CCIE R&S progress

silver145

Hi all, so after the feedback from the other thread i decided to make this thread! I am creating this to keep myself on track and hopefully feel bad knowing that other members are working hard while i think of excuses to not read or lab!

My story so far: Achieved my CCNA while at college, then went to university, have done my BSc in Networking and had a placement year also, i have been doing SAP basis for the past 2 years (while at university) and graduated about a month ago! during this time i also achieved my CCNP. I am now starting a Graduate scheme at BT in september for 2 years in the networking team and i want to learn at my own pace, hence cracking the whip!!

I have my trusty safari account with plenty of books to read and subscribed to INE for the videos to re-encorce the knowledge. I am NOT focusing too much on labs for the first month or so as i really want to cram it in currently. I have been doing about 2 hours or so revision a day for the past 2 months (then saw this website) and as of 2 days ago i have been doing 4 hours revision a day, minimum!

Any advice is welcome and any "OI SLACKER, GET YOUR ARSE IN GEAR" is also very much welcome!

All the best!

gorebrush

It is nice to see so many that are trying for their number now.

As was said to me when I started my CCIE thread (3 years ago) - Welcome to the Officers Mess. This forum has been my go to place for Cisco help for the past 2-3 years, while I've been attempting mine on and off.

Good luck on your quest for the number. Keep checking in and put an hour count in your signature, it helps.

silver145

Much appreciated......whats the stats on how many get to the finish line

Mrock4

I think we had 3 or 4 members get their number last year. Hopefully a few more this year! But if you mean worldwide, I think cisco says the average attempts to pass are about 3 attempts. The CCIE numbers now are about to hit 40,000 if they haven't already, but a good chunk of those are expired, so it's a bit less than that.

That being said, welcome to the journey. It's going to last 3x longer than you hope it all, cost 2x more than it should, and be a generally lonely journey..but it'll be worth it in the end...I think!

silver145

Nice! good to see the "locals" passing. hopefully it wont be too rough of a year or two.......hopefully.....

spiderjericho

Can you change the thread title?

Maybe the Silver Lining of an Arduous Journey. CCIE R&S Progress.

So what's the plan?

silver145

Haha hopefully there will be a silver lining!!!!

Plan so far:
I am hitting the books fairly hard,


read:
Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE) Foundation
Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH)
CCIE Professional Development Routing TCP/IP, Volume I, (skimming this daily also and picking one particular aspect to memorize, E.G OSPF Neighbour process + packet details) - Will re-read also.

Cisco Self-study implementing IPv6 Networks - Currently reading, started today, should be finished tomorrow night i hope, again taking all key information and creating my own "revision sheet"


To-Read:
Cisco Frame Relay Solutions Guide,
QOS for IP/MPLS networks,
Cisco QOS Exam Cert Guide(IP Telephony Self-Study),
MPLS Fundamentals (read a few chapters of this, never touched MPLS so taking it slow),
CCIE Route and switch Exam Cert Guide, Fourth Edition


Hoping to have the majority of this in my brain pretty sharpish with constant review to ensure maximum retention!

down77

Good luck! The theory is important, but make sure to Lab as much as you can with the Narbik and INE workbooks.

silver145

When i believe i am competent at the theory i will step up to the labs, reading on things i do not know, weak points and review, for now the majority is learning learning learning

I have heard of this Narbik fellow since i started reading on this forum, does he sell his workbooks via a particular site as INE do?

silver145

On target for another 4 hours revision today (reading) - but i saw the boson test sim for the CCIE R/S written. It currently has 10 bucks off making it 89 + the use of code DAA42013 takes the price down to 74 bucks. Anybody had use of this in study mode and is it worth it to re-enforce my knowledge?

aragoen_celtdra

I also bought the boson sim last december and only starting to use it now. I've always liked boson because of the in depth explanation of the answers.

Good luck with studies and I'll come by form time to time to tell you to "get your arse in gear"

silver145

Much appreciated, in for a penny in for a pound! purchased it

NetworkVeteran

Thanks for the tip. I picked up a copy for $74. I suspect I'd score 67%+ without any study. Good time for a check-up.

silver145

nice! i would not expect any where near that score without studying for a while to come yet! let us know how you get on!

Also in regards to equipment to practice on, have people gone the GNS3 route or physical topology route?

silver145

Another 4 hours done today, off to go see world war Z as my reward then hopefully fit an hour or two more in before bed!

spiderjericho

silver145 wrote: »

When i believe i am competent at the theory i will step up to the labs, reading on things i do not know, weak points and review, for now the majority is learning learning learning

I have heard of this Narbik fellow since i started reading on this forum, does he sell his workbooks via a particular site as INE do?

If you're talking about CCIE trainers, the only names are the two Brian's and Narbik Kocharian. His site is Micronics. He offers work books, boot camps and videos (not sure if he's started selling these yet).

http://www.micronicstraining.com/

If you like Boson on Facebook, you can get a 25% off coupon. I wish their CCNP Security exams were a little more up to date (Firewall and VPN).

Enjoy the movie. It's good to take breaks, though never lose sight of the goal.

silver145

Ah ill take a look at his lab books then, i'm hoping to hit 200-300 hours revision (2 months ish) before touching lab equiptment, want to try get the foundations in place before breaking them!

Trying to see what the best route is, GNS3 with NIC cards + 3560's or a full lab, but as V5 might be announced this week, who knows! looking forward to see what is changing, this may alter my revision time for the foundations to encompass the new areas or research further etc.

