It is time to slay the beast...CCIE R&S, here we come

Well, since my boss is providing me with the moral/financial support and my wife is all on board, I am going to attempt to slay the beast. I have a decent lab built so far which consists of the following:
1 x 3640 (frame switch?? maybe)
3 x 2610xm
1 x 2620xm
1 x 1841
1 x 2811
2 x 3560 EI
1 x 3550 EI
3 x 2950
1 x 2960

I still want to get a few more 1841's, maybe another 3560, and a 2500 series for terminal server and perhaps a second 2500 series for a frame switch if I don't want to use my 3640. Boss man says a 3825 is a possibility if I need it since it is on the blueprint, but we'll see.

For study materials:
- CCIE Routing and Switching (Odom)
- TCP/IP Vol 1
- TCP/IP Vol 2

I'll be stopping off and getting my CCIP on the way so I should have BGP, MPLS, and QoS under control. I have my CCNP study materials as well. I'll be picking up INE audio/video/lab materials plus other supplemental materials that I find along the way. Depending on how I feel, boss man says he'll send me to see Narbik...not sure if it will be needed, but it's not a bad option.

I plan on having a life while I study so it will take me longer than most to get it done; my goal is 18 - 24 months.

Now that I've made my declaration public, there's no backing out!!! Good luck to those of you making your run, we'll definitely need it!!!

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Well, I was just humbled by the troubleshooting mock lab which doesn't do a whole lot for my confidence, but at least I know my weak spots. Now we get to jump into the config portion of the lab.

We used the entire day up to the mock lab to do a deep dive for QoS...good stuff. Bye...

So I did a whole lot better on the config portion of the mock lab so that is a pretty big boost. Still not near good enough, but in a few more months hopefully I'm where I need to be.

This weekend is all about R&R. Today was my oldest daughters 9th bday so we celebrated that and tomorrow we are doing the big water park near home. I will hit the books at about 8 tomorrow night to get back at it. Outty...

Well, last night I got my entire rack cabled up according to Narbik's advanced workbooks and baseline configs on everything including my frame switch. I drew up some Visio diagrams of how everything is connected and will probably go and get them laminated so I can draw on them.

Tonight I got about 2.5 hours of layer 2 topics labbed up. Definitely need to work on speed and being able to type full command sequences without relying on help. It will be interesting to see how I progress on this from month to month.

Wow, I'm a slacker

So I've been going gang busters on reading, labbing, and watching videos. I am kicking myself for not keeping a daily log of hours spent on this little adventure, but pretty much every free minute of every day has been dedicated to this. Oh well, I am learning a ton which is my goal.

I read and labbed for about 14 hours between yesterday and today. Topics revolved around IPv4 and tunnels. I got sidetracked by two cases; one was "can I terminate an SVTI to an ASA?", answer: yes. The second case I got sidetracked on was DMVPN configurations. I know this wont be on the exam, but I had never worked with DMVPN before so curiosity got the best of me. It's scenarios like these that I am glad I have a fairly large amount of gear to work with so I am able to test things beyond the typical 3 device topologies.

Been doing a lot of RIP studying (videos, literature) and started going over the command reference documents on Cisco's site. I lost valuable study time tonight because our ERP system decided it wanted to cannibalize about 20million rows of data from one of the core tables so I had to run the recovery process for all of the data and try to recover to a point in time when those rows did exist... this is a prime example of why I hate systems work and can't wait to get on with the next phase of my career. I guess we can cross of the "verify system restoration procedures" item off of our compliance schedule

unclerico wrote: »

James, absolutely it is worth the money...lots of really good quality content and people as well. If you want to really learn the subject matter, and I mean really learn it, definitely look him up and get a seat in one of his classes. His lab content is really good with lots of tricky subject matter.

Thanks! I will look into it. Good luck!

unclerico wrote: »

I read and labbed for about 14 hours between yesterday and today. Topics revolved around IPv4 and tunnels. I got sidetracked by two cases; one was "can I terminate an SVTI to an ASA?", answer: yes. The second case I got sidetracked on was DMVPN configurations. I know this wont be on the exam, but I had never worked with DMVPN before so curiosity got the best of me. It's scenarios like these that I am glad I have a fairly large amount of gear to work with so I am able to test things beyond the typical 3 device topologies.

14 hours? Wow, you're going to be done the prep in 5 months!

Still truckin' along. I moved on through RIP, OSPF, and now I'm knee deep into EIGRP. I am taking time to go back over each section of notes every few weeks just so a lot of the stuff stays fresh. I've downloaded a flashcard app so I can start quizzing myself, but damn that is going to be a lot of work populating the cards!

Anyways, Narbik's labs have been really good. An example (going from memory, so I probably won't get the exact scenario correct) was a RIP lab. One of the tasks focused on two routers on an Ethernet segment that were not on a common ip range. The task was to get the RIP routes advertised from one device to the other, but not necessarily between both (ie reachability was not a requirement, just the existence of the routes). Don't change any ip info, no tunnels, etc. The solution is to disable address verification and configure a SPAN port to mirror the RIP advertisements. That was a pretty cool lab. More justification for taking his class.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

Finished EIGRP text materials tonight and transposed my hand written notes into Evernote.

My studying has been very labored over the past 2 1/2 weeks due to late nights at my former job tying up loose ends and then my new job that requires about 1000% more brain power to function...the last thing I want to do when I get home is lab right now. Hopefully as I settle into more of a groove I'll get my drive back for studying.

unclerico wrote: »

Finished EIGRP text materials tonight and transposed my hand written notes into Evernote.

