From: Muthu Mohanasundaram (mmsundar@xxxxxxxxx)
Date: Thu May 18 2000 - 23:20:21 GMT-3
Congrats BEN,
Great Job.
You are inspiration to me and many others.
Keep it up,
Mohan.
--- Ben Rife <brife@bignet.net> wrote:
> I first of all want to thank everyone for their
> support and encouragement
> along the way. It was a very long and difficult
> journey for me.
>
> In response to many requests, heres my story.
>
> I started the certification about 3 years ago when
> working with my buddy
> Greg. We worked on a project to install and
> configure a 20-router
> internetwork of Cisco routers for the City of Troy,
> MI.
>
> Greg told me how hot the market was for a CCIE. That
> began my pursuit
>
> I began the journey by taking a couple of Cisco
> classes from ARG: ICRC,
> ACRC, CIT, and CIM. These proved to be a waste of
> time and money, so I
> decided to dive in and take the written
> qualification exam to begin the long
> journey to CCIE.
>
> I took a flyer at the test and failed, but it gave
> me an idea of what to
> study for. I used The CCIE Study Guide, by
> Roosevelt Giles, to prepare for
> the test. A couple of weeks later, on February 9th,
> 1999, I passed the
> written qualification exam with a 66%, on my third
> try.
>
> At this point, I made Cisco my primary product of
> business. I pursued
> customers with the hopes of implementing some type
> of routing or switching
> to gain experience. It proved to be very profitable
> for the company and for
> me, however, this was not enough experience. I
> needed experience with legacy
> protocols and obscure technologies. This could only
> come from having my own
> equipment.
>
> After trying to buy routers on ebay.com and other
> various sites, I grew
> tired of loosing the auction at the last minute, so
> I called around until I
> found a used Cisco hardware dealer. I bought 5
> routers, a catalyst switch,
> and many V.35 cables from him. I also bought a
> Teltone ISDN Demonstrator, a
> new PC, and many books.
>
> In all, I have invested about $12,000 on the
> equipment, $4500 on the test,
> $3000 on books and various Internet subscriptions,
> and $1000 on rented rack
> time and purchased labs, for a grand total of about
> $20,500 out of my
> pocket. Note that I said Invested.
>
> My inventory consists of the following:
>
> Cisco 2501
> Cisco 2502
> Cisco 2503
> Cisco 2504
> Cisco 2509
> Cisco 2520
> CAT2902
> Teltone ISDN Demonstrator
> 2 Token Ring MAUs
>
>
>
> Bridges Routers and Switches, (Referred to as the
> CCIE Bible), Andrew Bruce
> Caslow
> The CCIE Study Guide, Roosevelt Giles
> Advanced IP Routing, William Parkhurst
> Cisco Routers for Bridging, DLSW+, and Desktop
> Protocols, Tan Nam-Kee
> Internet Routing Architectures, Bassam Halabi
> IP Multicast Routing, William Parkhurst
> Cisco Router OSPF, William Parkhurst
> Cisco TCP/IP Routing, Chris Lewis
> Cisco Switched Internetworks, Chris Lewis
> OSPF Network Design Solutions, Tom Thomas II
> CLSC Exam Certification Guide, Kevin Downes and Tim
> Boyles
> Routing TCP/IP, Jeff Doyle
> CCIE Prep.com Study Guide, Rossi
> Voice and Data Internetworking, Reld
> Network Design and Case Studies, Cisco Press
> CCIE Lab Study Guide, Satterlee and Hutnik
>
> Now that I have passed the qualification exam, it
> was off to Raleigh, NC
> (RTP)
>
> I first took the lab in July; I was one point away
> from making it to day
> two. Disappointed, I went home and rescheduled. I
> couldnt get enough
> motivation to even look at my routers for a month
> after coming back from
> Raleigh.
>
> My second attempt was in September. Yet again, I was
> a couple of points shy
> from making it past day 1.
>
> My third attempt was December 5th-6th. For the
> third time, I was told that
> I could not go on to day 2. I was beginning to
> wonder if this was worth it.
> At this point, I felt like giving up for good, but I
> had invested so much
> time, effort, and money to turn back now. The
> sacrifice was starting to
> weigh on me.
>
> I scheduled a fourth attempt for February 6th-7th.
> This time, I had enough
> points to see what was waiting for me on day 2. It
> was exactly as I had
> expected, but I hadnt prepared well enough for the
> legacy stuff! I was a
> few points shy of making it to troubleshooting.
>
> This time, I was determined to give it 110% or
> resign to never having those
> 4 numbers after my name. I couldnt handle it any
> more. There was a
> tremendous sacrifice involved in obtaining CCIE, and
> I had put my life on ho
> ld for the past two years. I couldnt endure another
> failure.
>
> I decided that I needed some incentive, so I
> prepared a 30+ page Proposal
> for Promotion for my boss and his. It was a
> document to justify my asking
> salary, benefits, and other perks, upon obtaining
> the CCIE. I presented it
> to them over dinner. It was well received and
> encouraged me to pursue the
> CCIE once again.
>
> Now, the preparation for my final attempt began
>
> I purchased time on racks of equipment from
> cciebootcamp.com for ATM and
> VoIP experience, and purchased many sample labs. I
> worked on my weak points
> heavily, after making sure I was solid on the
> basics. I studied for about
> two months for 6 hours a day. Two weeks before the
> test, I studied every day
> for about 16 hours. I stopped studying 2 days before
> taking the test to give
> myself a break and time to relax.
>
> I flew out Friday afternoon and made my way to hotel
> Marriott. By the way,
> the other times, I stayed at Holiday Inn. The place
> is so run down, I
> thought I was in the inner city. The food/service is
> despicable; my rental
> car was starting to look attractive after staying
> there. My point is that it
> s important to stay somewhere where you can be
> comfortable. For me,
> Marriott was very accommodating.
>
> Friday night, I called my girlfriend before going to
> bed. She spoke a few
> words of encouragement This is your time, You go
> in there and take names
> and numbers, cause youre going to be one of the
> few, You can do it, Im
> so proud of you!
>
> After tossing and turning all night, I awoke in the
> morning and called my
> girlfriend before leaving for the test. She prayed
> with me on the phone and
> spoke sweet words of affirmation. Her prayer was
> simply that the test would
> be easy and that I would be confident.
>
> Lisas prayer worked. The test was unbelievably easy
> for me. In fact, I
> finished in 3 ½ hours. I sat around for the next 4
> hours and contemplated
> how I would look in that CCIE leather jacket that
> was hanging in front of
> me.
>
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