From: Jason Viera (jasonviera@avenuecable.com)
Date: Thu Nov 20 2003 - 14:42:53 GMT-3
Like many have said before lack of knowledge or nerves will easily lead to
your demise in the lab. Could that be any more obvious??
This is all based on my experience so take it with a grain of salt. I had read
all of the usual books and gone through a full book of labs, but that didn't
cut it on my first attempt I then went through another lab book and really
read all of the config guides on the DOC CD, as well as creating a Map of the
CD, still no cigar. Finally I read all (those being relevant) Command
references and took the InternetworkExpert IEvW-RS course which brought it all
together, and I finally passed yesterday on my third attempt!
There is no easy way! There are no shortcuts! But there are some
ways to increase the utility of your study time. If you have access to
equipment I would recommend running the protocols over Ethernet through a hub
and using Ethereal or some kind of sniffer in order to really understand the
protocol and how it works (Stolen from the thoughts of Pricilla). This will
help bridge the gap between your "book" knowledge and the inter-workings of
the IOS. It is important to understand the relationship of the protocol and
how Cisco has actually implemented it! Reading RFC's can be quite informative
but will do you little good when studying for the Lab exam. Practice is
important but if you get into the habit of just typing in configs and not
really understanding what they are doing what's the point??? I've been there
and it doesn't help, it's pointless to go through the "8" hr practice labs if
you haven't already studied and configured all of the protocols independently
(Not to mention it's a waste of $$$). To make the best use of your time you
have to understand all of the protocols as well as how to configure them; read
the config guides (which are usually pretty basic) and then read through and
experiment with the commands in the command references this will better
prepare you for the real deal.
Now that I've put you all to sleep, I would like to thank Brian
Dennis and Brian McGahan for putting together the best training class that one
could ask for as a final check before taking the lab!! These two set the
standard for CCIE training, at a very reasonable price!!! Their labs are the
best available!! If you are studying for the lab you have to check out the
following links:
http://www.internetworkexpert.com/
http://www.internetworkexpert.com/resources/01700358.htm
I would also like to recommend Gigavelocity as an excellent place
to rent rack time, their lab is as close to the real thing as possible, it
even has the 3725 as well as the same ISDN sim as the real lab!!!
www.gigavelocity.com They have also recently added a PIX, IDS Sensor,
VPN Concentrator a well as an AAA server for those whom are studying for the
Security Lab.
I am in no way associated with the above two companies.
Last but not least I would like to thank all of the kind souls who regularly
post to GroupStudy and a special thanks to Paul for running the show!!!!
Jason Viera
CCIE #12534
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Dec 12 2003 - 12:29:15 GMT-3