From: Andrew Lennon (andrew.lennon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Sat Dec 23 2000 - 19:43:04 GMT-3
Hi all,
As someone who has been to both RTP and Brussels in the last six months, I
found this rather interesting. . I think you may find this interesting and
maybe a little shocking...
At Brussels, they have two labs, Asterix and Obelix. Each seats 6 people.
Upon arriving, its grab a coffee time and sit and wait. The two proctors
came in to the cafeteria at about 8.55 and shouted some names out and 6 went
to one lab, and six went to the other. Upon entering . Asterix, I was
surprised by the lack of equipment. Having been to RTP, I was expecting to
be faced with half a dozen racks. The racks are all behind a closed door.
Then I realised that I wouldn't be actually patching cables....
Anyway. We started at 9, had 1/2hr lunch at 12.30 and started again at 1pm
(all the passmarks/stats etc. are on a whiteboard for you - opposite of
rtp!). Lunch was OK, it was allpaid for but there was a slight problem.
When people were talking, I realised that there were only two scenarios
being done. One in Asterix, and one in Obelix. I really felt for the guys
who didnt have my lab as it was the one that I had had in RTP, and I know
how hard it was!
The real kicker was at 16.30. Hands down and leave! and wait. We were marked
that evening.
I eventually went in at nearly 8pm. I made day 2 but I knew I didnt have
enough to get to t/s. My final thought was "how much different it was". The
labs were the same, but the approach was a world away.
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com]On Behalf Of
Ronnie Royston
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2000 18:04
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: Summary of my Lab Experience
For those of you who haven't been yet, here's what I saw. (I didn't pass,
...this time - neither did anybody else)
I went to RTP. Cisco has a campus of about 5 buildings, all facing a big
open parking/park area. When I arrived to the right building, the door was
locked just like every other door at Cisco and it was about 20 degrees,
...damn! Anyway, there were three guys sitting in the reception area. A
Didn't see any day 2 guys on both attempts, and I got to RTP at 8am!
guy came in about 8:15 and grabbed those guys ( who were there for day 2).
By 8:30 all of us day 1 guys were there. We were brought to the lab room.
It was a big corner room on the first floor full of cubicles that stood
about 3 feet high. Each cubicle had a rack of gear. The proctor gave us a
very brief tour of the rack and walked us to our respective stations
The lab test was made up of many 2 point questions. You'll be given patch
cables and have to wire up your rack appropriately. Under the pressure of
the CCIE lab clock, I was uneasy about getting all of my layer 1-2 up, but,
you'll figure it all out, I did in about 30 minutes, except for one thing,
...crap!
I believe that it is safe to say that you can expect to be asked to do
things that you haven't done before. I was. That wasn't that bad though,
if you believe, and hit "?" enough along with the command reference to
double check, you'll get those points. What will kill you is not knowing
every layer 2 technology that Cisco supports well enough to configure it and
tweak it, and routing. I recommend that no matter how much you're missing,
stop building at 4:00pm and start checking what you have built. You WILL
find many simple mistakes that you will know how to fix. Do NOT build until
5:00pm. Make yourself stop at 4:00, ping, telnet, show ip route, show dlsw
peers. I sat there on day two after being failed and fixed more than half
of what I got wrong in one hour.
Good luck everybody and Happy Holdiays.
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