New guy going for CCIE

reaper81

klabbe wrote: »

Hey,

like reading your blog and progress you post here on the forums. I'm not near the CCIE but like reading others progress for it. Currently going for the CCNA Sec next friday.

Om man får fråga, vilket bolag började du nyss på?

Hi,

Glad that you found me here and my blog. I haven't started working yet for my new employer since it's vacation for most people right now. I will be working for Fujitsu. They are growing a lot here in Sweden and internationally they are huge of course.

reaper81

aldous wrote: »

bit off topic but does INE vol2 and Vol3 have less config reloading. i tryed some bits from volume one and it was a case of do 5 mins config then load up a whole new set of config.

this is a real pain on the home rack (whereas 360 is load it once and off you go)do the latter volumes still do this?

Hi,

Vol1 is designed for small technology focused labs and that's why it includes a lot of reloading. Vol2 is designed to be full scale labs and similar to the real CCIE exam. You only need to load config once there. Same goes for Vol3 but they focus on the core areas and building speed.

You should start out with Vol2 before doing Vol3. The first time you do a Vol2 you will be in shock of the difficulty and number of things to configure. Things get better though. Just keep grinding away

reaper81

Some more rack time this evening. Started out good but ran out of gas later on. Vol2 Lab 7 (INE) is a beast of a lab. If the real lab is like that then time will definately be an issue. I still need to improve on complex route redistribution. Lot's of complicated scenarios in this lab. Just started labbing after a bit of a break due to vacation and new job interview etc. I will have to keep pushing now to improve on my situation.

On a positive note I hit 500 hours tonight (in total). If I can get to a 1000 I hope to be close to a successfull lab attempt.

aldous

reaper81 wrote: »

Hi,

Vol1 is designed for small technology focused labs and that's why it includes a lot of reloading. Vol2 is designed to be full scale labs and similar to the real CCIE exam. You only need to load config once there. Same goes for Vol3 but they focus on the core areas and building speed.

You should start out with Vol2 before doing Vol3. The first time you do a Vol2 you will be in shock of the difficulty and number of things to configure. Things get better though. Just keep grinding away

Neat i think i might rerack to ine topology for a change of pace as i can get 360 time for free so having my own rack on 360 is a bit overkill.

TesseracT

Doing a few labs at a time in gns3 I prefer narbik's workbook to ine vol 1 as it's usually only a few routers used. If I had my own rack or used tokens for graded labs more I'd be using ine more often

reaper81

Pretty good week so far. Been labbing Sunday, Monday, Wednesday. Lab 7 on vol2 is really a beast, rated 9 for difficulty. I hope I can finish it tonight. I am really taking my time with it so that I understand everything rather than rushing through it. I'm really motivated on keeping going now. I feel I am starting to getting into a flow of labbing.

Met with two of my colleagues yesterday who where visiting. They are both CCIEs. They gave me some advice and talked about when they did the lab back in 2001. They had a situation at work back then which led to them labbing full time on the dollar for half a year or more. They came really prepared and killed the lab with lots of time left.

Unfortunately I do not have that luxury but I will find a way of passing anyway. Just have to keep pressing on.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Pretty good week so far. Been labbing Sunday, Monday, Wednesday. Lab 7 on vol2 is really a beast, rated 9 for difficulty. I hope I can finish it tonight. I am really taking my time with it so that I understand everything rather than rushing through it. I'm really motivated on keeping going now. I feel I am starting to getting into a flow of labbing.

Met with two of my colleagues yesterday who where visiting. They are both CCIEs. They gave me some advice and talked about when they did the lab back in 2001. They had a situation at work back then which led to them labbing full time on the dollar for half a year or more. They came really prepared and killed the lab with lots of time left.

Unfortunately I do not have that luxury but I will find a way of passing anyway. Just have to keep pressing on.

Are these lab hours on the dollar or at home after work? If you are working flat out in a new job be careful of overcooking by doing lots of evening studytime. Settle into your new job but really do try and get some encouragement from the new employer to spend an hour or two on workstime doing lab practice. It will take the pressure off and if they can get used to it early on its something you can carry on doing.

reaper81

I haven't started my new job yet. First day is 1st of September. Also I will do some consulting at my current place to teach some of the new guys how to do their job. My current employer have also said that they might hire me for shorter jobs later on that require my expertise.

