From: Asbjorn Hojmark (Asbjorn@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Thu Dec 13 2001 - 20:05:33 GMT-3
Group,
I guess it's my time to write this, as I passed the lab on my
second attempt in Brussels today, 13dec.
First, I should thank my wife Kirsten who's been extremely under-
standing for the last couple of weeks where all she's gotten from
me has been comments about route-map that didn't work the way I
expected and stuff like that. Boy, preparing for this does put a
tax on your personal 'network'...
I've been in the IT business since 1990, where I started out as
a COBOL programmer, but have been working with internetworking
since sometime in the early 90's. I worked for an enterprise
customer and they weren't very interested in certifications...
But changing to working for a gold-certified partner certainly
changed that.
I started the certification race back in 1999 by passing CCNA and
shortly thereafter CCNP. The CCIE written was done by early 2000
and my first attempt at the lab was summer 2000, where I missed
by a few points.
After that, I changed jobs and have been working a lot with IP
Telephony (CallManager and stuff) and really haven't done too
much 'IOS time' for the last year and a half. My preparation for
this attempt started about a fortnight ago, where I set up my
lab with 6 routers, a Catalyst 2948G, a Lightstream 1010, and
another router for terminal server and frame switch. Since then,
I've been hitting the command line pretty hard, working about 16
hours a day.
For those interested in the differences between the 2-day and the
1-day lab, I find this one harder. I missed the troubleshooting
part, which always was one of my strong sides, but the pressure
on time is simply unbelievable. I know some people have commented
that they had plenty of time, but I guess they must be a lot bet-
ter at this than I am. There were lots of tasks that I simply
configured blind without having time to check anything. And there
was a task or two where I didn't have time to configure anything.
I haven't used books very intensively. I do have the All-in-One
CCIE Lab Study Guide and the Caslow book, but haven't used them
much. One book I'd recommend to anyone remotely interested in
BGP is Internet Routing Architectures, which is very well written
and pretty easy to understand, even for someone who don't do BGP
much. Highly recommended.
The greatest resource of information for me has actually been
the Net, with WWW, Usenet and mailing lists such as this one.
I've used those a lot throughout my career, and can say without
hessitation that without all you great knowledgeable people out
there, willing to share information, I surely wouldn't be where
I am today. Thank you very much! I hope I'll be able to return
just a little bit to the Net community.
Another good source of information is obviously colleagues, if
you're lucky to be working for a company that has many technical
people. Speacial thanks should go to Anders Mussegaard, who's
been my training partner for this and our first attempt. I do
hope he passes, but he hasn't received his e-mail yet.
Finally, I think I should thank Nycomed. They manufacture the
strong painkiller Ibumetin, and without it I wouldn't have passed
today. The last couple of days, I've had a strong pain in my neck
and back, and basically have been eating the pills like candy...
But I'm rambling.
FWIW,
-A
PS: If my spelling is bad, bear with me. English isn't my native
language, and I don't think Ibumetin and champagne go very
well.
-- Heroes: Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Robert Metcalfe Links : http://www.hojmark.org/networking/
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