From: Guyler, Rik (rguyler@shp-dayton.org)
Date: Tue Apr 17 2007 - 14:28:03 ART
Jay, awesome! Congratulations!
Rik
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Swan, Jay
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 12:44 PM
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: passed yesterday
Hi folks,
I've only posted a few times here, but I've lurked on and off for a few
months now.
I passed yesterday on my first attempt at San Jose. It's been a long road.
I've been doing Cisco stuff full time for about 7 years (and server-side
stuff before that for quite a while, mostly Unix), first in a smallish ISP,
then as a CCNA/CCNP curriculum instructor for Global Knowledge for 4 years,
and now in enterprise networking for a couple of years. I first passed the
R&S written exam in 2001, but I hated token ring so much I never got
motivated to study for the lab. Last year I needed to recert my CCNP and
CCSP, so I took the written again, not really intending to take the lab, but
when my 18 month deadline started to loom I decided to finally do it.
I only focused specifically on the lab for about 3 months, but I had a very
strong background in switching, IGPs, BGP, and security from teaching at
Global Knowledge. Everything in my experience in athletic training has
taught me that it's more important to focus on weaknesses than on strengths,
which is what I did during the last 3 months. My big weaknesses were QoS,
multicast, newer switching features, and knowledge of the documentation, so
I focused on those. Everybody always wants to know about study materials, so
here is what I used:
1) I have a lab at work of 3 switches and 5 routers. The routers are
rather lacking in interface density, so I had to get creative. I used this
extensively for practicing switching and for building topic-focused
mini-labs of my own design.
2) NMC practice labs. These are phenomenally written, but I only
ended up doing about 4 of them, and all in Dynamips/Dynagen. I felt like I
was spending too much time focusing on my strengths with these. This is not
to say anything bad about them at all-the instructional quality is amazing;
I just felt like I didn't have time to utilize them effectively.
3) NMC frame relay and IPv6 video-on-demand. Also excellent. I have
been working with FR and IPv6 for quite a while and felt pretty confident on
them, but these still gave me a few insights that were important. Great
stuff.
4) IP Expert practice labs. I got these mainly because Amy at IP
Expert is a good saleswoman, and wouldn't give me the bootcamp "guarantee"
if I didn't. I did most of the technology-specific labs, again in
Dynamips/Dynagen, but I didn't have time to do any of the multiprotocol
labs.
5) IP Expert bootcamp with Scott Morris. I picked IP Expert for the
unscientific reason that they had the most convenient schedule, but it
turned out that this was an essential part of my final preparation. I took
it about 5 weeks out from the lab. I thought it was pitched at exactly the
right level for someone with my goals and experience: I went in fairly well
prepared, and the bootcamp allowed me to find exactly what my weaknesses
were with respect to the lab itself. I also figured out a bunch of ways I
could screw up and waste time-avoiding these was a valuable lesson. Scott
was one of the best technical instructors I've ever seen (and I've seen a
LOT), and I really got a lot out of the class.
6) Cisco Assessor Lab. I took this early in my preparation (before I
really started to get serious about studying), and it helped a lot. This is
what taught me how bad things get if you don't verify as you go. :-) The
difficulty level was comparable to the real thing.
7) Books. In addition to the usual suspects, I found two slightly
more obscure books to be indispensable: the Cisco Frame Relay Solutions
Guide, and End-to-End QoS Network Design, both from Cisco Press. I also got
a lot out of Optimal Routing Design, also from Cisco Press.
After the bootcamp, I spent almost all my study time working on mini-labs of
my own design, focused on the weaknesses discovered in the bootcamp. I also
spent a lot of time on the documentation website.
In the lab itself, I stuck to the basics: do *exactly* what it says, nothing
more, nothing less. I finished the tasks with about 1.5 - 2 hours left for
error checking, and I used all of it; I found several small mistakes during
this time that would have surely caused me to fail if I hadn't caught them.
I left feeling like I had a chance of either passing or failing. It was
quite difficult, but there wasn't anything totally insane.
Many thanks to Scott from IP Expert, and *especially* to all the folks at
Global Knowledge who helped me out in my instructor days. Oh, and for the
dude who likes to look people up in the verification tool: my legal name is
Jerold.
Jay Swan, CCIE #17783 (R&S)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue May 01 2007 - 08:28:36 ART