Let's get that number!

csalaja

Hi,

Inspired by this great forum I decided to open a thread for myself to track my progress - the aim is to get that magic number around the end of 2014. I am CCNP, CCDP, CCIP and working on Enterprise networks. I have lab gear to practice and access to plenty of CCIE learning material so no more excuses! I am reading CCIE books for 6-7 years (and keep forgetting their content) but labbing was never my strongness, I am more of a theory man. Obviously this attitude MUST change, we will see how it goes....
My plan of attack :
1. Read all the books/watch INE videos along the blueprint with labbing up the unfamiliar concepts.
2. Do INE vol.1 labs
3. Pass the Written
4. Continue with INE vol.2 labs and revisit vol1.+config guides whenever it is necessary.
5. Do Troubleshooting labs
6. Go for the lab!

I am already finished with Spanning Tree and basic L2 switching stuff (Cisco LAN Switching is great book!) now I am into Frame-Relay. There was an excellent presentation on CiscoLive2013 (Frame Relay for R&S CCIE Candidates) which suggests me that FR won't disappear very soon from the blueprint.

Dieg0M

Good luck I would suggest making flash cards and using them as it will help you not forget the content that you read.

csalaja

Thank you for the tip! I did try Mnemosynme in the past but it was very timeconsuming to write those flashcards and I didn't used them after all. Now I am adding my notes to the CCIE Written Cert Guide (as it's not deep enough) and will use its tables and memory builders for repetions. Once I finished with all the blueprint topics I will see whether this method is working or not - maybe I end up writing flashcards again!

carterw65

Good luck on the journey. Keep us posted on your progress!

gorebrush

Welcome to the club of wannabee's!

Good luck with your journey.

jamesp1983

Good luck. Welcome to the journey.

aragoen_celtdra

Go get that number.

qrilock

Welcome, and good luck on this journey.

csalaja

Does anyone has any idea what's the reason behind the Etherchannel PAGP auto silent mode? Auto means that the port won't join to the Etherchannel unless the other side is actively trying to initiate the connection (desirable). 'The silent mode is used when the switch is connected to a device that is not PAgP-capable and seldom, if ever, sends packets.' So auto silent means... ???? How could an auto port form Etherchannel if the other side doesn't send any packets? Why would I configure auto silent instead of desirable silent?

EdTheLad

Non-silent mode is used as a type of udld failure detection, i.e. if i don't receive traffic on rx, don't add link to etherchannel, or if i don't receive traffic on rx, reset tx which will cause the link to fall out of the ether-bundle and hence it wont join the etherchannel again due to no traffic on rx.
Usually used with fibre as can have a fibre issue that causes unidirectional failures.

Silent mode is used is usually enabled on copper as it doesn't have the same issues as fibre. So no longer actively monitoring for unidirectional link failures.

Auto PAGP is safer than just using "on", protects against a misconfiguration, mismatch of etherchannel on one side and not on the other which will cause blackholing.

csalaja

Hi EdTheLad,

Many thanks for the explanation but I still have concern: how does Auto PAGP Silent mode protect against mismatch on one side or any other unidirectional issue? Silent mode means that I don't need any packet from the other side to form an Etherchannel. How does silent mode know that there is an Etherchannel capable device on the other end?

EdTheLad

Silent mode doesn't know, you enable silent mode when using copper, the chances of udld with copper are minimal.The choice as to use silent or non-silent depends on the environment.If the switch you are using supports udld its better to use that rather than the pagp version as its faster to react to failures.So stick with a combo of silent mode with udld enabled, then you just have to decide to go with auto or desirable for pagp.