New guy going for CCIE

reaper81

Thanks for the tip Mike. I am subscribed to their Twitter feed now and the deals usually appear there. I have been able to almost only do labs in Dynamips so far, I did some bridging&switching with rack rentals but the other stuff I've done in Dynamips. I have about 1100 tokens left. I'll have to think about how I want to do the vol 2 labs though if I should do them in Dynamips and then rent time to do the layer 2 stuff in a rack rental or do the whole lab in a rack rental.

reaper81

IPv6 labs done. Had a real good session tonight. Didn't let anything disturb me and only focused on the labs. Multicast is left and then on to vol2. Vol2 is gonna be a big slap in the face I reckon since there is still a lot of technologies I don't know. Looking to forward to when I can call myself an expert

reaper81

Did some multicast labs. What's really important is learning the verification techniques.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Did some multicast labs. What's really important is learning the verification techniques.

Thats correct. Also watch out for tunnelling, ip mroute and no ip pim nbma. Understanding the mroute table is important. The flags confuse especially if you are not regular on multicast revision.

reaper81

Doing MPLS VPN tonight. After that I have covered a fair share of vol1 and will start with vol2, will come back to vol1 for topics I don't know.

reaper81

Didn't get much labbing done tonight. Had a rough time getting my kid to sleep and after that not much motivation left for studies. Have pretty much been studying non stop for 8 months and it's taking its toll but I'll feel better tomorrow again. Week 12 I'm going skiiing and that might be a good time to take a break for a week with the studies. I guess every CCIE candidate has a few of these days but I'm not discouraged in any way to continue studying.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Didn't get much labbing done tonight. Had a rough time getting my kid to sleep and after that not much motivation left for studies. Have pretty much been studying non stop for 8 months and it's taking its toll but I'll feel better tomorrow again. Week 12 I'm going skiiing and that might be a good time to take a break for a week with the studies. I guess every CCIE candidate has a few of these days but I'm not discouraged in any way to continue studying.

Time for a break my friend. If you are still blogging like this in one year's time you will be fine!

killuah72

Cool now it's my turn to catch up

reaper81

killuah72 wrote: »

Cool now it's my turn to catch up

Haha, you'll catch up to me in no time. I finished MPLS VPN tonight and will soon be moving on to vol2. I'm a bit ahead of schedule so far which is nice but will need a lot of time going through vol2.

jason_lunde

How has it been going for you man? Did you hit vol2 yet? I just finished a vol 2 lab (11) I think. It was pretty brutal. I am also going through one of the wb's I got from Narbiks class. It is pretty good. I have found a good study balance now, and am cruising along. Think I will probably sit the lab in June/July in SanJose. Have you started thinking about a date at all yet?

reaper81

Hey man,

Good to hear from you. It's been a pretty rough week studywise for me but I'm doing my first vol2 lab tomorrow and will try to do one per week according to the INE schedule. I'm aiming for the lab before the end of the year but things might be happening at work. A CCIE is leaving us and that leaves us short on CCIE's to fullfill partner status. Haven't had time to discuss with my boss yet but that might open up the possibility for me to do more studying at work. We'll see what happens but I'm aiming for december right now.

reaper81

Did my first round of vol2 tonight and it was brutal Not that all things are THAT difficult but there is a lot of stuff to keep track of and combining the protocols is totally different then running one at a time. Only finished the first sections but I'm not rushing through it. I'm trying to learn as much as possible and I'm writing down the areas I should practice more on.

Also when doing vol2 you notice the sneaky stuff like put this interface into OSPF but don't use ip ospf or network command, fine I'll use redistribute and then I use a route-map to only get that interface. Later you find out that only putting that interface with the route-map without a second permit statement breaks other things.

This is the true challenge of CCIE I feel that you need to understand how everything connects and read ahead to see if I do requirement X this way will it break requirement Z later.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Did my first round of vol2 tonight and it was brutal Not that all things are THAT difficult but there is a lot of stuff to keep track of and combining the protocols is totally different then running one at a time. Only finished the first sections but I'm not rushing through it. I'm trying to learn as much as possible and I'm writing down the areas I should practice more on.

Also when doing vol2 you notice the sneaky stuff like put this interface into OSPF but don't use ip ospf or network command, fine I'll use redistribute and then I use a route-map to only get that interface. Later you find out that only putting that interface with the route-map without a second permit statement breaks other things.

This is the true challenge of CCIE I feel that you need to understand how everything connects and read ahead to see if I do requirement X this way will it break requirement Z later.

After a few hundred hours of rack time you get a feel for these sorts of things as you do each section. Then its a case of regular rack practice to keep them fresh. You will find it easier to get through long labs efficiently at that point.

reaper81

Did some more vol2 tonight, I'm still on lab 1. It's taking me about double the time or more to complete a vol2 lab than the time alotted (6 hours). I guess that is to expected though. Need a couple of hundred hours more before I feel really comfortable with this kind of labbing. I'm chugging along and doing all I can to understand everything going on. Just completed my first 100 lab hours (that does include reading for labs though).

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Did some more vol2 tonight, I'm still on lab 1. It's taking me about double the time or more to complete a vol2 lab than the time alotted (6 hours). I guess that is to expected though. Need a couple of hundred hours more before I feel really comfortable with this kind of labbing. I'm chugging along and doing all I can to understand everything going on. Just completed my first 100 lab hours (that does include reading for labs though).

100 hours awesome. To what extent do you have to check the solutions at this stage? I might get one hour in tomorrow night but Im hanging out with the guys after a day of design meetings so beer may take precidence.

