is 1000 before lab.

Good session today. Did an ASET full lab, 8h alotted but I finished in about 6h. Stamina was no issue, learned some good tricks and what to look out for.

Need to reload devices. You want to make sure everything works also after a reload, some things might change after a reload like RID of a routing protocol.

I had setup a virtual link to an IP on the other device. After reload the RID changed since we had added a loopback in another task that had a higher IP. Need to watch out for these things.

I had configured MVR, when I issued show mvr it was not enabled. Always check that things get enabled? Also I assumed the timer was in s but it was in tenths of s. Which I caught when looking at verification.

One task that was a bit tricky was to make a router only receive an IA default route in OSPF. No other routes were permitted. We were not allowed to make the area stub. The solution was to use nssa no-summary no-redistribute. Good one to remember.

Turgon

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

Also, experience will help but studying CCIE lab is different. Its the WHOLE blueprint of the CCIE RS which an engineer doesnt really bump into everyday. At my enterprise, I dont deal with all the routing protocols at the same time.

I just saw all the CCIE threads that Turgon bumped. I cant believe there were that much of TE's that were going to CCIE. I havent seen them post/update their threads for a month. They might be busy or figured out how hard this journey really is.

Yeah. I bumped just about everyone I could think of to see who we could drum up for 2012. Drop out rate is really high on this track. The personal time demands are just too great.

Turgon

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

Also, experience will help but studying CCIE lab is different. Its the WHOLE blueprint of the CCIE RS which an engineer doesnt really bump into everyday. At my enterprise, I dont deal with all the routing protocols at the same time.

I just saw all the CCIE threads that Turgon bumped. I cant believe there were that much of TE's that were going to CCIE. I havent seen them post/update their threads for a month. They might be busy or figured out how hard this journey really is.

Well you are working very hard. Not everyone can keep that sort of pace up for practical reasons.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Getting close to 900h now. Goal is 1000 before lab.

Good session today. Did an ASET full lab, 8h alotted but I finished in about 6h. Stamina was no issue, learned some good tricks and what to look out for.

Need to reload devices. You want to make sure everything works also after a reload, some things might change after a reload like RID of a routing protocol.

I had setup a virtual link to an IP on the other device. After reload the RID changed since we had added a loopback in another task that had a higher IP. Need to watch out for these things.

I had configured MVR, when I issued show mvr it was not enabled. Always check that things get enabled? Also I assumed the timer was in s but it was in tenths of s. Which I caught when looking at verification.

One task that was a bit tricky was to make a router only receive an IA default route in OSPF. No other routes were permitted. We were not allowed to make the area stub. The solution was to use nssa no-summary no-redistribute. Good one to remember.

Good stuff. You are at that stage in your prep where you are really picking these things up and they are so essential to pass the lab! Only after the sort of time you have put in does this really start to happen. I should be at the same point in a couple of months once I have brushed up my labbing..

reaper81

Ran in to another interesting thing the other day. The task was to run OSPF as PE-CE protocol with a MPLS backbone. The PE received prefixes from the CE but they were not being installed in the RIB. The were IA routes. I had problems understanding why we would need to enable capability vrf-lite on the PE as we usually do this on the CE if it is running multiple VRFs.

Basically it comes down to that the PE is part of the superbackbone and it was running area 51 to the CE. An ABR won't install IA routes that do not come from the backbone! So this is why we need to enable the capability vrf-lite which disables PE loop checks and the routes will be installed in the RIB.

This is a very good read (the best) about OSPF loop prevention: http://blog.ine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Loop-Prevention-in-OSPF.pdf

reaper81

Did some labbing tonight. Ran in to some issues with redistribution. Seemed not too complex but there were some tricky parts I got stuck on a bit. Will have to try this scenario again later. Good finding your weak spots now and not later.

reaper81

900h reached. Did my first Cisco 360 mock today. Result was not brilliant but it was rated advanced which is the highest rating for 360. Got a 59% on TS and 49% on config. Haven't reviewed the answer key yet but I got stuck on some stuff like EIGRP load balancing because I misread the task. When I read it correctly I solved it easily. Stamina was not an issue even though your head gets mushy after 4-5h straight. Didn't have time to finish all tasks but that's because I took too long time with some stuff. Overall a really good experience, felt like close to a lap attempt. Hopefully I will learn a lot from this and improve from now on. I don't have very high hopes for my 1st lap attempt though.

reaper81

Did an 8h ASET lab. Finished in around 6h. Skipped IPv6 BGP since it's not on the blueprint. I now have 2 days per week for study until I go for the lab. My boss is very understanding indeed. Should give me a good chance at the lab. Still need to do a lot of work if I'm going to have a chance.
Will do another mock in a couple of weeks.

jamesp1983

Good work. You're doing really well.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Did an 8h ASET lab. Finished in around 6h. Skipped IPv6 BGP since it's not on the blueprint. I now have 2 days per week for study until I go for the lab. My boss is very understanding indeed. Should give me a good chance at the lab. Still need to do a lot of work if I'm going to have a chance.
Will do another mock in a couple of weeks.

IPv6 is not on the blueprint? That's interesting as INE Vol II labs have tasks in it..