Done another 4 hours revision today, finished Cisco self study, Implementing IPV6 Networks and moved onto Cisco QOS Exam Cert Guide(IP Telephony Self-Study)

I am about a hundred pages in and to be fair i am a complete novice at QOS as it always "turned me off" but this book is quite nice to read and makes the topic foundations easy to digest, its just starting to move onto harder parts but i am hoping the writer continues in the same fashion!

vinbuck

I'm going with both GNS3 and a full hardware lab with a console server for remote access. I'm probably going to use 2800/3800 series for routers and 3560/3750 switches for L2.

I'm probably also going to build several links from the ESX host i'm running GNS3 on to the real hardware so I can quickly add routers for larger topologies.

Right now I am only reading theory to supplement the labs I am doing - once I have a good refresh on the core topics (L2. IGP and BGP), then I will branch out and start reading some more theory. I find that I comprehend much more if I read to supplement labs and not the other way around.

64:61:6e

If you haven't built the lab yet, you may want to wait. Cisco announced that VIRL will be released sometime this summer according to Brian Dennis. "VIRL will be released as a VM appliance (Ubuntu) this summer free of charge from Cisco" - twitter

I built my own lab over time and used a mix of 1800/2800 routers with 3550/3560 switches along with a 2511-RJ for console access and a power controller so I could power it up when I needed. With this announcement I'd probably wait to see what's available from Cisco this summer and use rack time up until then.

Also, Brian McGahan mentioned that the lab hardware and blueprint don't look to be changing just yet.
"In the #CCIE R&S session at #clus. Better late than never Looks like no changes to the lab blueprint or hardware. Still the same v4 lab." - twitter

silver145

Ah excellent posts, each to there own learning style aye Vin! i agree with you on the read, practice it until happy, move on approach. Until i am happy with my reading i wont purchase any equipment but i do have access to Rentals if needs be! just "holding off" buying the workbooks as of yet as i am waiting for them to officially not announce the V4 to be changing

vinbuck

Thanks for the heads up...I'll definitely keep my eye out for that. I've been thinking about playing with the Cisco CSR VM also....

The hardware lab isn't costing me anything since i'm building it at work. We have a surplus of routers and switches that are perfect for the lab so i'll be building up a rack of gear in the next few weeks and augment with GNS3 and other VMs as needed.

NetworkVeteran

I scored 700/1000, with 790 as the minimum passing score. About what I expected. I have been more hands-on with Juniper lately, and I've cleared allowed some rust to settle in, in the areas which I don't currently consider my core skillset. I guess this is the nature of specialization and generalization. One must strive to strike the right balance.

gorebrush

vinbuck wrote: »

I'm going with both GNS3 and a full hardware lab with a console server for remote access. I'm probably going to use 2800/3800 series for routers and 3560/3750 switches for L2.

I'm probably also going to build several links from the ESX host i'm running GNS3 on to the real hardware so I can quickly add routers for larger topologies.

Right now I am only reading theory to supplement the labs I am doing - once I have a good refresh on the core topics (L2. IGP and BGP), then I will branch out and start reading some more theory. I find that I comprehend much more if I read to supplement labs and not the other way around.

VIRL? Never heard of that, but I'll be keeping my eyes skinned for that!

I love virtual stuff - GNS is ideal to knock out the vast majority of the routing portions.

Switches are a bit more awkward, but I was really contemplating some lab rental time... Not sure.

64:61:6e

gorebrush wrote: »

VIRL? Never heard of that, but I'll be keeping my eyes skinned for that!

It's definitely going to be nice. Brian Dennis did a write up about it a little while back. ==> Cisco's Virtual Internet Routing Lab - When?

How's QoS silver145? I'm a complete novice as well so am not looking forward to that book. I think I'll hit that one once I'm through the IGP's. Maybe even after a Layer 2 refresh.

silver145

Personally i believe the book makes a very annoying/difficult subject (for me personally) easy to digest! That is....so far!..... may turn into a Stephen King novel...... hope not!!!!

aragoen_celtdra

silver145 wrote: »

Personally i believe the book makes a very annoying/difficult subject (for me personally) easy to digest! That is....so far!..... may turn into a Stephen King novel...... hope not!!!!

I finished my first pass on the Odom QoS book last month. I agree it was pretty easy to digest. I slowed down a bit though towards the last 2 chapters, and found myself having a hard time digesting the info. I don't know if I just got bored or what. I wouldn't say it got any harder though - so yeah, maybe I got kinda bored and complacent towards the end. LOL! I''ll revisit everything when I get back around to the QoS section of the OECG.

vinbuck

QOS is one of those topics where a real lab comes in very handy because you can flood a link and watch as the various traffic classes are handled based on what you've built up. You can build a lot of it in GNS3 but it`s not quite the same.

silver145

Another 6 hours of QOS completed yesterday, and ill take a look at that vin

silver145

Cracking on with more QOS reading today, I am looking at buying equipment for my INE topology. If any body knows where to buy particular bits from (UK - Birmingham) Let me know

silver145

another 4 hours of QOS down, ordered the book that was suggested on another thread, "none technical guide to CCIE" for a good read and just weighing up buying my own VS cost of rack time for equiptment. Hoping to get another 4 hours on QOS down, not going through this as fast as IPv6

vinbuck

silver145 wrote: »

another 4 hours of QOS down, ordered the book that was suggested on another thread, "none technical guide to CCIE" for a good read and just weighing up buying my own VS cost of rack time for equiptment. Hoping to get another 4 hours on QOS down, not going through this as fast as IPv6

I'm going to order that book as well...I read the preview on Amazon and it looks great! Did you happen to see if they have a digital copy?