From: George Harizanov (georgehar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Sun Apr 02 2000 - 08:00:31 GMT-3
GOOD JOB MAN..
CONGRATULATIONS
George H
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Ehlers" <ccieorbust@ns1.networkease.com>
To: "CCIELAB" <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2000 4:45 PM
Subject: From Zero to Hero
> 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
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Jun 13 2002 - 08:23:12 GMT-3