I have told my new employer that I want do some study if time allows but we will find that out later. I'm going to push as as hard as I can until I start my new job.

Chris_

Hi Reaper,
I currently work for fujitsu in the UK. It was probably a good move, as a gold partner they seem very supportive of Learning and Certs - they even have their own ccie grade lab that employees can book remote rack time on.
I think there have been a couple of ccie passes within the company in the last couple of years. Good luck, where will you be working.

reaper81

Hi Chris,

Thanks for posting. That sounds great. I feel good about the move and I hope everything turns out well. Maybe we'll do some business together later on You could PM me if you want to exchange linkedin profiles or e-mail etc

reaper81

Really good session tonight. 4 hours straight without fooling around with stuff around me. Feels like I'm starting to get into a flow. Lab went well but it's a difficult lab and some stuff that I didn't know of or haven't used in a while.

One feature I've never used but that is kind of cool is LAM. Allows mobile hosts. I have never really used KRON either but it's not very complex. Netflow I have briefly touched before but not this kind of config.

There was also some URL filtering.

In the QoS section I feel that I have grasp of the concepts for regular stuff but not for the frame-relay part. Definately need to brush up on that but the program I am following has one month dedicated to QoS.

Need to put a lot of this stuff in Anki and do regular repition. It's so easy to forget stuff when you haven't used it in a while and the blueprint is large indeed.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Really good session tonight. 4 hours straight without fooling around with stuff around me. Feels like I'm starting to get into a flow. Lab went well but it's a difficult lab and some stuff that I didn't know of or haven't used in a while.

One feature I've never used but that is kind of cool is LAM. Allows mobile hosts. I have never really used KRON either but it's not very complex. Netflow I have briefly touched before but not this kind of config.

There was also some URL filtering.

In the QoS section I feel that I have grasp of the concepts for regular stuff but not for the frame-relay part. Definately need to brush up on that but the program I am following has one month dedicated to QoS.

Need to put a lot of this stuff in Anki and do regular repition. It's so easy to forget stuff when you haven't used it in a while and the blueprint is large indeed.

Repetition is good. Im updating my notes on the technologies and will go over them regularly through July. Short of racktime!

For the small things like KRON, LAM etc, just go with the example in the workbook so you have configured it, makes some notes about it for reading revision and find a link on the DOC CD!

reaper81

Another session yesterday. It feels like my core skills are getting better, I'm getting pretty fast on these. Still need to practice more on route redistribution although I am improving there also.

My verification techniques are improving and I'm using show run less and less.

Had not configured MLPPPoFR before which was on the lab. Not really very difficult once you've done it so need to check that up on the DOCCD.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Another session yesterday. It feels like my core skills are getting better, I'm getting pretty fast on these. Still need to practice more on route redistribution although I am improving there also.

My verification techniques are improving and I'm using show run less and less.

Had not configured MLPPPoFR before which was on the lab. Not really very difficult once you've done it so need to check that up on the DOCCD.

I remember encountering MLPPPoFR for the first time a couple of years ago on those labs. If I recall I had an old IOS so needed a different syntax to enable the multilink group.

reaper81

Only one rack session so far this week but have one scheduled for today and will do another one on sunday.

My focus for this week has been OSPF, learning how to interpret everything in the database, filtering, how to affect which router becomes the NSSA translator. Filtering through the FA. Traffic engineering with multiple border routers. Cool stuff and hopefully useful for the lab

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Only one rack session so far this week but have one scheduled for today and will do another one on sunday.

My focus for this week has been OSPF, learning how to interpret everything in the database, filtering, how to affect which router becomes the NSSA translator. Filtering through the FA. Traffic engineering with multiple border routers. Cool stuff and hopefully useful for the lab

NSSA translator and FA? Cool I must read up on that.

reaper81

The NSSA translator is just a fancy word for the ABR that does the translation from type 7 to type 5. We can affect which ABR that becomes the translator if we have multiple ABRs. The one with the highest router-ID will be selected. When doing translation from from type 7 to type 5 the Forward Address (FA) will be set. This effectively decouples the control plane from the dataplane since the ABR announcing the prefix might not actually be in the data path.

If we filter the type 3 summary route entering the backbone for the FA address we can filter prefixes and steer traffic (not per prefix).

So while OSPF is a link-state protocol and the LSDB must be identical (within the area) there are still some tricks around for doing filtering between areas.

