From: Rob Ehlers (ccieorbust@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Sat Apr 01 2000 - 17:45:05 GMT-3
>From Zero to Hero
To quote another recent CCIE from the list: "Thank God".
Well, I did it, March 31st, 2000... San Jose, CA. I became CCIE #5769 on
my first attempt.
I was a fairly long journey to this point. I have dedicated much of my
free time since November studying for first my CCNP, then the CCIE.
I am going to include a brief summary of my study methods for each test.
First, let me thank the list members for providing the wealth of
information that was provided... This journey would have been MUCH more
difficult without all of you guys.
Next, I'd like to tell everyone who has the letters, CCIE, glowing
somewhere in the back of their head, as I did, to keep at it, no matter
what the costs. The journey, not just the destination, is worth ALL the
effort you put in and more. I sent out a quick e-mail to my coworkers
to let them know I was successfull. I have received several congrats
already, and you know that this kind of accomplishment is something that
others do respect you for. My boss gave me a call at 7:30am this morning
(the day after) to congratulate me, and ask me what everyone else had
already asked.... if I were staying with the company <grin>. Heh heh...
so, financial reward should come pretty quick and strong... much sooner
than the plaque from Cisco. <grin>
ACRC
---- I started out with no Certs at all back in Sept 1999, when I got the CCNA. After that I slacked for October, then hit the books/routers hard for the ACRC. I recommend Todd Lammle's ACRC Study Guide (by Sybex), and also the Cisco Press ACRC book. Both were great, and should give you at least 95% of what you need to know (if not 100%). You should also grab the Boson Practice exams (www.boson.com). They are VERY cheap ($30 for a set of 4 full length practice exams), and very well done. I am pretty sure I would have failed my first attempt at the ACRC, if I had not invested in the Boson practice exams. You should also pick up a couple of routers (2501's or so) from e-bay with a back-to-back cable so that you can practice what needs to be done.CLSC ---- Here I read Todd Lammle's CLSC Study Guide (by Sybex). This book was great and covered most of the exam...enough to pass with a solid score anyway. Again, the Boson tests were great, DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT THEM! This test was kind of marketing fluff for a lot of it... mainly know the different models of catalyst in the objects and their features... pretty much everything in Todd's book. You don't need access to a cat5000 to pass really, but if you could get a few hours on one, just to know your way around, that would probably help.
CMTD ---- Easiest of the exams (I thought). Bought the Cisco Press BCRAN book (which was great)... read it, and read over a few things on Cisco's Dial Solution page. (Virtual Private Dialup networks, Multichassis PPP, translation, some other things in the objectives, but no the BCRAN book)... The boson tests were not quite as strong for this exam, but still good. I felt the expansion set was much more helpfull, and recommend getting it as well.
CIT --- I know other people think this one is a killer, but I thought it was a rehash of ACRC and CMTD... with a new level of detail added for ISDN... The Cisco Press CIT book was right on the money for this one, make sure you read it and know everything in there. Boson tests were decent for this one as well.
CCIE Written ------------ After spending months on the CCNP track, I felt I had a good solid start for this exam. I highly recommend Interconnections, 2nd Edition by Radia Perlman. Just a great book. I also read the ACRC Cisco Press book as a refresher... and took this exam. Also, you need to find a good source of info for Token Ring/DLSw+, RSRB, SRB,RIF.
CCIE Lab -------- I read Routing TCP/IP by Jeff Doyle (awesome). Network Design and Case Studies (had some great parts, and some crap). Kind of skimmed Internet Routing Architectures (great book). Read Caslow's Bridges and Routers book... it was good, although a lot was review after all the other books. It was a good book, with some key information on DLSw+ and ATM. Finally, I built up a home lab with compariable equipment to the labs found on www.cciebootcamp.com for rent. I took 2 weeks off from work and did the labs that I bought from cciebootcamp.com. If you are going to take the CCIE lab, and you want to pass, I'd recommend getting these labs. They might cost $650, but that is better than paying another $1000 plus travel to retake your lab. These labs were KILLER. I thought that they were harder than the CCIE lab in a lot of places. They were also great prep. I felt very well prepared, mainly due to the cciebootcamp.com labs. Another cool place was www.fatkid.com. The labs there are free and smaller than the cciebootcamp labs, but they really filled in a lot of areas that cciebootcamp did not focus on as much. Both of these places also rent rack time for very reasonable rates. I didn't speak with anyone from fatkid.com, but I know that Marc Russell with cciebootcamp.com is a great guy to deal with... super fast response time to your questions, and he has a HUGE amount of knowledge for you to pull from.
Experience ---------- Just to give you some idea as to my experience... I started working with Cisco equipment in Feb 1998, before that I had only exposure to small LAN networks. I was able to do some playing on the equipment at this job, setting up OSPF on the frame-relay backbone and a few other things, like ISDN... not that much, though. In July 1999, I started at another job that allowed me to be on Ciscos all day, every day... although it was all fairly basic cisco stuff... turning up Point to Point T1's and DS3s... some frame relay work. I was able to learn BGP here, though. Everything non-IP I learned through reading and playing around. What a fun ride it has been.
Good Luck to all test takers, and thanks again for all the support! -- Rob Ehlers, CCIE #5769 rehlers@newsguy.com
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