"The Veteran's" CCIE Written Thread

Iristheangel

It's been awhile since you updated this. How goes it?

NetworkVeteran

14.5 hrs : Days #31-52 (Aug 25th)
77.0 hrs : Total

Laundry List

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General Review (7.5hrs)
Final CCIP QoS Videos (1.5 hrs)
QoS Lab - NBAR & GRE Pre-classification (3.5 hrs)
Frame Relay Lab (1.0hrs)
QoS Review, chapter one (1.0hrs)

Thanks for the ping, Iris. I've been a bit.. off-course. I really need to nail my QoS exam.

I have a 92% retention of 1,800+ flash cards. On the one had, I feel like I have a large theoretical foundation. On the other hand, I feel like my foundation is ridden with holes that I need to plug. I'm torn between going forward with lab preparation, and strengthening my base.

Roguetadhg

You can strengthen your theory with doing lab. Im a more visual/doing learner though.

I don't know if it'll help a seasoned vet, but I try to do verifications- debugs, shows. I also ask if there's an alternative way: OSPF can use Router-ID instead of Loopbacks. Any benefit to both of them. Im actually taking my time with ROUTE, and trying to maintain the knowledge while doing CCNA Security. Yeah, in preparation for what you're doing.

The think with Cisco that I enjoyed is the labs and trying that theory altogether. Now if I could better track packets from A to B, going through a router lab of 30 for an area. Bah.

Im glad you're sticking to it. Don't make me have Irish track this thread!

MickQ

Roguetadhg wrote: »

Don't make me have Irish track this thread!

You called?

NetVet, I assume that you've booked your QOS for the CCIP already... right?

NetworkVeteran

6.5 hrs : Days #53 (Aug 26th)
83.5 hrs : Total

General Review (0.5hrs)
Reviewing STP and various CCNA notes (1.0hrs)
PPP + FRTS Study - authentication, multilink, PPPoFR, MLPoFR, FRTS (1.0hrs)
PPP + FRTS Labbing - same as above (2.0hrs)
QOS Review, chapters 2,3,8 + DSCP RFCs (2.0hrs)

A solid day. Rogue, you don't have to send her on my trail.

Mick, I book last-minute when possible. I've learned most of the content, but I need to review and eliminate my weak points so I can nail it and move on. I went after chapter 8 today because it was the weakest / hardest chapter for me, being outside the realm of the MQC.

MickQ

I'm the same for the last minute booking - have to make sure you know your stuff.

I was concerned about the QOS exam, but it's BGP and MPLS that they've expired, not QOS.

NetworkVeteran

1.5 hrs : Days #54 (Aug 27th)
85.0 hrs : Total

General Review (0.5hrs)
ch3/AutoQoS review (1.0hrs)

NetworkVeteran

7.5 hrs : Days #55-61 (Sep 3rd)
91.0 hrs : Total

General Review (1.5 hrs)
ch5/Congestion Management review (2.5hrs)
ch6/Policing & Shaping review (2.0hrs)

NetworkVeteran

2.0 hrs : Days #62 (Sep 4th/Sep 5th morn)
93.0 hrs : Total

General Review (0.5 hours)
ICMP Study (1.0 hours)
ICMP Labbing (0.5 hours)

NetworkVeteran

7.5 hrs : Days #63-71 (Sept 13th)
100.5 : Total

2.5 hours General Review
4.5 hours QoS Review
0.5 hours QoS labbing

I've attained several milestones since my last update. I earned a new intermediate-level certification, have over 2000+ flashcards, and have put in over 100 hours towards my CCIE.

I retain 93% of my knowledge and can apply it at work!

Next steps:
1. Study a text on IP multicast, my last weak subject.
2. Study the CCIE Certification Guide to shore up any minor weaknesses.

Onward ho!

NetworkVeteran

4.0 hrs : Days #72-73 (Sept 16th)
105.0 : Total

1.0 hours General Review
3.0 hours Studied "Interdomain Multicast Routing", chapter 1.
0.5 hours Revising existing multicast flash cards

I'm enjoying this book already. The first chapter was full of terms and the "big picture" of various protocols. About 50 flash cards worth of information! Already, how multicast works today is becoming clearer.

al3kt.R***

Best of luck Veteran, I am sure you will nail it!
Keep up the hard-work

jamesp1983

Looking good man. Keep it up.

