DoctorLexus's CCIE R&S Thread

Tentative plan:

0) Build a solid lab
1) Purchase CCIE Routing & Switching v5 Written Exam Video Course - INE
2) Study everything from step 1 in detail, using web resources, books, etc.
3) Pass CCIE R&S Written
4) Avoid dating and relationships completely until lab exam is passed

...good enough for now.

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ITSpectre

doctorlexus wrote: »

4) Avoid dating and relationships completely until lab exam is passed

This will be the hardest thing....

doctorlexus

ITSpectre wrote: »

This will be the hardest thing....

Depends on your personality type. As long as I keep busy, I'll be fine. Plus, I suck at relationships. If I were to get involved with anyone while die-hard focused on prepping for CCIE-lab, there's a strong chance I'd simply neglect her or piss her off to such an extreme that she'd leave anyways. Hence it's best I avoid dating in the first place.

Her: "You said we'd go out tonight..."
Me: "What?"
Her: "Wawa wawawa wawawa."
Me: "Sorry, didn't hear you. I'm trying to focus on this."
Her: "#@#$ you %@#%@# and @$##@$"
Me: "OK, that's cool."

*car peels out of driveway*, I go back to studying.

d4nz1g

I am on this ride for a while, let me share my reading list with you:

Routing TCP/IP Volume I and II
Internet Routing Architectures
MPLS and VPN Architectures Volume I and II
End to End QoS network Design
Developing IP multicast networks volume I
MPLS Fundamentals
Deploying IPv6 Networks

Some of them are out of scope of the CCIE RS, but I added in order to learn things I work with (MVPN, L2VPN, etc) and to increase the complexity of my labbing. But I definitely recommend all of them.

doctorlexus

Thanks much. Have any good recommendations on BGP reading?

networker050184

Internet Routing Architectures is a good start on BGP. It's a tad dated at this point, but not much has changed with the base protocol.

chrisone

I thought you were all into elearnsecurity or OSCP security pentesting path.

I don't know why I thought this about you

Good luck on your path to CCIE! INE is good place to start for workbook/CBT/LAB/rack rentals. The books you listed seem on point.

NOC-Ninja

doctorlexus wrote: »

Depends on your personality type. As long as I keep busy, I'll be fine. Plus, I suck at relationships. If I were to get involved with anyone while die-hard focused on prepping for CCIE-lab, there's a strong chance I'd simply neglect her or piss her off to such an extreme that she'd leave anyways. Hence it's best I avoid dating in the first place.

Her: "You said we'd go out tonight..."
Me: "What?"
Her: "Wawa wawawa wawawa."
Me: "Sorry, didn't hear you. I'm trying to focus on this."
Her: "#@#$ you %@#%@# and @$##@$"
Me: "OK, that's cool."

*car peels out of driveway*, I go back to studying.

everybody goes through it. some people even goes divorce. I went through the same shi but she stayed. lol

doctorlexus

networker050184 wrote: »

Internet Routing Architectures is a good start on BGP. It's a tad dated at this point, but not much has changed with the base protocol.

Thanks much.

chrisone wrote: »

I thought you were all into elearnsecurity or OSCP security pentesting path.

OSCP is a personal goal of mine, just not a professional goal. Hopefully I'll be able to wedge it in. Not familiar with elearnsecurity.

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

everybody goes through it. some people even goes divorce. I went through the same shi but she stayed. lol

Bill Burr does a great piece on success and on how people you're dating will often never understand why you want to work hard at something to the point of not having time for anything else. You're lucky if you found an understanding one.

I don't think I'd get that lucky.

gorebrush

Not having a relationship at all is actually a massive benefit.

I'm married and I was very lucky that my wife would let me go away and study for 10-12 hours a day. Not everyone is so fortunate.

d4nz1g

doctorlexus wrote: »

Thanks much. Have any good recommendations on BGP reading?

Internet Routing Architectures + Routing TCP/IP volume II should cover BGP ~90%
If you want to go deep on BGP for L3VPN, take a look at MPLS Fundamentals as well.

As I said, it is way more than you need, but you don't need to be too strict about the scope.

doctorlexus

gorebrush wrote: »

I'm married and I was very lucky that my wife would let me go away and study for 10-12 hours a day.

That's a lot of studying. For the written I'm aiming more for 1-2 hours per day. I might up that if necessary, but I'm giving myself 18 months to get ready. After that, I figure another 12-18 months for the lab, for which I'll probably significantly increase study time.

Scales

doctorlexus wrote: »

Tentative plan:

0) Build a solid lab
1) Purchase CCIE Routing & Switching v5 Written Exam Video Course - INE
2) Study everything from step 1 in detail, using web resources, books, etc.
3) Pass CCIE R&S Written
4) Avoid dating and relationships completely until lab exam is passed

...good enough for now.

My advice would be do not have a baby until you have attained the CCIE.

netdzgn

Scales wrote: »

My advice would be do not have a baby until you have attained the CCIE.

Amen to this.

To OP, you may also want to check out IP Routing on Cisco IOS, IOS XE, and IOS XR: An Essential Guide to Understanding and Implementing IP Routing Protocols. Updated and concise.

gorebrush

doctorlexus wrote: »

That's a lot of studying. For the written I'm aiming more for 1-2 hours per day. I might up that if necessary, but I'm giving myself 18 months to get ready. After that, I figure another 12-18 months for the lab, for which I'll probably significantly increase study time.

