My CCIE Journey Has Officially Begun.

jamesp1983

I have decided that it is time to pursue the first goal I had when I entered IT, the CCIE. I know its going to be an EXTREME challenge, but I'm just pushing forward and trying to stay confident. I'm going to use this thread for tracking my progress throughout my CCIE journey. I purchased the INE Ultimate bundle last week and have been studying and labbing ever since. I'm still trying to figure out what the right balance of lab vs study is at this point, but I'm just reviewing all of the ATVOD material now (over 80 hours), to refresh myself. I'm open for any suggestions on how I should balance lab vs study time. I've been running Dynamips and working with my home switches while watching the videos as a way to get more hands on. I passed BCMSN, BSCI, and ISCW back in 2008, and wrapped up ONT in August of 2010. I have been working with the equipment at my job so that has kept me fresh on a lot of the info, but I'm still studying like I'm just starting out. I research topics in the videos that I don't really remember and that seems to be really helping. I will keep this updated as a motivator and also as a way to keep track of all that I have studied when it comes time for my final review. It feels great to finally get started on this path. My wife and I worked out a schedule and I'm going to try to hit 30-36 hours a week.

My resources:
-INE Virtual Lab
-The INE workbooks
-INE Written VOD
-Routing TCP/IP, vol I.
-Home lab (a few routers and some 3550s.)
-Cisco LAN Switching by Ken Clark
-Routing and Switching, Time of Convergence?
-My CCNP Library.
-Dynamips
-Cisco.com
-INE ATVOD 4.5

Should I buy Odom's exam guide? I think the Boson Exsim for CCIE will be the next addition.

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Comments

jamesp1983

Free labs:
Free Downoads : Micronics Networking & Training, delivering the best training and consulting to empower clients to attain their goal.

Probably old news, but I wanted to share with you guys anyway...

Also, had a quick question about HDLC... Cisco has a proprietary type field that it inserts into the HDLC frames. Will this cause interoperability issues with other vendor's HDLC implementations or do the other vendors just ignore it? I've been in "all Cisco" environments so I was just curious and figured one of you veterans could answer this...

jamesp1983

I just wrapped up chp 15 in the exam guide (WANs). I still have to do the vocab, but I will do that tomorrow. I'm still trying to work out when I should take my written. I'm thinking January/February time, but I might be ready before then. I would like to get through WB I before going for the written so it might take a little while.

Turgon

You crossed 100 hours reading. Well done. Many candidates dont get that far. You can't cram that in a couple of weekends.

Ryan82

To answer your question in regards to interoperability between Cisco HDLC and others, though Cisco's HDLC extension was proprietary, it is well known and other vendors support it.

On Juniper for instance you just specify on the serial interface to use cisco hdlc encapsulation when connecting to a cisco device.

jamesp1983

Ryan82 wrote: »

To answer your question in regards to interoperability between Cisco HDLC and others, though Cisco's HDLC extension was proprietary, it is well known and other vendors support it.

On Juniper for instance you just specify on the serial interface to use cisco hdlc encapsulation when connecting to a cisco device.

Thanks Ryan. That makes sense.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

You crossed 100 hours reading. Well done. Many candidates dont get that far. You can't cram that in a couple of weekends.

Thanks you. You certainly can't. I couldn't imagine doing this if you didn't love what you were doing.

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Thanks you. You certainly can't. I couldn't imagine doing this if you didn't love what you were doing.

Well you have already beaten the people who tried it and learned they didn't love it. On to 100 hours lab prep now with steady increments on the reading count as well. I think once you get 200/100 in on reading/labbing then you have earned the key to the castle. Then you open the drawbridge and have to find the keys to the treasury. Im not far off finding those.

jamesp1983

Thanks Turgon. Quitting is not an option!

jamesp1983

I wrapped up chp 15 vocab last night, and then started the multicast chapter (16). I'm getting the itch to lab some of what I've recently covered so I might be firing up Dynamips tonight.

jamesp1983

introducing-bgp-confederations

Good module on BGP confederations. You will need a cisco login.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

Well you have already beaten the people who tried it and learned they didn't love it. On to 100 hours lab prep now with steady increments on the reading count as well. I think once you get 200/100 in on reading/labbing then you have earned the key to the castle. Then you open the drawbridge and have to find the keys to the treasury. Im not far off finding those.

I'm anxious to receive the key to the castle. You will be reaching the the treasury soon I'm sure.

jamesp1983

Happened to stuble across this today and thought it was pretty funny:
The TCP/IP Drinking Game

jamesp1983

I just got done a few hours of reading tonight. I wrapped up chp 16 in the exam guide. This chapter covered multicast. It discussed groups, IGMP v2 and 3, CGMP, IGMP snooping, and RGMP. It broke down the messages, when/where they occur, what addresses are used, and gave examples of how the processes work. Hopefully I will have some time at work tomorrow to read some Cisco documentation on multicast as well. There is a good chance that I won't have time to do that at work tomorrow because we have a meeting with our rep from Cisco to purchase some new devices to completely overhaul our datacenter. After that, we have another meeting with our storage array vendor who hasn't fully wrapped up their implementation at our DR site. I am going to be ordering Internet Architectures tomorrow to get some in depth coverage of BGP. There are some great deals on this book right now on Amazon.

