From: Mohamed El Henawy (m.henawy@link.net)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2008 - 12:47:49 ART
Thanks Mate for your feedback and comments very valuable , i'm thinking
about printing this mail and put it on my wall :)
Congratulations
Regards ,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bogdan Sass" <bogdan.sass@catc.ro>
To: "Cisco certification" <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 7:04 PM
Subject: CCIE #22221 - the story
>
> 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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