My CCIE R&S Thread

Took a few days to dust myself off and here I am

Round 2.

This one is probably going to take another 1.5-2 years to accomplish but I'm dropping the gauntlet and laying claim to my next big certification

Sadly, not doing intense R&S tasks every day and working through the CCIE DC have made me a little rusty. Where I used to consider myself a strong CCNP R&S, I'd probably say I'm a bit weaker now so to improve myself and get myself up to snuff, I've got the following reading list that I previously purchased:
- Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol 1
- Illustrated TCP/IP Vol 1 and 2
- TCP/IP Vol 1 and 2
- CCIE v5 Vol 1 and 2
- Cisco QoS
- End-to-End QoS Network Design
- IPv6 Fundamentals

Beyond that, a friend recommended another IP Multicast book and an OSPF book that I'm waiting on. I have a Safari books subscription so I'll supplement any other books with that.

I'm combine my reading with labbing and when I get through what I need to from the above, I'll probably end up in Narbik's 10-day CCIE class. Since I live very close to his class and I've had a few friends go through it, I've had the good luck of sitting in his class a couple times for long periods of time and I found it really engaging. I think his class could definitely bridge some gaps between the books and the labbing and just make me a better engineer altogether. That and the "free retake" policy is pretty awesome.

For videos, I'll watch INE and IPExpert. I've watched some of the Brian Dennis videos and found them pretty insightful. As far as IPX, I've heard great things about the old Marko videos and JP Cedeno is supposed to be pretty awesome as well.

As far as lab workbooks, I've got INEs from some time ago but I'll also grab the IPX and I'll get the Narbik ones from signing up for his bootcamp. Can't think of any other lab workbooks off the top of my head that I might use. I've had the chance to browse Narbik's workbooks in the past and they're definitely gold. I think he explains things pretty amazingly.

I'll update this thread as needed. I don't think I could balance a daily update with work, study, etc but I'll check in once a week and let you guys know my progress.

My first goal on this track: Get through Comer's TCP/IP book and CCIE v5 Vol 1. I'm going to make a commitment to myself to get through 30 pages of each a day. Instead of crazy late night hours at this phase of studying, I'm going to opt to wake up an hour or two earlier to read one book and then maybe spend 1-2 hours a night reading/light labbing until I get through them and feel comfortable.

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Comments

lrb

Good luck for round #2!. A couple of books I would recommend:

Interdomain multicast routing (You can skip the later parts on inter-AS multicast and MVPN for R&S, but the foundations at the start of the book are awesome)
MPLS Fundamentals (Feel free to skip the ATM, VPLS and TE sections for R&S)
QoS-enabled networks (Very good theory book on QoS)
IP routing on IOS, IOS-XE, and IOS-XR (Nowhere near as good as TCP/IP vol1 and 2 but it has some IGP and BGP features that the Routing TCP/IP books are missing)

And I went on Narbik's 10 day R&S bootcamp about 4 months before I took the lab; well worth the coin.

gorebrush

Welcome to the 2nd CCIE club...

shodown

I was just sending you a IM how I got the feeling you aren't taking any time off (even though you said it was right to it). Let get it. Can't wait to pass you a towel at the finish line

Bardlebee

Good luck my fellow R&S companion! Follow me down this dark, dark tunnel.

Danielh22185

Awesome! I look forward to tracking your progress! I have every bit of confidence you will get it too! Good luck to you!

Iristheangel

I had a bit of travel this week so I didn't get as far as I would like but I still read quite a bit:
120 pages of CCIE v5 Vol 1
90 pages of Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP

I'm changing my study tactics a little bit. Instead of staying up all night labbing/reading at this phase, I'm getting to bed before midnight and forcing myself to get up at 5AM. This allows me to have 2 hours in the morning to read and take notes. By the time I get home later in the evening, I will read another 30 pages and then relax. It's getting me through the books pretty quickly and I get a chance to study when I'm sharp in the morning.

Starting to get excited going down this track!

Alex90

Iris - you're a ninja! I love reading your CCIE threads, whenever I feel like not studying I always look through your posts to remind me where hard work eventually gets you. Best of luck with the studies

xnx

Alex90 wrote: »

Iris - you're a ninja! I love reading your CCIE threads, whenever I feel like not studying I always look through your posts to remind me where hard work eventually gets you. Best of luck with the studies

Likewise, I recently finally made it into a 'good' job and studying is so much more satisfying when you're applying the skills into the real world.

These threads keep me somewhat motivated!

chrisone

You are my idol Iris! thanks for kicking me back into gear this morning!

You motivate me!

creamy_stew

This is going to be good!

