From: Alexei Monastyrnyi (alexeim@orcsoftware.com)
Date: Tue Feb 27 2007 - 13:56:46 ART
Congrats, Colm!
and such a beauty in symmetry! :-)
A.
on 2/26/2007 7:26 PM Colm O'Leary wrote:
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
> It is with much relief and excitement that I can report that I
> passed the lab on my second attempt last Thursday in Brussels. After my
> first attempt in December, I was beginning to doubt if I could pass the
> lab, because on that occasion I felt I did well, and my results were
> very high, but I still failed. Thankfully my worst fears will not be
> realised.
> My history in the network game started 4 years ago when I moved from
> my position as a Windows Systems Administrator to a Network
> Administrator. At that time I had basic networking experience, and had
> learned a good bit of theory while attaining my MCSE. I had never logged
> onto a router before then. I took the ICND course with GKN and soon
> after did the CCNA exam. Shortly after I began on the road to CCNP and
> again with GKN I took the CCNP level Cisco course that were available at
> the time [BSCI, BCMSN, BCRAN, & CIT] and took the respective exams
> shortly after. My approach when studying for the CCIE written was to
> read up on as much theory and try and consolidate my learning with
> logging onto the routers and playing with the technologies. While
> studying for the CCIE written I covered a lot of wireless and decided to
> take the Wireless LAN Field Specialist. I have completely forgotten most
> of it now. I passed the CCIE written in November 2005 and started
> studying for the Lab in February 2006. I spent the next six months going
> through the individual technologies that make up the blueprint and I
> went through the various Cisco Press books, looking for any additional
> information the authors had on the individual topics and I took notes
> on everything I did. This proved invaluable for me as there is so much
> content to get through having your own notes outlining your observations
> and thoughts I found helpful, especially with topics that I would not
> understand, and that I would revisit weeks/months later.
> In July I purchased InternetworkExperts lab workbook and began
> building a rack based on their topology. I started doing their labs in
> August, and I found them very helpful. Again I took notes after each
> lab, and I would try and see what did I learn from that lab, and
> particular area, the lab showed, that I needed to brush up on. I would
> go an brush up on that particular area, before moving on. At this stage
> I did not worry about mastering time, techniques etc, just on content.
> I took 2 x 1 week courses with GKN in London in October and November.
> Apart from the information I picked up on the course, the real benefit
> was being able to spend all day on routers, and again at night time back
> at the hotel, being able to practice without any interruption from work.
> I had my first attempt on Dec 18 and when I got my results I felt that I
> was so close that I submitted them for a reread, which took 3 weeks to
> get the results of. So around Jan 10 I rescheduled for Feb 22.
> My approach to my second attempt was that I was not going to try and
> reinvent the wheel all over again and go and buy some other vendor's
> workbook, and be critical of my previous methods of study..that would
> have been the easy thing to do. Instead I looked at each area and I went
> and I picked out the area that sucked, the areas that I hated doing
> because I didn't quite understand them, and I could never get them to
> work. These are the topics that I focused on for the 5 weeks before my
> second attempt. I didn't need to brush up on timing or technique I had
> that nailed.
> I was much more relaxed the second time around. I stopped studying 2
> days before the lab. I flew from Dublin to Brussels the day before the
> lab, and did not take any books/notes with me. The day before the lab I
> got up real early [0600] and went for a long swim. By the time I got to
> the hotels in Brussels all I wanted to do was go to bed, I was so tired.
> I had a good 8 hours sleep the night before the lab and I felt that this
> is what kept me going and relaxed throughout the day and for me a good
> nights sleep was very important.
> I read the entire lab from start to finish and drew my diagrams. It
> is important to have a high level view of the lab, but I feel that it is
> more important to meet the requirements of the individual question, and
> ensure that you have the points in the bag before you move. So for each
> question, when I was configuring the routers, I just did enough
> configuration to meet the requirements of that particular question and
> avoided try to do two/three questions at once and thus save on time. I
> felt that this approach was more structured and when I did run into
> problems it made troubleshooting much easier. After each question I
> would go back and ask myself, have I met the requirements before I would
> move.
> On my first attempt I asked the Proctor 2 questions, the second time
> around I asked him at least 10-12 questions. Most of the questions were
> on perceived ambiguities I had with the wording of the question and once
> the question was asked in an intuitive way, the Proctor was very
> helpful.
> At the end I had an hour and a half left to go over my configs. I
> went through them meticulously, and to be honest I only found one
> mistake. So I guess I would not get too hung up about having loads of
> time left over at the end to verify things. Also it is important to know
> the DOC CD inside out. I spent a lot of time in the last hour just going
> through it and making sure that there wasn't some secondary commands
> that the feature I was implementing needed.
>
>
> So that is my 2 cents on the subject. I would like to thanks all of you
> who contributed to this list. I didn't do much postings myself, but I
> read all of your emails, with great interest. I do hope that you are all
> successful in your endeavours and that success will come soon.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Colm O'Leary
>
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