From: arun.goyal@wipro.com
Date: Sat Nov 08 2008 - 07:44:06 ARST
Hey Reza,
A very well written story ;-) and inspiring too!!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Regards
Arun
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Reza Toghraee
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 11:56 PM
To: 'Cisco certification'
Subject: my CCIE story.
Hello
Ok now it's my turn to write the story. It's a long story; but I'll
write my tips in the beginning to help easily finding the tricks.
I did my lab on last Thursday, in Dubai.
Tips:
1) if you are going to do mock-lab, print the diagrams in BLACK and
WHITE.
2) never get sad, give-up, mad about your mock-lab result. Mock-lab is
designed to help you understand the tips.
3) in the lab day, if others told you that its their 2nd, 3rd, 4th
attempt and they laugh on you (hey baby 1st), don't get panic.
4) it's not important if you are not CCNA, if somebody told you that
you are idiot with 0 knowledge, don't get angry, don't get sad. Of
course some
people are delivered from their mother's stomach while holding a CCNA.
5) ask your all families to pray for you and ask the GOD "God, please
give him the questions which he already knows the answer"
6) ask the proctor about how to access the cisco DOC cd.
7) Read the : lab solution guides, cisco DOCs (3560, Security, Routing,
QOS, Multicast)
8) IE Vol_1 Ver 5 is a GEM
9) its not important if you are sick, and you have a bad cold and flu.
You can do it!
CCIE is my first certification. I didn't have any idea about the
vendors.
LAB DAY:
I was alone when I reach there, then 2 other people join me. It was
their 4th and 3rd attempt. And when I told them its my 1st time, they
laugh on me.
(heh, baby, long way..)
I after starting I shocked!. One of the MOST important things which
helped me REALLY!!! Was the Brian Dennis LAB Strategy. In last week I
attend the Last video of COD. It's the LAB Strategy plan. When I saw the
video, I told myself, "no I don't like this was, I'd like to use my own
way for management", but in the LAB, I used the Brian's method since I
couldn't use my own plan for management of tasks. I suggest all to use
this way in your test mock-labs.
I finished about 80% of till the lunch time. And after lunch I finished
the rest. I had exactly 2 hours for check and verify. I verified around
50% of the tasks, and I found some faults.
When I came back home, I found my wrong answers one by one. I was very
sad, and I didn't think about Passing.
I received an email from Cisco mentioned Report is available.
I logged in, with too much stress, and saw OH " UN-CERTIFIED" and there
was an icon about score report. I died. But my wife saw that its "PASS"
and when I clicked on the report, it was saying congratulations. I found
my-self the first ever CCIE without NUMBER. What a feeling.
I called cisco and explained the issue, after a while, she said that the
number will come soon.
This is my real story, I tried to write it for people who are in the
beginning or mid of the way.
I got 10KG extra weight during these 3 months, now I must do some
exercises, (actually study is easier).
I don't get any benefit from Internetwork Expert, I just wrote my own
story, they also didn't gave me discounts (as their sales person told me
that I'll have 10% discount on my mock-labs) for mock-labs.
After doing the Lab, I face a question, How is the LAB day for Scott
Morris or Petr or Brians? How the proctor deal with them? Do they go on
red-carpet through their rack? What happens if they asked a question
from proctor? I think its vice-versa the proctors will have too much
stress when this kind of people go in the Lab.
Groupstudy helped me a lot. I try to stay, and help the new people.
Written Exam:
I started my studies in late 2006. But how, I heared from some people
that you must read the Routing TCP book.
I started reading the Routing TCP/IP Vol1, I read carefully till EIGRP.
Then I saw it's in very details.
I didn't know what to read. I post a message in groupstudy, asking for
help.
Thanks to Brad Ellis who replied me and offered me the NLI written
guide. I used the NLI and CCIE RS exam cert guide (Odom) for study for
the written. I read cover-to-cover NLI and CCIE Routing-Switching exam
cert guide. I was pretty good, because I could answer all the test
questions in these books.
I found a copy of testking in a P2P program. I started answering its
questions, but I found that lots of my answers are wrong according to
their solution guide. Then I realized that this must be written by
someone who doesn't have knowledge. So I didn't continue reading it
since I found it faulty, and made me upset because of bad scores. (after
a while I understood that testking is a cheat), any way I passed the
written on 18-JUN-2007 exactly 1 day before changes in Blue-print.
