The other David's CCIE: R+S Thread

deronadd

I am hesitantly saying that I will be starting the journey. If I become overwhelmed and do not succeed the knowledge I will have gained will be so helpful. Though I am nervous I am not planning to fail...thank you for the recommended books, I will order them.
Right now I am reading the Study Guide, my notes from CCNP and some videos. My routing and Switch vol 1 and 2 will be arriving this week so I plan to spend some heavy hours with that along with GNS3 until I can afford a lab..by the way you guys have some great home-labs

davidspirovalentine

Good to hear

GNS3 is awesome! I got all the way up to the CCNP with GNS3

Fortunately I had some 3560s lying around the office at the time...

Happy Studying!

Kind regards,
DV

davidspirovalentine

Didn't study tonight...
Haven't studied in a while...
Work is slowly killing me...
Need a break...

davidspirovalentine

Finally started studying again... Last night was a good review...

Basically I am lacking skills in:

IPv6 and its routing protocols
Multicast
Layer 2 QoS (Layer 3 is all good)
BGP Route Filtering

Will be updating my thread as I go along...

Happy studying!!!

davidspirovalentine

In Fiji for a month... I doubt I will get anything done

davidspirovalentine

So my trip to Fiji lasted longer than expected (2 months)...

Back on to the studies and I just finished reading the non-technical guide to the CCIE and have gained quite a few tips and encouragement.

My new proposed date for the lab is 30th June 2014, hopefully it isn't upgraded to 5.0 because all my gear and material is for the 4.0 version...

Looking forward to hitting the books and labs again tonight.

davidspirovalentine

Finished my review of multicast (ipv4) and IPv6 routing...

Working on finishing the ATC videos from INE and then it will be lab time

Going to do INE's LABs and then a month before the Narbik course in Sydney I will do the Narbik Labs.

davidspirovalentine

So it's been a very long while....

What has happend since I have been gone? A lot... Moved house, Employed two engineers, fired two engineers, employed another engineer (definitely keeping this one...), the v5 R&S was announced, the v5 R&S was released...

So, whats the plan moving forward...

I am back onto the studies (but have been travelling a lot due to work requirements...). I have reviewed all the QoS INE ATC videos and will be starting the labs shortly. I am basically just mastering one technology at a time while I wait for the Cisco press v5 ebooks to come through (first one gets released mid August).

I am thinking of attending the INE boot camp in Melbourne next year (as I will already be in Melbourne for Cisco Live the week before)...

Hmmmm....

gorebrush

Hey, I see you are a CCIE! You kept that quiet?

I can't remember seeing a thread where you said you passed... unless I missed it?!

Anyway, massive congratulations!

davidspirovalentine

Hey man, I just reset my password to say yes, I passed back in May 2015.

The day I sat the lab was one of the best days I've ever had.
I remember it vividly, the $1500 burger, the fact that nothing worked 3/4 of the way into the lab time. The long wait to get that email. That number you'll never forget for the rest of your life #48754.
Looking back it's been six years since I achieved it and I wouldn't have done anything differently. The breaks in-between, the life events that shaped how much time I could dedicate towards it.
I sacrificed a lot to get it and I now know what that feels like. Not gonna lie my health took a dive while I prioritised hours of lab time and learning over a healthy diet but I'm correcting those things now. 

I guess everything really does happen for a reason. 

I've always asked myself 'what's next' after I pass some big exam.
After I got my CCIE I let my life run it's course.
I moved house and company. 
I left an abusive relationship.
Moved away from network engineering to learn web and app development.
Dipped hard into cloud orchestration and automation.
Now I run an Ed-Tech startup called Niunet. 

I managed to become the first CCIE in the country, I set that as a goal all those years ago, only to be reminded by a college recently who asked me to talk to his team about the journey and the experience.
It's amazing to come back here and see it all again, the nostalgia hits hard.  

A huge thank you to everyone here that gave me the motivation and drive to pursue my dreams, nothing but love and respect for all of you. 

The day we stop learning is the day we become obsolete. 

 gorebrush said:

Hey, I see you are a CCIE! You kept that quiet?

I can't remember seeing a thread where you said you passed... unless I missed it?!

Anyway, massive congratulations!

UnixGuy

@davidspirovalentine you're killing it mate! well done and congrats on the start-up!!

What a journey!