From: David Duncon (david_ccie@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Aug 05 2004 - 03:17:21 GMT-3
Hi Folks,
As I am in the process of designing the required strategy towards my 1st lab
attempt which is happening in the next 6 months, just want to capture
thoughts of numbered people out here. Being a passive listener since last
few weeks, I have noted few success as well as failure stories. To my mind ,
any body who came this far and willing to subject to this long and demanding
(both from time as well as monitory point of view) path , are diligent and
capable people. From the offset what appears to me is, to tackle this beast
, we need to have a strategy in place , besides willingness to work hard and
invest required funds.
This is what I am currently put in my head and appreciate if you add your
valuable input which can help any new comers like myself.
1) Lower the pressure on my self from very beginning by preparing to go as
far as 3 attempts (or even further if I am not good enough even at my 3rd
attempt) to get my number. That will immediately leave me out as "favorite
to take the number home on my first attempt". So I am not feeling any
pressure from now on and I will try NOT to panic during my first
attempt/exam as well. With this school of thinking , I hoping to exercise
realistic expectations on myself.
2) Secondly as I said above, strategy is what makes the difference between
success stories and failure stories. So my strategy is to have a "building
block" approach. That is with out getting intimidated with the vast nature
of this exam blue print and also to certain extent by other CCIEs around,
for example like in this Study group forum where some lower numbered
member's posts are very in depth and very intimidating for a new comer. But
that is OK.Because as Howard once said in his post, all CCIEs are NOT
Surgeons , some are just Doctors. And you got to work hard even further even
after you become a CCIE. To become Surgeons like people such as Scott ,
Brian's , Bob , Andrew, Howard , Mark and Chuck ..etc , all new CCIEs need
to continue their "quest" for knowledge as long as they are in Comms arena.
So now my aim is to become a Doctor/i.e... CCIE to begin with and there
fore I am not trying to fathom the whole Internetworking technologies to the
extent of Surgeon.
3) Instead focus the exam blue print . And even then Not to get carried away
with continuous research with out giving or delaying the exam. For example
like the other day, some one asked the question of "how far to study the
ATM" or "how far to study the IPSec" or for that matter this morning I was
thinking about how far to study Bridging ?
Since *time factor* is critical here , I am planning to be very clinical and
deliberate in my approach. For example , there is no need to try and invest
time to understand how the RIF in Token ring builds or for that matter how
the translational bridging work. Instead worry only about Ethernet Bridging
and that is what will be tested in the exam. On you way if you pick up
broader understanding on various Bridging technologies , then that is fine.
But because if you do not have time to digest RIF or MPLS (just for an
example), then do not worry.
The reason why I am saying this because , most of us who are working in the
industry already must be exposing ourselves to various technologies. For
example besides my bread and better Routing and Switching operations , since
last few months I am also involved in few Security (reasonably familiar
with VPN 3k ,PIX & CPNG ) and Voice ( VoFR, Voice Gateways. Transcoders ,
CMsetc) projects. But the bottom line is , from exam point of view as far
as Voice is concerned, I only need to go as far as configuring FXS voice
ports, configuring pots and Voip peers , Digit manipulation and MLS Qos on
Voice vlans ..etc. Nothing more , at least for this R & S exam and do not
worry about on how SRTS works or how to build complex Translational
rulesetc.
But knowing that well in advance is a welcome step to me. That way my target
is not a * moving target* or ever expanding target.
4) Coming to my strategy again, in my first attempt itself, I am aiming to
pick up full allotted marks on L 2 technologies like 3550s,Dlsw+,Frame Relay
and ISDN. Because I think it will be pretty disappointed after all this
effort , you can not even bring up the L2 in a decent time in the exam. I am
aiming to clock around 2 to 2 1/2 hours to bring up L2 in my lab practice as
well. And then I will really be aiming to pocket marks on multi services as
well such as Qos , Multicast , DLsw + and Security and IP Services ..etc.
That will give me 50 % of the marks already , I reckon. And I will be happy
if I score that much in my first attempt. And I will also aim to score as
many points as possible in the other 50% which occupies the meaty portion of
L3 stuff.
5) As far as L 3 is concerned , that 50 % of the marks are unknown and you
can get bamboozled on any single protocol. Correct if I am wrong , even
though you know how independently configure every single L3 protocol, and if
you screw up the *Redistribution*, then basically you lost the game and you
can not ping all interfaces and you can not see the appropriate Route tables
on all devices.
Having realized this from beginning , at worst case scenario, I will be
aiming to score as many full marks as possible on independent L 3 protocols.
6) Redistribution being one of my weakest areas besides Multicast & Dlsw+ ,
I am planning to sort out that guy in my second or 3rd attempt as I am
thinking it may be helpful for me to participate a physical or an online
boot camp with any of these top vendors out here. And that way I can develop
that sort of logical to get my redistribution on my 2nd or 3rd attempts.
I feel already lot better on this building block approach , in the sense I
will not become terribly upset (neither about 6k to k odd investment nor
about 3 or 4 attempts) about next 12 month road in front of me. And also by
being this positive , realistic & methodical , I am not making the lives of
my wife and kids miserable every time I reach home with a depressed out look
of life :-) After all this is just an exam where 14k people have already
passed , so that this is by no means an "Impossible task". May be it is
different/difficult than all the Uni exams we all have went through.
That factor of "difference" in the exam is precisely what is making me
exited because that different path of preparation is what making me a better
engineer from yesterday to today. And I am sure after 12 month of study and
after 3 or 4 times of failure, I can even get better and hopefully become a
Doctor by then in Howard words :-)
Your input is much appreciated.
David.
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