Re: Success

Dale:
Thanks for sharing your comments and experiences. I know that many of us can
relate.

Thanks
Larry Hadrava
CCIE #12203 CCNP CCNA
Sr. Support Engineer  IPexpert, Inc.
URL: http://www.IPexpert.com

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 7:40 AM, Dale Shaw <dale.shaw_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi again all,
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 10:51 PM, Dale Shaw <dale.shaw_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> > I passed.
> >
> > CCIE #24464 -- R&S.
> >
> > I am very happy and quite relieved.
> >
> > More later, I have a hangover to work on.
>
> As promised, here's a bit more background.. I hope you can focus for
> long enough to read the whole way through. This e-mail is almost as
> long as my CCIE lab notes.
>
> I've been in the game for 13 or so years -- started at the beginning,
> building and repairing PCs. I still think the troubleshooting
> methodology I developed in this phase has been invaluable. I've worked
> for systems integrators in the channel the whole time, mostly in the
> systems (Microsoft / Novell / Citrix and UNIX) infrastructure arenas.
> I'd always had a keen interest in comms from my early years as a
> teenager BBS sysop (RemoteAccess/Pro on everything from NetWare to
> Desqview to OS/2). Around 10 years ago I inherited the responsibility
> for a cisco 4500M and the company's Internet connection. I was pretty
> chuffed when I got multilink PPP working over basic rate ISDN, despite
> taking us off the air and locking myself out of the device several
> times in the process. I learned about the implicit deny at the end of
> ACLs this way :)
>
> I passed my CCNA exam in the year 2000. At the time I was responsible
> for a large Avaya (Octel/Lucent) TDM-based unified messenger
> installation based on Unified Messenger (very cool for its time). I
> had more experience and interest in the messaging (Exchange) side than
> on the voice side. I sometimes wonder how things would've turned out
> if I'd dug into the voice stuff a bit more.
>
> In the years that followed I'd been given several opportunities to
> install and configure cisco PIX firewalls (the 'Classic' and 500
> series devices) and dabbled with IPSec VPNs. By this stage I was still
> working for a systems infrastructure outfit but we had the
> VPN/Security partner specialisation so we got the occasional gig in
> that market. Around this time I passed the exams to become a Cisco
> Qualified Specialist (CQS) in Security. This cert later morphed into
> CCSP and I think I just had to pass one or two more exams for that.
> That was 2004 or so. I also started working on CCNP, which was a great
> learning experience. I used the Cisco Press self-study set. Going
> through this process filled in lots of gaps and exposed me to some of
> the technologies used in larger enterprises. I failed BSCI first go
> but got it second time around. Up till then, despite being a MCSE
> (since '98, when it meant something), CNE (since '99) and a handful of
> other less meaningful certs, I had never failed an exam. It was a rude
> shock! :-) CCNP was wrapped up in the same year, 2004.
>
> In 2006, despite enjoying the work environment with the company I was
> employed by, I made the decision to focus on networking and I needed
> to move. I'd just finished a large Exchange implementation, which was
> fun, but my heart was at the command line :-) I switched employers and
> started working for one of Australia's larger Gold partners. It was a
> network design gig, but in reality there was/is a great mix of
> hands-on and design work. It's been a long time since I installed a
> Microsoft service pack for a customer, and while I sometimes miss
> being a 'systems' guy, I consider that a good thing!
>
> I originally booked my CCIE lab in Sydney a year ago (May '08), having
> passed the written in March, but I moved to Canada for a working
> holiday and with all those novel animals like bears, moose, squirrels,
> skunks etc. there was never going to be enough time to prepare -- I
> was kidding myself. I first postponed to September '08, then January
> '09. I returned to Australia in mid-November and realised I had a
> unique opportunity to give this thing a real go. I booked myself in to
> Narbik's January boot camp in Sydney and started working my way
> through his "Soup To Nuts" workbook about a month earlier. Attending
> the boot camp was a real eye-opener for me. Up till that point, I knew
> how much I knew, but not how much I didn't know. I didn't get as much
> out of the boot camp as I could have if I was better prepared, but it
> was critical to setting my focus on the end goal. I met some nice
> blokes that week -- some of which are occasional GroupStudy
> contributors (hi guys!).
