From: Sean C (Upp_and_Upp@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Sep 07 2004 - 13:12:33 GMT-3
Hello to all,
I just wanted to add to the forum on what to use versus not to use to help
attain the almighty digits. I know we have some recent postings going
around about different workbooks and study guides - and I wanted to add
something else to the forum of tools - NMC's CheckIT labs.
I've now done labs 1 and 2 - and they are both tough!
I took CheckIT's lab 2 on Sunday and I don't believe the real lab is this
much of a challenge! The CheckIT lab took me 11 hours (yeah, I know 3 hours
too long). Val was nice enough to give me some more time to complete the
lab.
A couple of the reasons why the CheckIT lab helped:
1 - Some of the tasks/issues revolve around 12.2T issues. Some solutions
involve commands I haven't seen before in other workbooks or practice labs.
2 - Another item that grabbed my attention was the unknown backbone. Unlike
workbook labs where you mostly configure everything on your own - this lab
simulates the real deal by having you link up to a non-manageable backbone
router that may give you some unexpected headaches.
3 - The best part about this is that NMC provides a detailed auto-grading
and answer key. The trouble with workbooks is that I usually have to grade
everything myself. The CheckIT test comes with a full, colored report of
what I did right and wrong. The grading gave me a concise report about
where my configs differed (and failed) as compared to what the question was
really looking for.
4 - My configs are stored online so I can go back and compare them at
anytime with the correct configs.
5 -What really helps in understanding how the correct solution worked, was
the use of NMC's 'ShowIT' tool. I can run a ton of 'show' commands from the
correct configs and compare their output to my output that NMC saved.
Looking at some 'show' commands on their routers topology vs. mine really
gave me some clues as to what to look for in troubleshooting.
Of course, there are a ton of gotchas. Using TCL and RCMD helped in finding
some of the routing issues.
Anyway, I know we're all struggling to get our numbers - I've been going for
far too long and need to get these digits behind me! I really think the
CheckIT lab is a great tool before I walk into the real lab next week.
Good luck to all, Sean
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