Passed v5 Lab 1st attempt

Passed my lab, couple of days ago. Overall great experience. All I can say it was as real world as it can get, no sneaky stuff going on.
Primary study vendor was Cisco 360, can't express how good they are especially their assessment labs. Few days before the big day I've gone through INE's full scale lab, very fair in comparison to the "beast". Be ready for the DIAG though, 30 minutes do fly by very quick and amount of information you need to verify and go through in those time scales are immense.

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fredrikjj

**** yeah!

Congrats.

lrb

Congrats mate! Gives me a bit of confidence before my big day in a few weeks

Plans for another CCIE track after a well deserved breal?

atorven

Congrats!

deth1k

Cheers guys. No plans for anything yet. My MRS would kill me if I mention any more study

Time to relax for a bit, DC track looks very tempting though

deth1k

lrb wrote: »

Congrats mate! Gives me a bit of confidence before my big day in a few weeks

Plans for another CCIE track after a well deserved breal?

You'll be fine mate, as long as you can complete INE's full scale lab with an hour to spare it's yours

Alex90

Congrats

I'm just starting out in my Cisco studies and I find posts like this really motivating - shows what you can achieve with effort and commitment.

5ekurity

Congratulations!

7255carl

Congrats on the pass, what an awesome achievement:), and best of luck to lrb

Carl

networker050184

Congrats!

Dieg0M

Congrats man!

bouchouch

i failed diagnostic section what was your strategy for it ?
Is it included in Cisco 360 labs ?

ccnpninja

congrats!

deth1k

bouchouch wrote: »

i failed diagnostic section what was your strategy for it ?
Is it included in Cisco 360 labs ?

When I left the lab I through I've failed DIAG too, spent over 15 minutes on the 1st ticket which got me panicking a bit. Did't prepare for it at all to be fair and no, it's not in C360

Only hint is to read fault description first, get a general idea of where fault might be. Check config for that device in question and refer to any diagrams if any or whatever else is provided. I've copy and pasted bits of config into notepad for comparison.
I would suggest to try not to rush however that left me with 4 minutes for my 3rd ticket which I've had to skip completely.

FloOz

Congrats on the pass!!!

NOC-Ninja

congrats! very tough test!

gorebrush

Excellent news, well done. 4 months to go for me.

joneno

Congratulations sir/lady!

jamesp1983

Congrats! Great work! Hope you celebrated your accomplishment.

edvrmg

Congrats!!!.. can you tell your time management in the 3 sections (TS, diag and config)...

deth1k

edvrmg wrote: »

Congrats!!!.. can you tell your time management in the 3 sections (TS, diag and config)...

Sure thing

TS:
First of all, don't panic. Two hours is more than enough to solve all tickets. Problem zones are highlighted in the diagram so it's quite quick to isolate the issue. I didn't follow 15 minutes per question which some people might suggest. Neither did I skip any tickets to come back to as you might forget even when you've written that down due to stress etc.
I've gone through 9 questions in under two hours, I was very comfortable that I've answered those correctly and matched required output after putting a fix in place. Last ticket threw me off as I couldn't figure it out, although I was sure I've passed this section overall. My decision was to proceed troubleshooting into remaining 30 minutes out of CFG section. I don't tend to give up that easy, also I was happy with my CFG speed from doing assessment labs etc.

DIAG:
I've answered this somewhere in the thread

But once again, don't underestimate the ease of those. Don't get me wrong, what they ask you is very easy however there's lot's of information to digest and only 30 minutes to answer those. I took way too long on the 1st ticket, it might of been misunderstanding of the question on my behalf though and I've started to panic and rush around. Remember not to do this, be calm and read question and any associated documents ASAP once timer kicks in

CFG:
I've had 4:30 hours to complete, by lunch my L2 was working with other bits in place. I did not rush (mentally) although typing wise my fingers were on fire (after getting used to US keyboard and tiny "enter" key :P) Take care reading config requirement so that you don't have to return back to this section again, also look at other section dependencies ahead. Overall it was very real world like, I've heard horrible stories out of V4, there was nothing like this in V5

deth1k

gorebrush wrote: »

Excellent news, well done. 4 months to go for me.