Great job! You will find that Evernote will be one of your best friends moving forward. I have over 100 pages of "hand written" notes in Evernote so far sync'd to my Phone, iPad, laptop etc. I go back and review/edit notes frequently as well as add additional content while doing the labs/workbooks. I've posted some older notes in my thread as examples (keeping final notes to myself for now). After a "pass," I may post my entire set!

Again great job and keep up the dedication! Even an hour a day is forward progress

down77 wrote: »

Great job! You will find that Evernote will be one of your best friends moving forward. I have over 100 pages of "hand written" notes in Evernote so far sync'd to my Phone, iPad, laptop etc. I go back and review/edit notes frequently as well as add additional content while doing the labs/workbooks. I've posted some older notes in my thread as examples (keeping final notes to myself for now). After a "pass," I may post my entire set!

Again great job and keep up the dedication! Even an hour a day is forward progress

Thanks man, I appreciate it!

I tried to do some EIGRP labs last night, but my frame switch (3640) was wiggin' out and kept on making all of my FR interfaces flap. Tonight I grabbed my nm-8a/s module and threw it in one of my spare 2620XM's and after a short frame switch config we're back in business! I got through about an hour of labs before my mind was mush. Trying to learn the ins and outs of a global network consisting of thousands of nodes (10's of thousands if you consider servers, workstations, printers, etc.) takes a lot out of a person! The beautiful thing about it is now that all I do is work on the infrastructure it's like I'm studying and reinforcing everything I'm learning which will help a thousand times more than trying to keep up on VMware or Windows.

Anyways, off to bed so I can hit it hard tomorrow!

Well, EIGRP is done for now until I swing back around looking through the command reference guide. Started on BGP today. I love BGP; it's my favorite protocol/subject out of them all so I am excited to be spending some quality time with it. I watched about 4 hours of vids today. I must say I am pretty impressed with INE and the quality of content they present.

Good progress. Keep up the good work. INE does make a quality product.

Been slacking over the past few weeks, not due to lack of motivation, but lack of time. My new job is running me ragged and now I just got a gigantic project in Japan that I need to knock out. I'm currently running through Micronics BGP labs right now. Once I get done with BGP labs I'll go into review mode and go back over all of the previous subject areas to keep them fresh.

Ok, BGP labs done now review earlier topics. I am looking at doing some spaced repitition to see how it works, but it will take quite a while to get all of my flash cards created.

Congrats on your success and Good Luck for your CCIE R&S ....

Good luck with the spaced repetition. It has worked well for me so far.

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Good luck with the spaced repetition. It has worked well for me so far.

Hey James, do you have any tips for using spaced repitition? Just use it exactly like they say and I'll be fine?

Well, I settled on Anki for the SRS and spent about 7 hours today populating decks of flash cards. It'll probably take me all week to enter in all of the items I want in there. I am thinking this is going to pay some big dividends especially as I get further away from the first subject areas and into the later ones. We spend too much time learning this stuff to forget it

After taking a few weeks off to deal with my dads death I am back at it...slowly but surely. Started multicast tonight and watched a few INE videos. I hate multicast...

unclerico wrote: »

After taking a few weeks off to deal with my dads death I am back at it...slowly but surely. Started multicast tonight and watched a few INE videos. I hate multicast...

I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope you and your family are doing well.

Thanks James. We are doing better as time goes on. Dad was a great guy so it is tough, but I know he's in paradise now!

As for studies, man I am slacking big time. I'm dealing with a complete lack of concentration, drive, "want", you name it. Tomorrow I am forcing myself to sit through at least four hours of multicast reading. Wish me luck

Nice job man, Im starting my track and plan to finish in a year.

A little update...still plugging away at multicast. The more I study it and play with it the more I like it. I have a few 'puters in my lab with VLC media player running multicast streams.

I ended up registering for Narbik's 12 day crucible starting 3/4. I am doing it mostly because I need a swift kick in the pants to get back at this thing. I have come too far to lose interest/motivation. 12 days of nothing but in depth study for 15+ hours each day ought to do it. Who knows, maybe I'll sit the written and schedule the lab when I get back

Anyways TTFN...

can you share the setup of your "puters with VLC"?

That is exciting as you will attend Narbik BC.. please let us know how it goes

cheers,
mhonsky

Sure. It's a very basic setup with a laptop serving up Insanity videos (great workout BTW) via network stream. Set the stream to use multicast and specify UDP/239.1.1.11 (for example), specify a ttl value equal to the diameter of your network. Enable multicast routing, enable pim on the interfaces, setup a second laptop as the receiver for the multicast group, and voila, you've got yourself a quick and easy multicast environment.

Just got back from Narbik 12-day class. My mind is fried

. I accomplished my goal of making up lost time and getting back on the horse.

Well, since I started my new job on 3/18 I have had zero time for studying. By the time I get hom at night my mind is fried so I end up decompressing for the rest of the night. One of the best parts about this position is that my troubleshooting skills are getting extremely refined which will be a great asset in the lab.

Anyways, I decided I am going to be working Narbik's books from Foundation to Advanced to Boot Camp and then hit up INE for a little change of pace. I have about 1500-1700 more pages of Narbik to go before I'm done so I'm still a ways out. This weekend I got about 9 hours of labbing done.

Time to hit the hay.

Even if you don't have time for labs, make sure to stay up on the videos/reading. Try to sneak out at least 30 minutes per day. I often did this when on my lunch break by either having the videos on my iPad, or by watching them on my laptop while getting ready in the morning.

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