From: A.G. Ananth Sarma (GMail) (ananth.sarma@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 17 2007 - 15:19:24 ART
Jay,
Congratulations! Thanks for the detailed coverage on the lab and the
Regards,
Ananth
On 4/17/07, Swan, Jay <jswan@sugf.com> wrote:
>
> 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)
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
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>
-- Regards,A.G. Ananthasubramania Sarma
Tel: (00971) 2 6315826 (R) Mob: (00971)50-6115913/8120527
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