>
> For the next couple of months, I worked through Narbik's advanced and
> boot camp workbooks. I wanted to complete them from start to finish
> before locking in a lab date. When I finished pass #1, I booked and
> paid for my lab -- April 21st. I lined up some ASET lab sessions
> through my local Cisco SE and was pretty comfortable with the content
> and happy with the results I was seeing, noting that they're scored
> differently than the real lab and the wording of the tasks tend to
> steer you toward the 'right' solution. I was only working part time
> throughout my study, so I was able to dedicate about 20-30 hours per
> week to study without too much trouble. I don't know how anyone does
> it with a family and/or full time work.
>
> Leading up to attempt #1, I was already starting to suffer from 'study
> fatigue'. It's hard to stay motivated for so long, as I'm sure many of
> you know. Nevertheless, I was quietly confident, and went into the
> first attempt thinking that I had a real chance. Apart from the
> occasional case of 'butterflies', I wasn't all that nervous. I stayed
> at the Urban Hotel in St Leonards and got allocated room '224', which
> I thought was pretty cool (it's on the corner facing the Pacific Hwy,
> so take ear plugs if you're a light sleeper!). Even walking down to
> the office, I was feeling good. I had that "well, there's nothing you
> can do to improve your chances now!" feeling, which was comforting. I
> guess that feeling could work for or against you.
>
> There were three candidates that day, including me -- one for SP, one
> for Voice and me, for R&S. We got our name labels and made our way
> into the briefing/lunch room. There's a CCIE surfboard in there, for
> some odd reason. I guess the marketing department had some extra dough
> to throw around :-) I was still feeling good -- no nerves. Once the
> briefing was over and we moved into the lab room, I can't explain why,
> but my heart rate started to increase and the nerves kicked in good
> and proper.
>
> First I had to log in and take the OEQs. Man, I was so relieved when I
> saw them -- they were easy! I didn't time myself, but I guess I took
> 10-15 minutes working on them. I was as verbose as I felt I needed to
> be to indicate my understanding of the content. Some questions needed
> more; others needed just a short sentence. When I clicked 'Submit', I
> had no doubt that OEQs would not be a problem for me that day. All
> I'll say about the OEQs is this: IF you have a chance at passing the
> configuration portion of the lab -- i.e. you've done the hard yards,
> learnt the technology and practiced enough -- the OEQs will not
> challenge you. It's as simple as that. I know some people pass the
> configuration section but fail based on OEQs and that flies in the
> face of what I've just said, but that's my view. My hat goes off to
> those of you who speak English as a second (or third.. or fourth)
> language. Amazing.
>
> Once you've done the OEQs, you need to log out and back in again using
> a different set of credentials. This is all made clear to you, so you
> don't need to worry about the details -- pay attention though;
> apparently it's not uncommon for candidates to approach the proctor
> with login problems. Once you've logged back in, you're able to access
> your lab equipment and begin the configuration portion. Reading
> through the workbook, I didn't see any "gotchya!s", but by this time,
> I was really on edge. I shouldn't have had that coffee at the hotel
> (although it was surprisingly decent) because the adrenalin was
> pumping so hard I needed no supplementary stimulation. I started
> working through the material..
>
> Cut to just before lunch time, and I had my switching and IGP sections
> under control. I had full IGP reachability and I remember how I'd read
> this would be a reassuring feeling -- I guess it was. I'd also read
> that it was good to be starting on BGP around this time, but
> everyone's different and take it from me, not every lab has BGP coming
> straight after IGP anyway. For some reason I'd ordered two sandwiches
> in the morning because I envisaged those cocktail sandwiches turning
> up on a catering plate. That's not the case. Somehow the lunch orders
> turn up and they're full-sized sandwiches. I ate the tuna (brain food)
> sandwich and left the chicken schnitzel wrap till later. It would be a
> ~AUD$2,200 wrap devoured later that evening.
>
> After lunch, and even before, time was moving fast. I kept glancing up
> at the clock and I thought I had time under control, but I did kill
> some time renumbering an OSPF area ID after realising I had transposed
> two digits in the area ID (!). I literally had to change the config on
> all affected devices in area ABDC to area ABCD and re-verify
> adjacencies and reachability. By the time the end of the day rolled
> around, I thought I had met all requirements other than one IOS/IP
> Services task that I didn't commit any config for 'cause I couldn't
> figure it out -- one of those ones you sacrifice because you know
> getting it wrong could break other things. One problem at this point
> -- I had _almost_ full reachability to backbone networks, but not
> quite. There was a subset of the backbone-learned routes that I could
> not reach. I decided to leave it be, as there was no explicit
> requirement to be able to ping a host address in each backbone prefix,
> but this would prove a mistake in strategy/interpretation.
