From: sajid mavani (sajidmavani@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Oct 04 2008 - 14:48:19 ART
Hi Bogdan,
Indeed you deserve your long awaiting reward. hard work always pays off,
Wish u all success.
Regards
Sam
On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Bogdan Sass <bogdan.sass@catc.ro> wrote:
> 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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