From: Andy McLaughlin (andy@andymcl.com)
Date: Fri Apr 02 2004 - 01:48:34 GMT-3
And now for my 15 minutes of fame: I passed the CCIE R&S yesterday 3/31/04 at
RTP.
I want to thank GroupStudy for providing a forum for networking geeks. ;-)
I travel very often nationally for my job, so I hardly ever read the postings
to be 100% honest. I have some ungodly number of unread messages (25,000+),
but this is a very important resource just the same. Thank you to all who
contribute and create what is GroupStudy.
I want to thank my wonderful wife Mihoko and daughter Kaitlin for supporting
me and letting me run up the credit card and not have a social life for about
a year. Without my wife's support and caring for my daughter and myself, my
life would have been much more difficult and this certification that much
harder to obtain. Arigatou Miho-chan. Aishiteru.
I want to thank my coworkers for scheduling around me so that I had
opportunity to study and take the lab exam (which I took 6 times - 5 times too
many in my book) and supporting me. I want to especially thank my friend and
manager Mike for sending me out to Chicago so much for work (this is related
to the next group of wonderful people) and supporting me as much as he was
able.
Last, but not least; I would have had a snow balls chance in hell of passing
if it were not for some truly awesome guys at a place called CyscoExpert in
Chicago (www.cyscoexpert.com). You all are wonderful people and I consider you
friends. I could not have achieved this without your help. I owe you my
respect and gratitude Bahram, Naren, Tom, Bacho, Peter, and Mitch. It was a
long road, but I was not alone. Thank you and I look forward to having a beer
with all of you the next time I am in town!
Now that I made you read through my mushy gratitude.....Here is what you
really want to read:
Andy's recipe for success on the CCIE lab:
1) No shortcuts. (i.e. cheating, braindumps)
2) Learn all that you can about as many technologies as you can.
You never know what will come in handy.
2) Read and know (at minimum): TCP Routing IP vol I and II by Doyle,
the OSPF and BGP Command and Configuration Handbooks by Parkhurst.
3) LOTS of hands on practice. I bought the equipment, but because I travel
nationally
for work so frequently I hardly used it. CyscoExpert gave me all of the
hands on time
that I needed and then some. I highly recommend them. I would not have
passed
without their help.
4) Unless your lab is totally IPed wrong, any weirdness encountered is
probably
designed into your test. So find the problem, find a solution, and move
on.
Now that I look back I am sure Howard and Robin where getting a good
chuckle when
I would come up to them saying, "There is some thing wrong with X and I do
not think
it is a configuration issue..." or something similar. ;-)
5) Here is your mantra for the lab exam (notice typing things in is only 25%):
Say
it to yourself and do it when studying until it is second nature.
-Read it! <--read the section more than once -maybe to
yourself
-Understand it! <--understand what they want before your fingers move
-Do it! <--let the fingers fly
-Check it!! <--check multiple ways that you have fulfilled all
requirements
(and not broken others) If you do not
check, you will not pass.
6) PING! PING! Your best friend. Just because routing tables show routes, it
does not
mean traffic flows from point A to point B right.Use this tcl script and
copy and paste it
into all routers after igp is complete, other major changes have been
made, before and
after lunch, and of course after you think you are done. It is supper fast
so long as
everything is working.
tclsh
foreach PING {
1.1.1.1
2.2.2.2
3.3.3.3
} {ping $PING}
Thank you Cisco for helping me become better. This was the first exam (that I
studied for) in my life I ever failed. You made me work for it. Thank you.
Good luck! If you do not give up, you will pass. Losers finish last, quitters
never finish. Go kick ass and take numbers!
Best regards,
Andy
Andrew McLaughlin
CCIE No.13089
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