From: Tom Larus (tlarus@cox.net)
Date: Sun Oct 13 2002 - 21:51:29 GMT-3
Congratulations! That is one of the best "this is how to prepare" e-mails I
have ever seen.
Tom Larus, CCIE #10,014
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Hugo" <chrishugo@yahoo.com>
To: "Peter Whittle" <peter@whittle-systems.demon.co.uk>; "CCIELab
Studygroup" <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: My Turn #10471 in Brussels
> Peter. Great Work. Tell Zeb good luck.
> chris hugo
> Peter Whittle <peter@whittle-systems.demon.co.uk> wrote:By the grace of
God, after 2 years of hard work, a lot of money
> invested, I have finally succeeded R/S CCIE #10471.
>
> I started over 2 years ago, first of all aiming for ISP Dial, well I
> passed the written on the last day it was available but did not manage
> to get a Lab booking in Brussels before the Dial lab was closed.
>
> I would like to thank my wife, Ruth & my family for putting up with me
> for so long. My two 7 year old sons can't remember when daddy was just
> available to play and was not locked away in the dining room with his
> rack. So now is the time to rediscover those ball games, how to make
> aeroplanes, fly a kite, fix bikes etc.
>
> I would also like to thank Brian and Zeb my study partners for their
> encouragement and input. All the best Zeb, your turn tomorrow.
>
> I now must investigate that multimedia device in the lounge, sounds
> fascinating.
>
> -----------
>
> My main comments to the rest of you are:
>
> IMHO
>
> 1. It is achievable, but it takes a lot more effort than perhaps Cisco
> would lead us to believe from the CCIE web page. Be prepared for very
> little social life for at least 6 months - 18 months.
>
> 2. Study the technologies. Don't even think of booking a lab at this
> stage.
>
> 3. Do as many practice labs as you can get hold of. I used the usual
> sources: FATKID, Solie, IpeXpert, NLI. - Perhaps over the top. You need
> some good quality scenarios with realistic levels of difficulty to give
> you an idea what to expect. For my 1st attempt, although I had coasted
> through the written paper both the ISP Dial & the R/S, and I spent some
> time learning the technologies doing 'labettes' I was simply, not good
> enough and nothing like well enough prepared for the real thing. Well!
> they say experience helps - but at #1500 a try for lab fee, travel &
> expenses it is rather an expensive way to gain experience. Save your
> money!
>
> 4. Practice full 1 day scenarios, as per the end of IpeXpert or in NLI.
> Then do them again several times over until you can nail them in under 8
> hours. Build your home rack based upon what is needed for your favourite
> scenarios. When I started I bought loads of miscellaneous kit on ebay, I
> was not entirely sure what was needed other than some sort of Cisco
> routers and a switch or two. I ended up with too much of not quite the
> right kit in order to build a useful rack. Save your money! Get the
> scenario workbook of your choice then acquire the kit necessary to build
> it.
>
> 5. When you have a realistic idea of effort required, when and how you
> will put in some 400 - 800 lab hours plus further reading, then is the
> time to book your lab seat and a place on a bootcamp about 6 weeks
> before the lab date.
>
> 6. Go on one of the bootcamps. I went on Martin Shortland's one. Two
> weeks, and money well spent. (I should have done that instead of going
> to the lab the first two times.)
>
> 7. I then spent 4 weeks going over more scenarios again and again.
> You should aim to get all the IGP & BGP done on the lab scenarios by
> lunch time. If you can't then you need more practice!
>
> 8. Get yourself a couple of study partners and work through scenarios
> together. I mean study them and analyse them, not just read the
> solutions. Local partners are best, though MSN messenger plus netmeeting
> work quite well. In the later stages I found it very helpful to say nail
> up the L2 & L3 broken into parts perhaps 20 - 30 minutes at a time. I
> would do a part and my study partner would watch and take notes, then we
> would have a quick review, eg 'you are dithering on the Frame Relay -
> practice & nail it!', 'you are jumping around the routers, you'll never
> keep track of what you have completed and what is left to do', 'you are
> fumbling the BGP'. 'Come on make it snappy - bang, bang, bang the basic
> config is in'. Then we would swap roles.
>
> Try to develop a methodology and follow it. I start with top left and
> work your way down to bottom right of the network diagram. If you know
> that something will take time to come up eg Frame Relay dlci, then don't
> sit there waiting move onto the next router and then come back to it.
> Try to practice full time the 2 weeks before your lab date. I used up
> most of my annual leave for this.
>
> 9. You absolutely must be able to do the standard things in your sleep,
> because that is the only way to beat the 'time-deamon' and not have him
> chasing you throughout the lab. You need any time that you can win by
> being super quick on standard configuration items to give you time to
> think about the difficulties and to find the obscure items on the CD.
>
> 10. If you are fighting the 'time-daemon' having to debug everything
> step at a time then you will never have enough time on the lab. With
> practice it is doable, you just need lots of boring, repetitive
> practice.
>
> 11. If you have won the time on the standard bits then don't waste it.
> If you are not getting anywhere, make a note of where you are on the
> paper provided and move on. Far better to get all the points that you
> can from the bits that you know than may be get one difficult problem
> out that you were unsure of. Zeb gave me a useful tip here, use one of
> the sheets of paper to keep track of where you are, put down all the
> question numbers each on a separate line. When you have finished a
> section, tick it. If there is anything that you are not sure of or need
> to come back to then make a note of it. Use the highlighter pen to mark
> the incomplete questions that you skip.
>
> 12. Get what points you can, then go back and solve the problems and
> search for things. Know your way round the CD. I found the command
> indexes helpful together with the ctrl/F search in document feature to
> find things. You need the right keyword, but the detailed syntax is then
> easy to find.
>
>
> 13. Don't be afraid to ask the Proctor questions. In my experience they
> are great guys. The worse they can do is tell you to go back and read
> the question.
>
> I had finished my lab by 3 pm so 2.5 hours to check them over, check
> with the CD any item that I was at all unsure about. Qualify any
> ambiguities with the proctor. Extensively test the connectivity with a
> ping script. I found some oversights with that one! By 16:00 I was
> definitely tired, it had been a hard day. Only another hour and a half,
> back to reading the configs.
>
> Walking back to the Hotel I had a couple of flashes of inspiration.
> eeek! did I really forget to do that? Oh dear! I don't think that I did
> that one right! Wonder if I have lost too many points? Obviously I
> hadn't but it was going to be tough waiting for the results.
>
> Well enough of my soap box offering. It worked for me perhaps some of it
> will work for you.
>
> Remember it is achievable but takes a lot of hard slog.
>
> I wish you well with your endeavours and pray that God will guide you
> too.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Peter Whittle
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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