LAB Exam :
After passing the written, I didn't have any idea about the lab, I was
thinking just be a CCIE written, but I found that a CCNA, CCNP has much
more value than a CCIE written, which you are NOT certified till you
pass your lab.
I recommended by a group-study member "Joseph Saad" to get the
Internetwork Expert packages, and finally I got the IE end2end self
paced program. I received it on SEP 2007.
I started with Vol1. I bought a good laptop to run Dynamips (Duo 2.4
+4MB L2 , 4GB, Kubuntu 64 bit). At that time I was working in a company
in spit shift. We were working from 9-13 , 16-20 , everyday between 13
to 16 I used to goto sturbucks cofee, drinking a cap, doing the Vol1 on
my dynamips. Also IE COD and listening to IE voice class with Mr. MacGan
voice (also I have to say, IE's COD and voice classes are very good for
non native English speaking people. You will enjoy). After around 3
months I started doing VOL2. Started with first LAB. I created a new
diagram to make it compatible with Dynamips and NM-16ESW. But it took
long time to find idle values.
Anyway I face some problems (I remember it was with EIGRP) and pings.
Also I bought some special FANS for the laptop. Anyway using dynamips
for VOL2 made my very slow, and lazy to do the VOL2.
In March 2008, I bought a full CCIE equipments. And started playing with
it.
I had a job change so I couldn't study for around 2 months. And I
re-schedule for 30-OCT-2008
Hard Study From 10 AUG to 29 OCT :
What I studied : IE COD , IE VOL2, IE VOL3 (I called it Baby Labs), QOS
certification guide (odom book), Cisco Docs (printed version from DOC-CD
including : 3560, Multicast, QOS, BGP, OSPF notes, Security, IP
services,
IPv6 (nat, dhcp, multicast), etc all more than 1000 pages I donno how
many)
I started with High pressure on 10th of AUGUEST. Watching AGAIN the COD
(I got the DVD version, actually the online version sometimes kills )
carefully with writing notes. Doing ALL the IE VOL2 Labs.
I was studying around 8 - 10 hours per day, till end of the SEPTEMBER I
finished the COD, 18 Labs of IE VOl2 and 1 IE Mock-lab with difficulty 7
(I got 54%).
Another Luck which I had was RAMADAN. Our company decreased the working
hours to 9-15, and I had enough time to study till 1st of OCTOBER.
LAST Month:
I got a leave from my job for 1 month. From 1st of OCTOBER, I did 1 lab
from IE Vol3 every 2 or 3 days and I found my weakness areas which were
on QOS and Multicast.
I decided to do all the VOL2 labs Again but only Multicast, QOS, IP
services, SYS management.
I broadcast a message on group asking for advise for last months, and
many people helped me. Special thanks to Narbik, he sent me his IPv6
guide, but actually I was good in IPv6 and I didn't have time to read
it. He is very kind.
And Mr "Anthony Sequeira" from IE, whom helped me too much in last
month.
Its great if you feel that someone is watching you, advise you, and
mentally help you.
He is a great man.
I reviewed all the IE Vol2 labs, also doing the Baby Labs (Vol3). And
Lab_it_up everything which I feel I'm not comfortable. THIS IS VERY
IMPORTANT! If you fell you can do something, but you can not doing it on
the LAB, you MUST LAB_IT_UP and do all possible plays with that
technology. I spent a lot of time doing Switch QOS, and IOS features.
Its very important to make your mind clicked. If you don't do DVMRP
games, you will never learn it good. LAB_IT_UP to understand.
I did 5 IE mock-labs and 1 NMC Checkit mock-lab. For all the IE labs I
didn't get more than 80, either NMC Checkit mock-lab.
In Last week I realized that I have a problem in redistribution, I
attend again the COD redistribution and after some lab-it-ups I found
the rules.
I studied till 23:00 the day before exam.
Last night I tried to attend the IE announcement, but my browser
crashed, and I couldn't login again. Today I watched the video, and I
heared my name.
Thanks Anthony, Thanks Brians, Thanks all the IE people.
I'm the X in "InternetworkeXpert"
Reza Toghraee
CCIE 22518 RS
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Dec 01 2008 - 08:18:29 ARST