No MPLS, though? I'd suggest adding MPLS Fundamentals and/or MPLS-enabled applications.

Also: Do you really think you need Illustrated TCP/IP?

fmitawaps

I wonder if CCIE Routing & Switching will be a harder test to pass. Or instead of harder, maybe "a wider variety of subject matter" would be the right way to describe it?

I've never really looked into the subject matter of either the R&S or Data Center versions of the CCIE, but since R&S is by far the most popular track, maybe it covers a lot more ground in its variety of possible questions and answers?

I guess only someone who has done both tests could really say for sure.

Iristheangel

creamy_stew wrote: »

This is going to be good!

No MPLS, though? I'd suggest adding MPLS Fundamentals and/or MPLS-enabled applications.

Also: Do you really think you need Illustrated TCP/IP?

We'll see about the Illustrated TCP/IP. I've heard a LOT of good things about the book but there might be a lot of repetition with some of the other stuff I'm reading so we'll see. At the very least, it's good reference material.

I actually do have a good MPLS book. I didn't list it above. It's probably not for a bit down the road. I thankfully have about 10-15 peers in RouterGods going for R&S as well and they're a LOT further down the track than I am so I have good recommendations from them.

I would probably say that R&S will be harder. It's a lot older of a test and they've had a lot more time to bake in some crazy troubleshooting scenarios from what I heard. DC was a lot more straightforward in my opinion. I did learn a lot but I found myself getting bored at times of studying the same thing. I don't anticipate the same thing happening with R&S since there are so many rabbitholes to go down

creamy_stew

Iristheangel wrote: »

Illustrated TCP/IP.

Illustrated TCP/IP are excellent books, to be sure. I just feel that maybe you've already grasped most of what they're trying to teach by other means by the time you're at your level.

I'm a slow reader, though, so I tend to be picky about which books I read. If you're a speed-reader, by all means go ahead and read it. I'm not sure how much you will actually learn from it at this stage, though.

If you do read it, I'm looking forward to a review!

gorebrush

Hmm,

I will be very careful what I say here - but there were/are a lot of "scare stories" about TS. What I can say about v5 is that the TS section is not difficult. The topology is very well laid out and there are no stupid tickets that were impossible to solve, they are nicely modular and the boundaries of each fault are well stated.

Iristheangel

Only got to page 200 this week due to going out of town due to work and massive flight delays and fires I had to put out. This week will be better as I'm out of the STP chapter and onto L3 fun!

Iristheangel

300 pages in as of today and approx 65 pages of notes. Finally past all the L2 chapters and making progress. I'm hoping to finish this book in the next two weeks. Looks like it's doable if I keep up my 30 pages a day. So far so good!

21ctl

great on your progress, have u seen some good promo's from INE and IPX
when will you share your study notes!!!!

Iristheangel

Yep. Spent under $1000 on IPX stuff this week and got all the CCIE R&S and Security videos and lab workbooks. The Black Friday deals are always amazing over there. That's when I cashed in on the CCIE DC bootcamp this time last year. I checked out the INE ones and didn't think $1000-1500 for all the CCIE videos was really worth it over there. I could probably beastmode through them in 1-2 months on an AAP

As far as study notes, I'll probably share when I'm done with the entire track. I will need to prune some of the plagiarism at the end since I have copied verbatim parts of the book or sections.

lrb

I picked up the CCIE Security vod's and workbooks too, Piotr is a great trainer from what I have watched so far.

Throne

Hey Iris are you using rack rental or do you have your own lab?? IF you are using your lab what does it consist of?

Iristheangel

I am using VIRL at the moment, Throne. That may change the further I go down this real. Since I have a server to host it on, It works for me.

On a side note: My cat is CCIE-internet-famous: https://www.facebook.com/CiscoPress/photos/a.138248145122.228882.21049860122/10156211584410123/?type=3

gorebrush

How is VIRL these days? Am considering investing in it for Security.

Iristheangel

Version 1.0 just came out and it's got the Web Management now. That makes it better. Still a resource hog given what it's virtualizing so I hope you have a server if you plan on larger topologies

OfWolfAndMan

Agreed. I wish I would've bought VIRL on ESXi. I am stuck with 16 Gb of RAM on my mbp. Good for something small, but not scalable, especially if you're running the CSR1000v or NX-OSv.

gorebrush

I have 3 x Quad Core, 32GB machines... that ought to do it...

Throne

Ahh I see. I will be using the GNS3 route with the "real switches" option.

Iristheangel

Reading didn't really happen much this week and most of last week. I was busy setting up a MASSIVE security test bed at work and documenting over 300+ pages. I think I might end up turning that into a blog later given some of the stuff I was doing.

