From: Roger Dellaca (rdellaca@xxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Wed Jan 10 2001 - 21:17:56 GMT-3
passed last Friday at San Jose!
How it went:
This was my 1st attempt. I flew into San Jose the day before; had a cold, afte
r landing could hardly hear a thing. Drove to Cisco's site that afternoon to s
cout out where I was going. Next morning, had a real tough time hearing the pr
octor's instructions. For the 1st hour, I felt like I was trying to get situat
ed. Read thru everything twice, calmed down around lunch time, finished day 1
around 3:00, then checked & rechecked. Came back for day 2, could hear a littl
e better, felt confident, came back for troubleshooting, then got a post-it wit
h a number.
How I prepared:
All the common books (Doyle, Caslow, Halabi, Kennedy's switching book), after h
aving completed CCNA/NP/DA/DP using mostly Sybex books, some others too, certif
icationzone papers. Started practice labs with most of the CCIE All-in-one lab
study guide, then most of the fatkid.com labs, then most of the ccbootcamp lab
s. Used a home lab of 9 routers & 2 days on ccbootcamp racks. Went thru pretty
much all of the 12.0 IOS & Cat5k Config guides & command references on the doc
CD (just skimmed some stuff, read some more thoroughly, but was familiar with
where to go). Did 2 days at the USCS practice lab. I felt like I had done qui
te a bit of preparing.
How I approached the lab:
Pretty much the same suggestions as everyone else - read the whole thing twice,
draw your diagram, record stuff about your routers you might need later, think
of possible tricks & traps, move on if stuck on something so you don't leave a
ny points on the table.
Did a standard set of commands in Notepad to paste in all routers. My aliases:
alias exec ii sh ip int
alias exec ib sh ip int brief
alias exec ir sh ip route
alias exec xi sh ipx int
alias exec xb sh ipx int brief
alias exec xr sh ipx route
alias exec pr sh ip protocol
alias exec cr clear ip route
alias exec cb clear ip bgp
alias exec b sh ip bgp
alias exec e sh ip eigrp
alias exec o sh ip ospf
alias configure a access-list
for some of these you have multiple uses, for example cb * for all neighbors or
cb <neighbor address> for a specific neighbor (I like typing in b s for sh ip
bgp summary). I practiced with the aliases enough so they wre second nature.
What I have really heard much, that I find helpful: my method to try to avoid
dumb mistakes, & it's something I tried to practice: when you're reading thru t
he lab, plan ahead & think of things, but when you are configuring, stay "in th
e moment" & only concentrate on the task being done. It's like when the wide r
eceiver misses the catch because he starts looking up the field before the ball
is in his hands. Spend a minute after every 2 or 3 tasks, to step back outsid
e of the box & think big picture, but then get back to focusing on the task bei
ng done. Likewise, after having gotten so far (like 2nd day), don't think back
, worry about what's important now.
In summary, I think that first of all preparing A LOT, then not psyching yourse
lf out, avoiding dumb mistakes, asking the proctor questions, and skipping over
problem sections & coming back to them at the end so as not to leave sections
undone, are the big keys.
What I'm going to do now:
rest.
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