NOC-Ninja

I added you in linkedin.

Btw, Are you using tokens only or do you have your own lab?

reaper81

For now I'm only doing rack rentals. I have about 300 tokens left. After that we'll see what happens. I was told my new employer has a CCIE lab but I'm not sure what's in it and if it maps to the INE topology. I think I'll continue with rentals unless they have the exact INE topology.

NOC-Ninja

reaper81 wrote: »

For now I'm only doing rack rentals. I have about 300 tokens left. After that we'll see what happens. I was told my new employer has a CCIE lab but I'm not sure what's in it and if it maps to the INE topology. I think I'll continue with rentals unless they have the exact INE topology.

oh okay. are they the cheapest out there? why did you pick INE?

reaper81

Why I chose INE generally is because of the instructors. Petr is the smartest guy I've seen in the industry and writes the best blog post I've seen. The Brians are also very good. So when I went for their material I also used their rentals, there are also others that have the INE topology but I've been very satisfied. Sure, it costs a few dollars but I've been lucky enough so far to have everything CCIE related sponsored.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

The NSSA translator is just a fancy word for the ABR that does the translation from type 7 to type 5. We can affect which ABR that becomes the translator if we have multiple ABRs. The one with the highest router-ID will be selected. When doing translation from from type 7 to type 5 the Forward Address (FA) will be set. This effectively decouples the control plane from the dataplane since the ABR announcing the prefix might not actually be in the data path.

If we filter the type 3 summary route entering the backbone for the FA address we can filter prefixes and steer traffic (not per prefix).

So while OSPF is a link-state protocol and the LSDB must be identical (within the area) there are still some tricks around for doing filtering between areas.

You know I wondered if it was a type 7 to 5 thing. It's still in the brain somewhere then. I need some time to study. Cool!

reaper81

Good session tonight. Learned some new tricks like using a route-map directly from network command in BGP and brushed up on some IPv6 foo. My BGP feels very good and OSPF also feels good. Need to do some more EIGRP. Had a task where I had to calculate metric to get a 4:1 ratio of traffic, long time since I did my latest equation...

reaper81

Wanted to do a session yesterday but all racks were booked. Have booked sessions for tonight and tomorrow.

My main focus lately has been on OSPF and IGPs and route redistribution. I want to go to the lab and really really know the core topics inside out. That should give me a good shot at passing, of course I need to learn the other stuff as well but if I'm fast and accurate at core topics I should have plenty of time for the other topics that are left.

Read a fantastic post by Brian McGahan on OSPF type5 LSA E1 vs E2. Clears some misconceptions and common myths.

Understanding OSPF External Route Path Selection | CCIE Blog

reaper81

I have now exceeded 300 hours preparing for the lab. My goal is late february 2012. I will try to book the lab as soon as I have started my new job. I'm making progress but there is still so much to learn. One day at a time and I know I will get there eventually.

reaper81

Another session tonight. Didn't get as far as I wanted to but good thing is that not that many features stump me any more. I recognize most of the stuff that should be configured.

I'm stepping upp my effort, from now on I'm going to stick to a tighter schedule, I must finish a vol2 lab every week and a few vol1 labs as well. I have booked 2 sessions for thursday which means late night for me but it's the only way to keep up with the schedule.

It's a rough journey so I'm trying to stay focused on finishing it now that I've put so much time and effort into it. I really want to be a CCIE in 2012.

jason_lunde

For my home stretch, probably the last 2-3 months I took a couple hours and filled in my google calander with exactly what labs I was going to do. It kept me dedicated, and I not only meet the schedule, but I far exceeded it, doing approx. 2 extra labs per week than what I already had on the calandar. I just kept track of what I did extra on the calandar as well. In the end I had about 1 or 2 weeks to do whatever, and I spent that time on my weak areas that I had noted on a whiteboard and going through the doc-cd.

reaper81

That is some good advice. I need to start using a calendar. When I'm done with the first round of Vol2 I will stop taking notes and try to gain more speed during the labs. And I will used my notes as reference if I get stuck on tasks. And if I still need guidance I will use the DOCCD.

reaper81

Learned some new cool tricks for filtering EIGRP, using route-map and offest-list. Might do a blogpost on it.

reaper81

Did a blogpost on filtering EIGRP. Good practice, you can use my topology to practice if also. Long session booked for tonight. Hoping to finish a Vol2 lab.