>
> I walked out of the building thinking it could go either way. I knew
> I'd given it a good nudge. I also knew the result would come
> reasonably quickly, because for R&S at least, the lab is graded by (if
> I recall correctly) the Belgium/Brussels office. I walked back up the
> road to the Urban, got changed, checked my e-mail once or twice, then
> set off to find some beers in Crows Nest (about 2km down the road).
> I'd pre-configured Gmail to apply a 'star' to anything from
> "ccie_at_cisco.com" so it would stand out when it arrived. Back to the
> hotel.. Like a lot of people, when I opened that e-mail (at about
> 7:40pm, about 2.5 hours after leaving the lab), my eyes were drawn to
> the "PASS" text in the e-mail itself. Do not make the same mistake --
> your result is NOT included in the e-mail itself; you must log in to
> the CCIE site to see the result. Anyway, my heart sank when I saw
> "FAIL" on the web site, and I reviewed the score report. It had
> highlighted some areas that I suppose I knew deep down were weaker --
> multicast, IOS/IP services, and BGP. I knew, with more time, I would
> have ironed out the kinks in my topology. I guess everyone says that
> :-) I'd rate the difficult level about 7-8 out of 10, and the biggest
> surprise (to me) was how heavily configured the lab equipment was at
> the start of the day. Don't ask me any more about this, just know it
> was a surprise, and something I'd never read about prior.
>
> I was disappointed, sure, but I had low expectations for attempt #1. A
> day or two later I was back home, and I had booked my 2nd attempt for
> May 28th. No mucking around. I decided I'd work on my weak areas
> (noted above) and see what happened. I knew I didn't need to radically
> change my prep, as I'd come very close to passing 1st attempt. Time
> management was a bit of a concern, but I thought I was already
> reasonably snappy, so I didn't focus on this aspect of the failure. I
> read 'Internet Routing Architectures' for the first time, devoured as
> much IOS/IP services (mainly NAT) content I could find, and worked on
> AutoRP and BSR configurations -- my foundation knowledge of multicast
> was/is sound.
>
> The month (or so) between 1st and 2nd attempts was really hard.
> Despite having the 2nd attempt booked and paid for (and BTW this is
> all coming out of my own pocket), I was really struggling to get
> motivated. It didn't help that my day job was generating a significant
> load for 2 or 3 weeks leading up to the lab date. I probably only
> managed about 40 hours' study for the whole month. I don't know if
> this helped clear my mind or what, but obviously the result was better
> for me this time.
>
> Attempt #2 was a completely different day. Again there were three of
> us -- 1xSP, 1xVoice, 1xR&S (me). I felt that the lab content was
> slightly easier -- the conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe that
> Cisco does this on purpose but who knows -- but maybe it seemed that
> way because I was so much more composed. I didn't have a coffee that
> morning, but the hands were still cold and the mouth was still dry and
> the need to take a leak every 30 minutes was still there; just not as
> strongly. The OEQs, once again, were not particularly challenging. One
> of the four questions asked what a particular interface command did,
> and to be honest I'd never used that particular parameter on that
> command. I made an educated guess and later verified my answer to be
> technically correct but possibly not precise enough. I'll never know
> if I got 3/4 or 4/4 correct, but I had no doubt about the other three.
>
> I had, I'd say, about 2 to 2.5 hours left over for verification. I
> didn't _really_ need it, 'cause everything seemed to work well first
> time. I'd rate the difficulty level about 6 to 7 out of 10. The level
> of pre-configuration was minimal compared to attempt #1, but I was
> ready for that anyway. At about 3pm or so I was convinced I had this
> one in the bag, I even caught myself smiling thinking how good it was
> going to be to pass this milestone. I re-read through the workbook and
> feverishly re-executed my TCL scripts. Smooth sailing!
>
> BUT -- and I'm not exaggerating -- 10 minutes before time was up, my
> backbone connectivity disappeared completely. Routing
> peering/adjacencies and the associated routes disappeared, and I
> couldn't ping the backbone routers. I had 'incomplete' ARP cache
> entries. Gone! I panicked, thinking that despite reloading a couple of
> times throughout the day, I had a L2/bridging time bomb in my config.
> I could still see the backbone devices as CDP neighbours, but I
> started to un-do some of the configs most likely to cause the problem.
> Thankfully I remained composed enough to remember hearing about how
> other people had made drastic changes towards the end, so I
> re-committed the 'working' configs. Still, the backbone was gone. The
> proctor had called "write configs!" a couple of times already, so it
> was getting pretty obvious that I was doing more than writing configs.