For anyone following this thread this is what it takes. Lab, lab, lab. Day in, day out for 12 months. Keep it up man.

jason_lunde

I saw you started lab 1, so I am redoing it today. Actually a fun lab with a good mix of IE topics in it. I cannot get the dang IPv6 multicast section working though... I wouldnt worry to much about your time through these...you are looking at it in the right light imo...just try to nail the topics down. Its amazing how much more confident you will be after you get through about 6 of these vol2 labs. They will still be burning you as you go along, but you will find the material starts getting easier to put into little chunks as you are configuring (if that makes any sense). Good luck man.

reaper81

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

@Turgon

For the topics I feel reasonably comfortable with I don't need to check that much in the solution guide but I do feel the SG is helping me a lot with learning the correct verification techniques even though sometimes it might be overkill but still good to know all methods. On the first lab I've skipped IPv6 multicast because I didn't do that vol1 lab so that is one of the topics I'm going to practice from vol1.

@ Jason

Yeah, I hope I will get into the groove into if after a couple of these labs. What problems did you have with the IPv6 section? You are running it on real hardware? Are you satisfied with your bootcamp with Narbik? Did you enhance your skills a lot after that? I would like to attend one if they are doing any in Europe in a couple of months, need to check with my employer first though if its OK to go to one

PsychoFin

Tjena reaper,

You must be one of the hardest working guys I've seen around here! You amaze me with your dedication of putting in consistent work. Keep it up!

Cheers,
Fin

reaper81

Thanks Fin. Glad to hear that. Are you going for the CCIE yourself?

PsychoFin

reaper81 wrote: »

Thanks Fin. Glad to hear that. Are you going for the CCIE yourself?

If all goes well, I will be starting down that path in a month's time as that's when I get the last of those pesky CCNP exams done (SWITCH). Oh yeah, since I just got powerslammed out of the ring by my employer I am also looking for a new job in the meantime

My wife has also given her blessing to me studying for the CCIE, which is also a good thing.

Cheers,
Fin

ITdude

Turgon wrote: »

100 hours awesome. To what extent do you have to check the solutions at this stage? I might get one hour in tomorrow night but Im hanging out with the guys after a day of design meetings so beer may take precidence.

For anyone following this thread this is what it takes. Lab, lab, lab. Day in, day out for 12 months. Keep it up man.

How much does the beer part come into play in all of this?

reaper81

Finished lab1 vol2 tonight. Some stuff that I've never touched before like frame-relay traffic shaping. Kind of sucks to study stuff you know you will never ever touch in production but doesn't hurt to know is so well. I'm taking this week to practice on the stuff I didn't knew and to really get my core concepts straight and after that moving on to lab2 vol2. Will be adding a blogpost on private VLANs tomorrow or the day after. Will be good for my retention to blog about it.

reaper81

Did a blogpost with a review of the CCIE command memorizer if anyone is interested in the product.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Finished lab1 vol2 tonight. Some stuff that I've never touched before like frame-relay traffic shaping. Kind of sucks to study stuff you know you will never ever touch in production but doesn't hurt to know is so well. I'm taking this week to practice on the stuff I didn't knew and to really get my core concepts straight and after that moving on to lab2 vol2. Will be adding a blogpost on private VLANs tomorrow or the day after. Will be good for my retention to blog about it.

Good approach. What Im doing is labbing anything that comes up that I need to work on again and again. Sometimes this can be done on a single devices. Get it into memory then move on to the next lab.

Ryuksapple84

reaper81 wrote: »

Reading MPLS fundamentals by Luc de Ghein, quite a decent read so far. Hopefully I will finish MPLS in a couple of days and then I'll move on to IPv6 or multicast.

I just got that book. Will be reading that book soon as well.

reaper81

A good session of OSPF tonight. I want to really have the core knowledge nailed down. Moving on to vol2 lab2 in the next couple of days.

Chipsch

Keep on trucking along. You'll be sitting the exam before you know it, making record time on the configuration section .

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

A good session of OSPF tonight. I want to really have the core knowledge nailed down. Moving on to vol2 lab2 in the next couple of days.

Cool. I hope you are keeping some notes. Look them over after you complete every lab and add anything to your notes that comes up that is of interest. In the end you have a complete set of notes to revise. Go over those, do some mock exams and practice troubleshooting and you are ready for the lab attempt eventually.

reaper81

Turgon wrote: »

Cool. I hope you are keeping some notes. Look them over after you complete every lab and add anything to your notes that comes up that is of interest. In the end you have a complete set of notes to revise. Go over those, do some mock exams and practice troubleshooting and you are ready for the lab attempt eventually.

Yes, I'm keeping notes for all the labs I do. I also produce flash cards from the labs and from the reading I do on my commute etc. Right now I'm busy just producing material and I'm not finding time to actually study it but I guess I will get there eventually when I start feeling comfortable with all the topics. Lab time has been scarce for a couple of days. Had to get my car fixed and a lot of stuff that messed up my study time. Planning to lab tonight, thursday, friday and maybe sunday so I will have time to catch up.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Yes, I'm keeping notes for all the labs I do. I also produce flash cards from the labs and from the reading I do on my commute etc. Right now I'm busy just producing material and I'm not finding time to actually study it but I guess I will get there eventually when I start feeling comfortable with all the topics. Lab time has been scarce for a couple of days. Had to get my car fixed and a lot of stuff that messed up my study time. Planning to lab tonight, thursday, friday and maybe sunday so I will have time to catch up.

I think you have a lot going for you. By about this point most CCIE candidates have run out of gas and quit. Material prep is still studying, I think I must have put 40+ hours in producing my mnemosyne from the INE workbooks. The important thing is you are studying every day, at least a little. A combo of note taking, note revision and commute reading is fine when the lab days are difficult. If you are still posting to this extent come Christmas you be a CCIE in 2012.