How many times can I restart.... <blog>
I started my path towards CCIE R&S 2 years ago, passed the written, then quit. A year ago I decided "Now is the time!!!" I put in maybe 20 hours over 3 weeks, then let life get in my way again... Shame on me. 
I am getting a little older. I don't want to party like I did even a year ago. Other dramas in life are calming down (or I just don't care anymore, either way) I now have a supportive woman in my life.
So, Here we go. 3rd time is the charm. I have already put in the time to pass the written again, and have started my lab work 2 weeks ago. This time I have an actual plan. My employer purchased all the INE R&S Vol 4 books, I found a great study plan utilizing all 4 volumes with a weekly subject plan.
With a goal and a map to get there; I am already farther in this attempt than I got in the last 2.
My plan is to now update this thread 2-3 times a week with whatever I learn.
I hereby open this thread to mockery of my lack of commitment for a period not to exceed 7 days from today. If you have been better committed to you studies, or if you have been a slacker like me; feel free to mock, heckle, jeer, or condemn as you see fit. I welcome all comments.
I am getting a little older. I don't want to party like I did even a year ago. Other dramas in life are calming down (or I just don't care anymore, either way) I now have a supportive woman in my life.
So, Here we go. 3rd time is the charm. I have already put in the time to pass the written again, and have started my lab work 2 weeks ago. This time I have an actual plan. My employer purchased all the INE R&S Vol 4 books, I found a great study plan utilizing all 4 volumes with a weekly subject plan.
With a goal and a map to get there; I am already farther in this attempt than I got in the last 2.
My plan is to now update this thread 2-3 times a week with whatever I learn.
I hereby open this thread to mockery of my lack of commitment for a period not to exceed 7 days from today. If you have been better committed to you studies, or if you have been a slacker like me; feel free to mock, heckle, jeer, or condemn as you see fit. I welcome all comments.
Comments
Passed 350-001 today. Feels good to take a test again.
I have determined I know even less about frame relay than I thought I did. I am now convinced that a drunken chimp has about the same odds of getting a circuit to come up stable. Hopefully by this time next week I will at least be able to quickly get the interfaces up with the correct dlci and send traffic across the link, else I am going to be in big trouble.
I finished the deep dive study module on Frame Relay yesterday. As long as I can remember to disable keepalives on a back to back frame link I think I will be ok there. Did some added study on PPP authentication, so I am going to re-visit my layer 2 deep dive today, and start the basic layer 3 deep dive later today or tomorrow. This in depth lab study is hard, but it sure is fun.
In the event that I am dumb enough to forget to turn off keepalives on a back to back frame relay, what show or debug commands can I use to tell me why the link is going down? Once I figured out why my like was going back down I tried to figure out a debug that would tell me what the issue was, but I failed. Anyone have a suggestion?
When trying to configure etherchannel over a dot1q tunnel; if you mis-configure the access vlan on one side of the cloud it will cause an l2ptguard error on the other side of the cloud.
sw1---sw2---sw3---sw4
The wrong vlan on one of the links configured on sw3 going to 4 was causing 2 of the links between sw1 and 2 to shut down. Finding this was a really infuriating 45 minutes. I was looking at the wrong side.
* Certifications: CISSP, CEH, CHFI, CCNA:Sec, CCNA:R&S, CWNA, ITILv3, VCA-DCV, LPIC-1, A+, Network+, Security+, Linux+, Project+, and many more...
* Degrees: MSc: Cybersecurity and Information Assurance; BSc: Information Technology - Security; AAS: IT Network Systems Administration
Good luck on your journey to CEH and onward towards CCNP.
Just remember, passing the CCIE won't mean any less if your number is 41000 or 45000..you'll still be a CCIE. It is NOT a sprint, it's a marathon.
Bsc (hons) Network Computing - 1st Class
WIP: Msc advanced networking
Didn't get any study or lab time in this week, I found myself pretty sick, and couldn't take the time off work. By the time I was done at the office I just didn't have the oomph to study. But I did spend the last 4 hours labbing it up. Worked on INE Vol 1 lab 3, basic ip.
It may not have been fast but I figured out all of the route-map and policy based routing. I think I need to spend some time this week readying up on my route-maps and ip sla.
I SWEAR every single time I encounter frame-relay, I have to basically re-learn the entire thing, so you're not at all alone there.
Current goal: Dunno
I have found so far that my conceptual understanding of the technologies and their capabilities is usually pretty good, it's the syntax and specifics on how to do it. I have only had a few items where I read the tasks and said "how in the hell will I do that?" I never thought of using a route map to check if an interface is up by verifying a route int he route table, then using that to inject a default route. I found that to be a very interesting way to think about doing things. I can't think of a situation where that would be useful, but I like the thought process behind it.
It is very true that with many CCIE scenarios there are easier ways to accomplish the same thing; but the change in thinking that occurs to get around the strange limits that get put on a these tasks are what really make the difference between someone who is good and someone who is really an expert. At least that is what I keep telling myself...
A study buddy would probably be a good thing, I have always worked on things like this alone and eventually lose motivation when life buggers me up. The written is a great challange, one I have been fortunate enough to get past.
I didn't manage to get the 10-12 hours I wanted to last weekend. I did get 6 on Saturday, with the plan to do the same Sunday. Got up Sunday, decided to go for a motorcycle ride with my G/F before the weather gets too cold to go up the canyons. We got breakfast and hit the canyon about 11AM. At the mouth of the canyon I thought I got hit by a rock, 8 miles later we pulled over because my face was really hurting, and found I had a bee stuck to my face. Crap. Most of my family is allergic to bees and my face is starting to swell. Down the canyon, get some Benedryl as soon as possible, then pass out on the couch for a few hours (damn benedryl) so no study Sunday. Got 2 hrs in Monday and 3 on Tuesday, managed to finish up my review of earlier sections that gave me trouble. Wed is my scheduled rest night, standing plans. Thursday got the call my Dad has prostate cancer. Heavy news so no study thursday or Friday, i just didn't have it in me. But I am 3 hours into it today, finished EIGRP section and amd about to spend the next 2-3 hours on OSPF.
I must say, the difference between the knowlage for the written and the knowlage for the lab never ceases to surprise me. I can read a config and figure out what it is doing, but trying to do the config is a LOT harder than I thought it would be, but also a great deal more fun.
INE had a Route Redistribution live video class Friday, I convinced my boss to let me attend that and log my time to training for the day. I found it very informative. I discovered that I have a good theoretical handle on route redistribution, but my testing and verification methods left some to be desired. I have primarily used 'show ip route' to do most of my verification. Brian Dennis really drilled on using the protocol databases instead as they have a lot more information and will show important things that are not in the route table. This is leading my to take longer verifying when I am doing my practice labbing, but over the time I spent this weekend I think it did help me be able to better predict what I should see.
I have seen a lot of talk about Cisco announcing V5 in November, giving 6 months to complete V4. So, I have moved up my timeline, and have booked a date for May 5th. I know this is a very ambitious goal, and my G/F is beginning to understand what I really meant when I said this would take up a lot of time, and now I am going to have to spend more time. She is not thrilled with it, but says she understands the reasons, and will continue to be supportive....
Think of the 2:00 a.m. test—if you were awakened in the
middle of the night because of a network problem and had to figure out the
traffic flows in your network while you were half asleep, could you do it?
Yup, that's about what my experience is!
I have and I'm not a network guy.
You may learn something!