> Time was up. In a flap, I issued one final reload of all of my
> devices, in the desperate hope that if it was a time bomb in my
> config, it'd lay dormant long enough to make it through the grading
> process -- after all, it had all been working for several hours by
> now.
>
> I mentioned the problem to the proctor and he had a quick look over my
> shoulder. Once we'd handed back our workbooks and left the lab room, I
> mentioned again how concerned I was about what I'd seen in the last
> 10-15 minutes. The proctor casually mentioned how sometimes -- once
> every 2-3 months or so -- candidates in other locations can screw
> things up badly that it affects the shared lab infrastructure,
> including the backbone gear. He mentioned how *he* would've verified
> it if he were in my shoes, but of course it was too late for that now.
> He said he would look into it. I asked if it would be possible for him
> to immediately confirm/deny whether the backbone was affected by
> another candidate, so I could leave the building having some idea of
> my chances. He declined. I literally went from ultra-confident to
> seriously unsure in the space of 15 minutes.
>
> I left the building and went in search of amber-coloured solace. The
> more I thought about what happened, the more I thought it must be as
> the proctor described -- a meltdown caused by another candidate.
> Applying logic to the situation and going through my configs in my
> mind, a time bomb just didn't make sense. Network devices don't behave
> in unpredictable ways like that, and the only 'fancy' bridging config
> I had applied was to a completely separate part of my topology. Still,
> I couldn't hold back the thought of a 3rd attempt from entering my
> mind.
>
> Fast forward a few hours -- a significantly longer wait than attempt
> #1 -- the 'starred' ccie_at_cisco.com e-mail arrived. By this stage, my
> girlfriend had arrived at the hotel (she'd driven up to meet me). I
> said "it's arrived", and anxiously clicked the link to check my
> result. I logged in and my eyes scanned to the table that had
> previously contained a blank field. My girlfriend was already
> screaming "PASS! PASS!" but she was reading the result for the written
> exam. Once I saw "PASS" in the required location, I stood up, hugged
> and kissed her, and then jumped around the room like a juvenile
> delinquent yelling "two four four six four! two four four six four!".
> Woohoo! It was indeed a pass :-) The overwhelming feeling was not one
> of accomplishment, but of relief. The prospect of a 3rd attempt was
> gone. By the way, I did work on a hangover that night, and I did a
> great job :-)
>
> Materials used:
> - Real life experience in multiple technical disciplines (you can't
> take a boot camp for this).
> - Narbik's "Soup To Nuts" workbook
> - Narbik's "Advanced CCIE" R&S workbooks (from the boot camp)
> - Cisco ASET labs -- talk to your local SE
> - Routing TCP/IP volumes 1 and 2 (Doyle) -- multiple times; seriously,
> there is implementation-specific detail in here you won't find
> anywhere else
> - Cisco QOS Exam Certification Guide (Odom) -- the QoS bible
> - Internet Routing Architectures (Halabi)
> - CCIE R&S Exam Certification Guide (Odom)
> - Cisco BCMSN Exam Certification Guide (Hucaby) -- for switching
> - DocCD / Cisco.com to fill in the gaps/to beef up on certain technologies
> - TCP/IP Illustrated -- dated, but great for conceptual understanding
> of what's happening at layer 4 and above
> - Partner E-Learning Connection (PEC) -- this is a gold mine! If you
> work for a partner, don't overlook this resource
> - GroupStudy subscription w/Gmail -- the ultimate searchable CCIE R&S
> lab prep archive!
> - 1 x freeze-fried beard of Zeus, available in Cisco MarketPlace.
>
> My advice:
> - There are no shortcuts
> - Don't rush into the lab booking. With the 90 day system now, you can
> book it when you're ready.
> - Make use of the partner resources if you're eligible
> - Don't sweat the OEQs (I know it's hard not to and you won't believe
> me till you've seen them with your own eyes)
> - Done properly, pass or fail the CCIE journey will make you a better
> operator. It will hone your precision and enhance your ability to
> think clearly under pressure.
> - Search the GroupStudy archives, trim your replies, avoid
> top-posting, don't inhale, book a hotel near a pub, don't stay in
> Sydney any longer than you need to, because it smells funny.
>
> Shout-outs:
> - I'd like to thank my girlfriend, who was amazingly supportive
> throughout the whole process, and my imaginary friend, Ferdinand. Just
> kidding, it was mainly Ferdinand. Just kidding.
> - I'd also like to thank all the regular and transient contributors to
> GroupStudy, and Charles Darwin.
>
> cheers,
> Dale
>
> *click*
>
>
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Received on Wed Jun 03 2009 - 10:00:07 ART