This week, I went and hung out in Narbik's bootcamp for a couple days. I've gone in there and sat for short periods of time but after sitting there for a whole day, I have a whole different perspective on it. Here are my thoughts:
1) Hands down, he's the best instructor for R&S on the market. Check out RG's blog review on him approx 3 years ago: Inside Narbik’s House of Pain | RouterGods
2) He is very very very different than other vendors. From other bootcamps, they try to start pretty slow and they try to cater to audiences of different experiences. Narbik is not like this. In his eyes, you paid for a CCIE bootcamp and he's going to give you an expert-level bootcamp. Not start you at the basics. One of the cool things is that when you first sign up for the bootcamp, they give you these large "Foundations" workbooks to go through prior to coming to the class. The people who went through those workbooks were much better off and those who did not, often get lost. I think engineers in particular think that years of experience equates to having a strong foundational understanding. This is not always the case. You might be awesome at break/fixes at work or brute forcing something until you figure out how to make it work but this will not work on the CCIE lab or in Narbik's bootcamp.
3) I am so excited and am pumped to get ready for the day that I'm ready for that bootcamp. I just cruised in to visit for a couple days but when I sit that thing, I'm going to hanging off every word and applying it. I was definitely over my head in parts of those lectures but it was good

Anyways, that was my update for the week. I'm waiting on approval from work to go to Narbik's bootcamp. I really want to plan it out 6 months from now so I can go through all the lab workbooks prior.

Iristheangel

375 pages into the CCIE v5 Vol 1 guide. Man... that RIP chapter was seriously zapping me of my energy. No insult towards the writing but studying about RIP and RIPng just doesn't get the blood pumping... At least I'm happily into the EIGRP chapter and hope to clear that this week. Next week will be OSPF and IS-IS.

Iristheangel

Been a little slow lately due to working on other side projects. Over 460 pages into CCIE Vol 1. I'm on the OSPF chapter now. I just need to be a bit more consistent on the reading in the morning. I'm also teetering on wanting to do CCIE Security but must. resist. temptation....

I do a lot of security labbing and POCs in the course of my work so besides ASAs, I think I'm pretty strong in terms of other topics on the CCIE Security track and what probably will be on the track in 5-6 months like WSA, ISE, Lancope, Sourcefire, etc. It would probably be an easy CCIE to get for me in comparison to R&S and DC but I keep reminding myself that waiting longer will be better since a) it'll be more relevant and b) since I'm on top of the newer technologies, it'll help me more to wait for the refresh and nail the new tech then as opposed to trying to teach myself some ancient IPS that isn't even sold anymore.

Work ended up giving me an INE AAP pass for the next couple years so I have access to all the lab workbooks and videos. I also jumped all over the IPExpert Black Friday deals and bought the security and R&S videos and lab workbooks. When I'm done with the security class on the weekends, my nights will be dedicated to those videos. I also picked up a couple books by Stuart Fordham since the Amazon reviews were really good:
http://www.amazon.com/BGP-Cisco-Networks-Protocol-Switching/dp/1496169212/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451248115&sr=8-2&keywords=CCIE+v5
http://www.amazon.com/VPNs-NAT-Cisco-Networks-Switching/dp/1507646585/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451248156&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/MPLS-Cisco-Networks-Routing-Switching-ebook/dp/B00NXOBPQI/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451248156&sr=1-3

I'll probably review these books when I'm done.

All in all, I'm having a blast cramming my brain full of R&S and Security right now

This is still the early stages of my studies so ADHD is acceptable. I think in the 8 months or so of studying DC, I ended up taking a bunch of Palo Alto and Brocade certs as a distraction. That won't be possible later in my studies. Once this weekend class is over, it's beastmode time on R&S. Who knows... maybe I can get done with the written by the end of 2016.

ninjaturtle

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

Agreed. I wish I would've bought VIRL on ESXi. I am stuck with 16 Gb of RAM on my mbp. Good for something small, but not scalable, especially if you're running the CSR1000v or NX-OSv.

You can switch the license to an ESXi build, just email the VIRL team and they'll take care of you. I did it
twice actually, because I couldn't find a server to run with the ESXi version and hardware needed. I finally found the sweet spot on a Dell R630 loaded with 64GBs for RAM.

This thread is coming in at a great time, as I'm going through a heavy R&S review and touching on all topics. I'm basically trying to combine all the technologies in a huge work environment type lab. I went ahead and grabbed the Narbik Foundations Workbook, to combine the techniques and mainly for his layout of how he configures the scenario. This is an unorthodox method I've come up with, but it's helping me a great deal to solidify my studies and prep me for that job interview/lab interview.