Amazon.com: Internet Routing Architectures (2nd Edition) (9781578702336): Sam Halabi: Books

jamesp1983

Does anyone here use Safari Books Online as a study resource?

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

I just got done a few hours of reading tonight. I wrapped up chp 16 in the exam guide. This chapter covered multicast. It discussed groups, IGMP v2 and 3, CGMP, IGMP snooping, and RGMP. It broke down the messages, when/where they occur, what addresses are used, and gave examples of how the processes work. Hopefully I will have some time at work tomorrow to read some Cisco documentation on multicast as well. There is a good chance that I won't have time to do that at work tomorrow because we have a meeting with our rep from Cisco to purchase some new devices to completely overhaul our datacenter. After that, we have another meeting with our storage array vendor who hasn't fully wrapped up their implementation at our DR site. I am going to be ordering Internet Architectures tomorrow to get some in depth coverage of BGP. There are some great deals on this book right now on Amazon.

Amazon.com: Internet Routing Architectures (2nd Edition) (9781578702336): Sam Halabi: Books

The stuff you read is important for the written exam.

jamesp1983

I'm going to try to lock down the multicast ip to mac conversion today. It looks straightforward and I was doing some examples while I was reading it, but I want to have it down cold. It's been so long...

Turgon

jamesp1983 wrote: »

I'm going to try to lock down the multicast ip to mac conversion today. It looks straightforward and I was doing some examples while I was reading it, but I want to have it down cold. It's been so long...

Thats something you should just do now so you understand how to do it and revise the night before the test along with a few other things on your crib notes. Dont get hung up with it.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

Thats something you should just do now so you understand how to do it and revise the night before the test along with a few other things on your crib notes. Dont get hung up with it.

Okay, that makes sense. I have an ever growing list of topics to do that for before test day.

jamesp1983

I got about 2.5 hours of studying done last night after taking the wife out on a date for doing so well in her studies. I had some light bulb moments during the reading, (stemmed from what I was reading, but not exactly on the specific chapter I was reading, but on previous for some reason). I am starting to "think like a router" in some respects. I love the light bulb moments when everything just clicks. I ordered Internet Routing Architectures by Halabi for $21 shipped on Amazon, and Network Design and Case Studies (CCIE Fundamentals) (2nd Edition). Network Design and Case Studies (CCIE Fundamentals) (2nd Edition) was $1.99 and apparently is full of case studies which will be helpful in the real world. I probably won't use it for my written studies, but figured it would be handy.

jamesp1983

At Turgon's urging to another candidate, I came across:
Online Resources - CCIE - Cisco Systems

Turgon

Useful stuff. It's Saturday everyone..get your ass studying!

jamesp1983

I studied for around 8 hours yesterday, 9/11/11. I read a good portion of chapter 17, and then some OSPF Cisco documentation when I was at the gym. My wife and I cleaned out our bookshelf and have a ton of books that we are going to donate. I am saving all of my Cisco books, but the older Microsoft books and my college texts are getting donated. I wrapped up PIM-SM, but still have around 20 pages left of the chapter. I watched some of the INE written video series by Anthony yesterday as well. Those videos are concise. I do like the fact that they ask questions as you go along.

Turgon

You are close to 150 reading + 50 lab hours now. Cool.

jamesp1983

You can get so much done in a weekend. I'm thinking I might be able to bump my written date up from February to December/January if I can keep up a good pace. I want to read the Internet Routing Architectures book, watch the rest of the INE videos, read some chapters from Routing TCP/IP, the QoS Exam Guide, and some sections from LAN Switching, but I think I will be good after that. I will also check out the Boson practice tests as well.

jamesp1983

I did some OSPF reading while at the gym last night. I came home and wrapped up my notes on Chp 17 (Multicast routing) of the exam guide. I've filled 1.5 notebooks from reading already (doesn't include the notebook I have for videos or labbing). On to chp 18 tonight. It is on security. I passed my CCNA Security during the third quarter of 2010 so I'm hoping this chapter won't be too difficult, but from what I've heard its one of the harder chapters.

Turgon

smurf, fraggle, CBAC, ip source verify, VACLs..all good stuff

jamesp1983

Internet Routing Architectures arrived today. Looks like some interesting material. I still have around 190 pages left in the Exam Guide, but this is up next.

Turgon

A good book but I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it for the written.

jamesp1983

Turgon wrote: »

A good book but I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it for the written.

Any chapters that are a must read?

jamesp1983

Didn't get much study time in last night due to an issue with a project at work. It was a 12am night.