PsychoFin

Great progress here dude! I a quick question though. What do you use for the flashcards? Some kind of SRS?

vinbuck

Really enjoying following your progress NV...i'm only dabbling in my written studies at the moment until I start my new job and get settled.

When do you think you are going to tackle the written?

NetworkVeteran

3.0 hrs : Days #74-76 (Sep 19th)
108.0 : Total

1.5 hrs general review
1.0 hrs security study
0.5 hrs labbing Policy-based Routing

NetworkVeteran

vinbuck wrote: »

When do you think you are going to tackle the written?

A bit of time for multicast; a bit of time for overall shoring up weaknesses... perhaps three months. No hurry.

NetworkVeteran

6.0 hrs : Days #77-79 (Sep 22th)
114.0 : Total

1.0 hrs general review
5.0 hrs studying CCIE R&S OCG, ch9, Fundamentals of BGP Operation

According to the "Do I Know This Already?" quiz, my BGP knowledge was surprisingly weak for having passed the BGP exam and troubleshooting it regularly in the field. My worst area was aggregation. I updated a quarter of my BGP deck with more precise facts and then added another 44 cards to fill gaps. Onward, ho!

NetworkVeteran

3.0 hrs
117.0 : Total

::cough:: ::cough::

General

Took the Boson CCIE R&S written exam practice test to see where the rust was. I scored 700/1000, about where I expected to be. Besides being rusty with the CLI, my weak areas in the past are still my weak areas today--

IPv6 (transition technologies) - 62%
Multicast (PIM side) - 55%
Security (uRPF, CPP, ACLs) - 62%
QoS (policer configuration) - 67%

Security

Besides the low QoS score, my biggest surprise was ACLs. I know how to implement any policy just fine with named or numbered ACLs. What threw me were the logging options. I followed this up by watching the INE CCIE R&S 'Security' video, reading the IOS Control Plane Security documentation, and practicing ACLs in Boson Netsim and GNS3.

Mrock4

Keep up the good work man. Your weak areas were the exact same as mine. They're still not the strongest, but I have vastly improved them through using INE's Vol I labs and watching the ATC videos. I have a tendency to avoid things I don't understand, so my biggest hurdle was diving in and not giving up. Glad to hear you're making good progress!

NetworkVeteran

4.0 hrs
121.0 : Total

Security

Continuing my review of security since it was revealed as a weakness.

+ Wrapped up my ACL review by reviewing videos on time-based and reflexive ACLs. Labbed ACLs and time-based ACLs.
+ Watched videos and skimmed Wikipedia, RFC, use-case docs on uRPF. Labbed uRPF.
+ Watched videos on CBAC, Zome-based firewalls, and IPS. Labbed zone-based firewalls.

I added 9 ACL notes and 9 uRPF questions to my flash card deck, bringing its total size up to 2200 flash cards.

NetworkVeteran

2.0 hrs
123.0 : Total

Security

Reviewed AAA and completed two Boson Netsim AAA labs. Is it silly to use Netsim? ::shrug:: It's a resource, it's available, and it had a simulated Tacacs+ server I could use to test out primary and fallback behavior. One lab used AAA for ppp authentication, the other lab for login/enable authentication and exec authorization.

Completed simple OSPF and EIGRP authentication labs and reviewed authentication steps for all protocols.

Read SANS article on Cisco IOS Firewall feature set strengths and weaknesses.

NetworkVeteran

12.0 hrs
135.0 : Total

Work swamped me this past week, but I've been studying with a vengeance since the weekend began.

General

Upgraded to Anki 2. That may seem silly to put as study progress, but the point was to use a new ability to prioritize flashcards, so I can focus 80% of my review on CCIE-friendly topics. I'm also enjoying the new "Create Filtered Deck" option.

Mostly I de-prioritized service provider topics: IS-IS, RSVP-TE, VPLS, VPWS, MVPN, etc.

