From: Bogdan Sass (bogdan.sass@catc.ro)
Date: Sat Oct 04 2008 - 14:04:39 ART
As promised, I'm back to tell you my story.
For the ones that do not want to read the lengthy message, I will
summarize the important stuff here:
1) Study materials:
-Routing TCP/IP, Vol. I and II (definitely worth reading
end-to-end, and labbing up everything that seems strange!)
-QoS Exam Certification Guide
-CCIE RS Exam Certification Guide (very useful in preparation for
the written exam)
-IE Workbook, Dynamips version (that dynamips software is a
godsend!!)
2) Study time: about 2 months for the lab exam, doing nothing all
day except configuring routers.
First of all, some background: at the moment, I am still a student
(after finishing med school, I started all over again - this time with
computer science :) ). I have been teaching various courses at the Cisco
Networking Academy for the last 6 years: CCNA, CCNP, Security, Wireless,
PNIE (cabling) - practically everything that the academy program offers.
At the moment, I am also working part time for a small company,
designing and implementing networking solutions (mostly security
solutions: PIX/ASA, VPNs, etc)
So I have quite a bit of theoretical background and lab experience,
but not as much "real life" experience as most of the other candidates.
However, this actually proved to help in the lab exam!
The story starts almost exactly 2 years ago, when I didn't even
dream about becoming a CCIE. But I received a gift - a copy of "Routing
TCP/IP, Vol.1" (with a dedication that -loosely translated- said "Good
luck, and get to work!" :) ), and... that started everything!
In February 2008, I passed my written exam. Up to that moment, I had
read Routing TCP/IP vol.1, and the Cisco Press CCIE Study Guide. Also, I
had read the QoS Certification Guide (some time ago, I was planning on
taking the QoS certification exam).
After passing, the first available date for the lab was October 1st.
I booked it, not knowing yet whether I will be able to use it or not.
Unfortunately, school got in the way, and for the next several
months I had no time to prepare for the lab. All I could do was start
reading Routing TCP/IP Vol.2, and wait for the holidays.
One note here: as I was telling you, I am still a student. And my
job doesn't pay that well (I'm making about $350 _a month_ ). Since I
was paying for the exam out of my own pocket, I had to find the cheapest
study route possible. This meant that I couldn't even think about
attending a bootcamp, and CoDs were also out of the question.
However, being a student has its advantages. One of them is... the
holidays. In August and September, I had plenty of time to prepare for
the lab. I used the Dynamips version of the InternetworkExpert workbook,
and worked on it about 14 hours a day. I also rented some rack time from
IPExpert, and the academy offered me the opportunity to access live
routers and switches when needed, but most of my preparation (more than
95%) was done on Dynamips.
I also did a graded lab from IPExpert (the free one :) ), and,
towards the end, two mock labs from IE. These helped me a lot with the
time management part of the exam. The IPExpert graded lab was the one I
did early in my preparation, and failed miserably (48%!). Mostly due to
poor time management, and not paying enough attention to the task
requirements. Definitely two things to look out for in the exam!
I will try to compare my (very limited!) experience with the two
types of mock labs.
-IPExpert. The grading is done by a script, and presented to you
immediately ( a few minutes after finishing the lab ). The great part
about it is that you can actually see the grading script output, and you
know exactly what went wrong. The script seems to be very well written
(looking at routes and ping results, not at configuration lines), and
flexible enough to accept multiple ways of doing the same task. Also,
when I had some questions about the grading, I got a very fast and very
detailed reply from them.
-InternetworkExpert. The grading is done by a proctor, which means
you have to wait for your score report (up to 72 hours, if you happen to
take your mock lab in a weekend). However, this also means that you get
some personalized feedback on your score report. When I had questions
about the grading, I also received a very detailed reply from them
(including sample configurations, and tests done using those
configurations). One problem, though - it took quite a while to get that
reply. The reply regarding the first mock lab came about 12 days later
(a couple of hours after I received my score report from Cisco :) ),
and... I'm still waiting for the second one.
[ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that what I have written above is
written based on my limited experience with only 2 labs from 1 vendor
and 1 from the other. YMMV. ]
In the end, my personal advice to the other people attempting the lab:
-do not think that the CCIE lab is a "real world" exam. As many
others have pointed out, the lab will often ask you to configure things
differently than you would in real life. (This is why I believe that
teaching to students helped me more than real-life experience would have
- when there is one straightforward way to solve problem, students tend
to configure things differently. And many times, that is what the exam
will ask of you :) ). Be prepared for the unexpected, and know your way
around the DocCD!
-speaking of the DocCD - even though Cisco announced that they would
change to CiscoDoc after September 24, I had a surprise in the exam. So
be prepared to work with both DocCD and Cisco Documentation.
-read, reread, re-reread the tasks carefully! Do not hesitate to ask
the proctor if there is anything about a question that do not understand.
-check and re-check your configs! Never assume that a config works!
-do not spend too much time on one task. If it doesn't work after
several minutes, skip it! (and come back to it later, if you have the
time). If it is a core task and you cannot skip it, work around it: if
it says "do not use an ACL to accomplish this" and you cannot find
another way, just use an ACL and move on. You will lose the points for
that question, but you have your reachability.
-and most importantly - never give up. Never think that it is "too
difficult for you". YOU CAN DO IT! If this student was able to do it
with only limited real-world experience, and using only a few hundred
dollars' worth of training materials, then so can you!
-- Bogdan Sass CCAI,CCSP,JNCIA-ER,CCIE #22221 (RS) Information Systems Security Professional "Curiosity was framed - ignorance killed the cat"Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
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