Good luck mate, I'm sure you'll pass . We've almost met if you went to Feltham this month for your lab

WiseWun

Congrats! I'm thinking of doing R/S, are you currently working as a network engineer?

deth1k

WiseWun wrote: »

Congrats! I'm thinking of doing R/S, are you currently working as a network engineer?

Yep, although in an ISP so not much switching going on here other than VPLS

SP was on my radar however we use Junipers so XR wouldn't be beneficial to me nor do I have kit to play on for that (XRv doesn't count due to limitations).

Network_Engineer

Congrats on your CCIE #! You motivated me to push even harder to finish my studying before my lab date in March next year!

During the 6 months prior, how many full scale labs did you complete and how often?

What section of the config on the exam do you consider the toughest to master?

cmitchell_00

Congrats on the pass!

ccie14023

Congratulations. It's a great accomplishment you never forget.

Jeff (CCIE #14023, R/S & Sec)

deth1k

Network_Engineer wrote: »

Congrats on your CCIE #! You motivated me to push even harder to finish my studying before my lab date in March next year!

During the 6 months prior, how many full scale labs did you complete and how often?

What section of the config on the exam do you consider the toughest to master?

Hmm. My last 3 month were "hardcore" labbing going over 360 full CFG workbooks, at the time I've only had access to 10 of them so I've been working on my speed. Couple of days before the big day my work has finally managed to pay for 360 assessment labs (bit late but always helps:) So I've gone through two of those with fairly high scores, and done an INE full scale lab which was also available. Toughest topics for me are IP Services / Security / and System Management and I'm not talking about simple things like FHRP/NAT/SNMP or ACL's but those obscure ones that you'd never use in production. In my opinion you could skip (be familiar but not spend too much time on) some of those in your studies and look them up in the DOC if you happen to stumble across them in the lab. Points wise those won't cost you many. Concentrate on the core topics and know them inside out

HTH

gorebrush

Hardcore is going to become my approach mainly because of the time constraints I have faced for the past 6 months. I have a massive amount going on outside of work and studies and sometimes I wonder how I've managed to get done what I have. I know I should have more labbing hours under my belt by this point (My lab is scheduled for Feb 6th 2015) but I've got practically all of January off work and over a fortnight of December off too.

I've spent the vast majority of my time going through videos and books, getting that theory nailed down. I am a VERY fast typist and I work by shortcuts. I think the configuration part of the lab will be simple enough as I've got the theory more or less down - going through the practical stuff between now and Feb will highlight my weak spots and I can brush up on those as necessary.

What I fear is being thrown for a loop in Troubleshooting because of some obscure problems they've decided to introduce, but hopefully I'll be able to tackle those as well.

Time to knuckle down and hopefully repeat your success!

deth1k

gorebrush wrote: »

Hardcore is going to become my approach mainly because of the time constraints I have faced for the past 6 months. I have a massive amount going on outside of work and studies and sometimes I wonder how I've managed to get done what I have. I know I should have more labbing hours under my belt by this point (My lab is scheduled for Feb 6th 2015) but I've got practically all of January off work and over a fortnight of December off too.

I've spent the vast majority of my time going through videos and books, getting that theory nailed down. I am a VERY fast typist and I work by shortcuts. I think the configuration part of the lab will be simple enough as I've got the theory more or less down - going through the practical stuff between now and Feb will highlight my weak spots and I can brush up on those as necessary.

What I fear is being thrown for a loop in Troubleshooting because of some obscure problems they've decided to introduce, but hopefully I'll be able to tackle those as well.

Time to knuckle down and hopefully repeat your success!

I agree in terms of theory however try not to burn out as I've found closer to the lab that I started to forget things not just related to studies but things that impacted my life. Like walking into shop and forgetting what I was supposed to buy :P There's only so much your brain can take in so take it easy on it

You are right, config part isn't difficult, there isn't anything that you haven't read or lab'ed so the minute you read the question you should have config "generated" in your head and it's a matter or typing it out. Also take care reading through the questions and inter dependencies, read next section for any references etc

gorebrush

Heh good advice! I do feel close to the edge of my sanity sometimes, but I keep on going, somehow.

I hope I've got enough time left!