Multicast

+ Read "Interdomain Multicast Routing", chapter 1-4
+ Watched INE Multicast video
+ Read "101 CCNP Labs" - 3 labs on PIM-DM, PIM-SM, and Auto-RP
+ Updated and reviewed my multicast flashcard 2-3 times

QoS

+ Read "QOS Enabled Networks", chapters 2, 5, and 6.
+ Watched the INE QoS video
+ Updated and reviewed my vendor-neutral QoS flash cards

My three weakest areas are now quite shored up! I don't see passing the CCIE written (again) being too far away.

NetworkVeteran

9.0 hrs
144.0 : Total

Yesterday was insane. After having previously shored-up my weakest areas, I circled through most of the remaining topics. I only have three INE videos remaining: MPLS (VPNs), Spanning Tree, and Trunking/VTP. After that, I'm between: (a) Taking another assessment then studying the Cisco Presss CCIE text, or (b) Doing ten hands-on IPv6/routing labs and then taking the real exam.

I don't expect to have much study time for the next week or two.

Routing
Watched INE RIP video
Updated and review RIP flash cards

Watched INE EIGRP video
Updated and review EIGRP flash cards

Watched INE OSPF video
Updated and review OSPF flash cards

Watched INE BGP video
Updated and review BGP flash cards
Read the RFC on Route Reflection

IPv6
Watched INE IPv6 video
Updated and review IPv6 flash cards

Network Services
Watched INE Network Services video
Updated and review Network Services flash cards

NetworkVeteran

3.0 hrs
147.0 : Total

I found several steps of the first two labs challenging--clear indications I'm not ready yet. The hands-on practice was fun! It's been too long since I created challenging IGP-only topologies! In my real-world work, I aim for IGP simplicity.

General
Daily flashcards

MPLS
Watched INE MPLS-L3VPN video.

Routing
Read Cisco's OSPF Design Guide.
Completed 101 CCNP Labs, lab #41 (RIPng, IPv6 autoconfig, default routes, offsets lists, summarization, offset lists)
Completed 101 CCNP Labs, lab #42 (OSPFv3, stub areas, authentication, virtual links, GRE tunnels, redistribution)

down77

I like the progress! It's always fun to play around with complex scenarios and this will be great practice for the Lab exam. In the real world you are right, make it secure, simple, and supportable! On the Lab get ready to break all the rules just to prove it can be done

vinbuck

Great progress NetVet...how do you like the INE material so far?

NetworkVeteran

vinbuck wrote: »

Great progress NetVet...how do you like the INE material so far?

I quite like their CCIE Written videos. If someone were to use them as an "only source", they would be quite disappointed, but as a general survey/review of the breadth and depth of the content it's quite good. For example, when covering RIP they assume split horizon, poison reverse, etc. are not new concepts. However, they point out some items that are easier to forget, such as that RIP is transported over UDP port 520 and even version 2 doesn't allow you to easily include some interfaces on network 10.0.0.0 but not others. I will readily admit I do not usually dabble in the intricacies of RIP routing, and it helped remove the rust!

down77 wrote:

I like the progress!

Thanks for the encouragement, mate. May I have a fancy number to share in my profile next year!

NetworkVeteran

3.0 hrs
150.0 : Total

I helped with some multicast troubleshooting at work this week. I have a better handle on the protocol, although practice has shown gaps in my theory, such as not knowing the details of the PIM-SM (*,G) => (S,G) migration process. In terms of personal study, I've done some extra review and practice on IPv6 addressing / NDP, but otherwise just kept up with my reviews.

NetworkVeteran

4.0 hrs
154.0 : Total

I reviewed and then continued on with my IPv6 studies, pushing into weak areas--DHCPv6, prefix delegation, and tunneling techniques including 'ipv6ip', 'gre', and 'ipv6ip 6to4'. I made a simple lab to test all three options. 24 new flash cards.

Automatic tunnels were the trickiest for me. That they were multipoint made sense, and the configuration was straightforward. What was problematic was they were introduced as a way to improve scalability.. and yet they only seemed to provide endpoint-to-endpoint connectivity! IGPs can't run over them. Adding BGP seemed onerous as the first would make the configuration longer than manual tunnels with IGPs, and using static routes would mean it's not the 'scalabe' solution. Then, reading the RFC, it clicked! Each site has a ::/48 to play with that will be automatically routed to via the single 2002::/16 static route.