From: Asim Khan (asimmegawatt@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 09:27:50 GMT-3
Dear Tom,
Its simply great. You started with CCNA and in just 2
1/2 years you have attained CCIE. Could you please let
us know as being a lawyer how much difficulty you
faced while learning the networking concepts and
finally what motivated you to switch from law to
networking.
Again congratulations!
Asim Khan
- "Abraham, Ajith" <Ajith.Abraham@FLHOSP.ORG> wrote:
> Dear Tom:
>
> That is outstanding. I often think and wished folks
> would write up a few
> notes about what the CCIE journey was like, instead
> of just saying thank you
> and I have the numbers..... It is messages like
> this that keep us on track,
> and tell us to "shake it off, stomp it down, and to
> rise up to the next
> level". Thank you and God bless as you continue
> this journey.
>
> Sincerely
>
> Ajith Abraham
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Larus [mailto:tlarus@cox.net]
> Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 2:46 PM
> To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
> Subject: Tom Larus passed last Friday at RTP. CCIE #
> 10014.
>
>
> I passed last Friday at RTP, and have been on
> vacation since then. It was my
> second attempt. I rented internet access for a
> half-hour last Saturday to
> find out whether I passed, but I did not want to
> announce to the group when
> I was not in a position to reply to congratulatory
> emails.
>
> I would like to thank Paul Borghese for hosting this
> group. The
> collegiality of this group is one thing that makes
> this whole field so
> great. When the "field experience" versus "lab rat"
> debate is as bad as it
> gets, you know it is a a pretty collegial group.
> And it is understandable
> that people would be a bit insecure in this bad job
> market. We "lab rats"
> worry about whether there is a place for us in this
> field, and some of the
> guys with lots of field experience feel like their
> field is being invaded by
> folks who are driving down the salararies. All of
> these concerns are real
> and valid, and the the fact that we remain glad to
> help each other is
> beautiful.
>
> I have some thoughts on preparing for the CCIE that
> may be helpful to some
> people, but not to others. There is not one "best
> approach" to CCIE
> preparation. Each person needs to use the methods
> that work best for him or
> her, but I will throw out a few ideas.
>
> We all know that you need to read several core texts
> very carefully, and
> probably repeatedly (Doyle I, Halabi, Caslow &
> Pavlichenko), but I would
> urge you to read as broadly as you can, and to read
> exactly what you are
> most
> interested in learning about at the moment. That
> means, picking up, say,
> Srinivas Vegesna's book on QOS, and reading a
> chapter at random, or whatever
> chapter covers a topic that you want to nail down
> something about. When
> people set
> out to read a book cover to cover, they often find
> themselves in a situation
> where they are covering a lot of pages, but they are
> not really absorbing
> everything they are reading as well as they would if
> they just read what the
> wanted to read. Take the books everywhere and read
> them every chance you
> get. Obsession is helpful in achieving the CCIE.
>
> Read the IOS Docs for fun, and read them to answer
> specific questions. Doing
> practice scenarios should generate all kinds of
> questions about details you
> want to nail down. Read to answer these questions,
> and flip through and
> look for sections that look
> interesting and read them.
>
> I knew that buying the 12.1 IOS printed docs was one
> of the best decisions I
> had made in this process right after I had bought
> them. To pick up the docs
> and read them for fun the way you would read any
> other Cisco book gives you
> a comfort and familiarity with the Docs that builds
> confidence and exposes
> you to lots of material that is not covered
> elsewhere. The IOS docs are
> pretty thin on IP Routing, so you cannot use them as
> a substitute for the
> great books on IGP routing and BGP.
>
> I recommend keeping a lab notebook, in which you
> write an estimate of the
> time you spent each day, and the most important
> lessons you learned that
> day. Just putting the lessons into a few coherent
> sentences will help you
> to
> remember what you learned. Two hours in which you
> learn "when configuring
> x, you need to remember to put y under the
> interface" can be better than
> doing four hours of router configuration without
> digesting what you learned.
> I count reading separately from router
> configuration, and I generally do not
> count reading groupstudy at all, even though it is
> an important activity.
> Reading groupstudy is like a break, so I end up
> learning even on my breaks
> from the more intense work of router configuration.
>
> Following are some books that stick out in my
> memory:
>
> Robert Caputo's Cisco Voice and Data Integration was
> very well written, and
> was very practical in approach. (I am going from
> memory here, as I had to
> return this book to the college library). McQuerry.
> McGrew, and Foy's Cisco
> Voice over Frame Relay, ATM, and IP (Cisco Press),
> was pretty good, too.
>
> Parkhurst's BGP book from Cisco Press book was
> actually fun. Yes, Halabi is
> the master of the big picture, but this book allowed
> me to get a real
> feeling of comfort with Cisco's BGP syntax. (And
> no, I do NOT consider
> myself an expert on BGP.)
>
> I did not use Solie's Practical Studies all that
> much, partly because it
> weighs too much to be convenient to carry around and
> read, and partly
> because it has too many errors to be trustworthy.
> It is the product of
> enormous effort, and has outstanding coverage of
> certain topics, but should
> have gone through more rigorous proofing. Doyle
> volume I weighed too much,
> too,
> but the spine broke and around 200 pages came out,
> which made it a bit more
> manageable. Also, Doyle volume I is practically
> perfect.
>
> I strongly recommend checking out "used" books on
> Amazon.com. I got the
> Vegesna QOS book for a great price, and it is not an
> old, outdated book. I
> also got Terry Slattery's Advanced IP Routing in
> Cisco Networks the same
> way, and Chris Lewis's TCP/IP Reference, and
> Parkhurst's older McGraw Hill
> OSPF book (not his new OSPF Cisco Press book). Like
> many books on OSPF, the
> older Parkhurst book covers too much that is not
> OSPF, leaving little space
> for in-depth coverage of OSPF. Thomas Thomas' OSPF
> Design Solutions was the
> same way, but is still worth examining closely. I
> would imagine that the
> new Parkhurst OSPF book is probably great, since I
> loved new BGP book so
> much. I think you should buy and read liberally
> from just about everything
> you can get your hands on. Each book has its strong
> areas and you can learn
> a lot from reading (even skimming) broadly.
>
> If you can somehow manage it, take the NMC-1 class
> from Caslow,
> Pavlichenko, and Ingham. From what I have seen on
> this list from and about
> the brilliant Brian McGahan, I would imagine that
> CyscoExpert is also an
> excellent choice.
>
>
> Bruce Caslow insisted that I use a more efficient
> approach to switching
>
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