Little and often is good but 1-2 hours a day won't be enough imo. At least consider 4-6 hours per weekend day and 1-2 hours a weeknight that would get you 22 hours a week - and I'd say 150-200 hours just for the written would see you ready in 3-4 months - of course depends on your prior experience and knowledge

Clm

just a quick question are you jumping from CCNA to CCIE?

jamesp1983

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

everybody goes through it. some people even goes divorce. I went through the same shi but she stayed. lol

Same. My boss told me exactly what would happen as far as a pay increase once I passed the lab so my wife was fine with it. We still had fights along the way and it was hard, but she was supportive for the most part.

Good luck to the OP! I found MPLS Fundamentals and Halabi's book to be extremely beneficial.

gorebrush

jamesp1983 wrote: »

Same. My boss told me exactly what would happen as far as a pay increase once I passed the lab so my wife was fine with it. We still had fights along the way and it was hard, but she was supportive for the most part.

Yeah - pay increase haha - Best I had was a 4% pay rise through having an automatic top rating for passing it.

But I'm reaping the benefit now - taking a 40% rise for my new job (because my current salary is made up of an allowance for working unsociable hours)

doctorlexus

Clm wrote: »

just a quick question are you jumping from CCNA to CCIE?

Well, I don't plan on taking the CCNP exams if that's what you mean. But the study path will be the same. Still have to go through all the CCNP material, which is why I'm giving myself 18 months to the written. As I understand it, there is some overlap between CCNP and CCIE written material.

Clm

doctorlexus wrote: »

Well, I don't plan on taking the CCNP exams if that's what you mean. But the study path will be the same. Still have to go through all the CCNP material, which is why I'm giving myself 18 months to the written. As I understand it, there is some overlap between CCNP and CCIE written material.

Awesome hope your journey ends well

gorebrush

doctorlexus wrote: »

Well, I don't plan on taking the CCNP exams if that's what you mean. But the study path will be the same. Still have to go through all the CCNP material, which is why I'm giving myself 18 months to the written. As I understand it, there is some overlap between CCNP and CCIE written material.

Overlap is an understatement!

Kreken

gorebrush wrote: »

Overlap is an understatement!

Maybe he is talking about CCNP Security and CCIE R&S written... There is some overlap there.

doctorlexus

Overlap is always good

gorebrush

Kreken wrote: »

Maybe he is talking about CCNP Security and CCIE R&S written... There is some overlap there.

Who said anything about Security?

Kreken

gorebrush wrote: »

Who said anything about Security?

Aren't we talking about "some" overlap?

gorebrush

Between CCNP and CCIE within R&S yes...

doctorlexus

This is probably a stupid question and not easily answerable, but if I studied CCNP R&S thoroughly, what percentage of the material on CCIE R&S (written) would I have nailed down?

Iristheangel

There's a huge gap between the CCNP R&S and CCIE. I would say the CCNP R&S is like dipping your toe in and the CCIE R&S tends to be jumping in and learning to swim.

It's a lot harder to say percentages because you might touch on things like multicast, EIGRP, OSPF, QoS, etc in the CCNP R&S and get pretty decent at the fundamentals there but there's a reason why the reading like for the CCIE R&S is so long... you're basically taking that CCNP R&S knowledge and expanding on it in such a vast way. If I had to say anything, I would say the CCNP R&S is probably 30% of the way there... It's teaching you a foundation in which to build your CCIE R&S off of.

One thing I found helped from other folks that jumped directly from CCNP to CCIE is that they studied for their CCNP with CCIE books. One friend of mine that passed on his first try at the end of last year was using TCP/IP Vol 1 & 2 and the CCIE R&S Vol 1 and 2 books in his CCNP studies so he was able to really transition a little easier to CCIE.

I definitely wouldn't recommend skipping the CCNP in your case though... It's not that you have to take it but you just finished the CCNA R&S and you were struggling with retaining knowledge and overload on that. A CCIE is that times 10000000 with the books, RFCs and the 1000+ hours of labbing you're going to be putting in so it might be good to get the CCNP as a steady progression for you and make sure you have a job where you're actually using this knowledge.

gorebrush

Hard to put a number on it. 40%?

CCNP = You need to know a little about a lot
CCIE = You need to know a lot about a lot

There's also many topics you won't see on the CCNP these days, QoS, MPLS, Multicast to name three off the top of my head.

Iristheangel

gorebrush wrote: »

Hard to put a number on it. 40%?

I would even say that's being generous. It's probably dropped to 20-30% recently. Marko and a few other big folks in the industry have sort of blown up at how hard the CCIE R&S written has become lately. They did an update that made that test a beast... One of our fellow mutual acquaintances recently took it after studying for a year straight and failed with a 600-something. His words were "God damn, that felt like a service provider test.... WTF?" Bardlebee could also chime in since he recently had to take it as well.

gorebrush

Yeah after I read your post I agree 40% is generous. I will say I did take the v4 written in 2013 - so obviously it's changed a lot since then.