Re: R & S Lab experience

 Excellent work! Congratulations! The number will take a little while
to get used to, but you will never forget it! :)

Scott Morris, CCIEx4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service Provider) #4713,

CCDE #2009::D, JNCIE-M #153, JNCIS-ER, CISSP, et al.

JNCI-M, JNCI-ER

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Nate Lee wrote:

  Hey everybody, took the lab on Friday, March 26th and wanted to do a quick
  writeup on it before it fades from my memory faster than OSPF with a dead
  interval set to minimal.
  
  A bit of background on my preparation.....
  
  I bought the INE Vol I and II workbooks but had a problem getting dynamips
  running that many routers on my laptop, so I didn't get too far with that at
  first. I signed up for Narbik's bootcamp last November (I wrote up a review
  of that, it should be in the archives somewhere) and received his advanced
  workbook to start work on as part of the bootcamp package. This is more or
  less equivalent to the INE Vol I workbooks. As I stated before, Narbik's
  bootcamp was great and a terrific value on top of the quality. He is a
  great teacher and has really been there every step of the way helping me out
  in a personal manner that you don't find too often these days. Going
  through the workbooks before attending the bootcamp really helps so you
  aren't trying to learn everything from scratch in 5 days. I did it in
  November, but I think taking a boot camp 4 - 6 weeks before your lab date
  after you are already familiar with all the topics would probably be the
  best way to go so you aren't hearing it for the first time in class.
  
  After the bootcamp I went through Narbik's books again, and the last 6 weeks
  before my lab I broke down and rented rack time from Narbik (again, a smokin
  deal, $400 for the entire month 24/7 if you have attended his bootcamp). I
  mostly did INE workbooks for those last 6 weeks, Vol I for the topics I
  wanted to get stronger on and Vol II to get a feel for a full lab. I didn't
  have much time, so I only did the difficulty 8 and 9 labs once through. I
  gotta say, you INE guys are some tricky bastards! I had a ton of fun
  solving some of the more....esoteric tasks in your labs. They were like
  puzzles that you have to really press your brain to work on. Good times!
  
  That being said, I thought the Difficulty 8 and 9 labs were decently more
  difficult than the actual lab. They helped a ton by making it less
  stressful once I was in the real lab as it seemed easier than everything I
  had been working on. THAT having been said, I don't know if it is ever
  possible to feel TRULY on top of every topic for the lab. I felt solid, but
  some of the tasks on the Diff 9 labs worked me over like a drunken
  chiropractor. My hat's off to you guys, some of those left my brain twisted
  in a knot and really reminds me that there is always something more to
  learn.
  
  I also bought Ruhann's short notes which are spectacularly done, but alas, I
  printed them out and then promptly forgot them on my desk at work so they
  didn't get used for review. They are really great though, probably better
  than the CCIE Exam guide for last minute review, definitely something to
  check out.
  
  Now onto the meat....
  
  I arrived in San Jose a couple days early and visited some friends and
  family on Wednesday and then went for a 12 mile hike over in Big Basin State
  Park on Thursday to clear my head climbing waterfalls and checking out the
  redwoods. Very peaceful and relaxing, highly recommended.
  
  The night before the test I ended up having to take some Tylenol PM to get
  to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about the test. I studied a bit,
  but honestly, the entire week of the test I had a hard time studying. You
  just feel overwhelmed by all the possible things that could be on the test
  that you could know better and 3 or 4 days hardly seems like it will matter
  at this point. I tried my hardest but wasn't able to get much done but some
  light reading and a bit of playing around in Dynamips.
  
  The day of, I arrived about 15 minutes early and all the candidates were
  already waiting in the lobby. Weird vibe. Nobody talks because everybody
  is so nervous and trying to gather their thoughts. There was a couple R and
  S, a couple voice, a guy doing Sec and a guy doing SP. They gave us the
  brief rundown of how everything works and then set us loose. The chase was
  on.....
  
  The OEQ started and I found out that any time you have left from that 30
  mins you can add to your config section, so there is a 25 min bonus. Maybe
  there is some luck of the draw, but I can't imagine anyone who feels they
  are prepared for a CCIE lab having trouble with the questions being asked.
   I didn't do any particular preparation for this section other than review
  the written exam guide the night before. If you know your stuff, don't
  sweat this section.
  
  The troubleshooting section was pretty cool. Nothing too hard in there at
  all, most, if not all of the problems were staring you in the face, but
  finding 10 of them with the clock ticking means you need to have a
  troubleshooting methodology dialed in. I think this section will really
  weed out those who have in the field experience from those that don't, its
  kind of hard to teach that without accompanying experience. Don't worry
  about the size of the topology, everyone talks about how huge it is, but it
  is really manageable and not that difficult to find where you are at. I
  thought I had 8 of 10 when I still had an hour left but decided to double
  check and realized I had actually broken something else so I spent the next
  45 minutes double checking everything and went on to the configuration
  section with a total extra of 35 minutes (25 from OEQ and 10 from
  Troubleshooting). I left one ticket hanging that I just couldn't find out
  what was wrong, I'm pretty sure I nailed the rest of them.
  
  The configuration section was the one that I was most afraid of going in
  just because of the sheer breadth of what could be there. It actually
  seemed easier than I thought it was going to be. No crazy ninja stuff like
  you see in the hardest vendor workbook labs. I think the thing that will
  kill a lot of people are the little details. You might configure the whole
  BGP section correctly, but if you read through too fast and miss one detail
  of what they are asking for you can kiss those four points good bye. I got
  a bit lucky because I got bored in one section that took a lot of work for a
  few points and decided to skip ahead and grab some easy points. It turned
  out that I needed to do one of those easy tasks first anyways or I would
  have to redo a bunch of previous work so that definitely worked out in my
  favor. I finished the config section at 2:30 with 2.5 hours to spare (!?)
  and spent the last time double and triple checking everything. This is
  pretty much what saved me as I found 3 or 4 mistakes that would have cost me
  3 or 4 points each, this could have easily been the difference between
  passing and failing.
  
  After the test, I had a friend pick me up, we drove up to Lake Tahoe for a
  few days of snowboarding while I awaited the results (Friday test results
  come in Sunday night). The email came in Sunday around 11 PM and after 10
  minutes of trying to figure out how to use my friend's Mac (way harder than
  the OEQ), I was able to login and get my report. #25988! To top it off, it
  started snowing that night and dropped 40" of snow so the week was all that
  much better.
  
  I am just now adjusting to all the time I have back. You forget all the
  stuff that you used to have time to do. I have never enjoyed being in my
  backyard cleaning dog shit more than I did last week.
  
  To cap it off, i'd just like to say thanks to everybody on the board who
  selflessly helps others. Without the community here, knowing others were
  going through the same trials and tribulations, it would have been so much
  harder. Of course I have to thank my wife, I'm not sure I'd be that cool if
  she locked herself in a room for 6 months to play with a bunch of fake
  routers running on a laptop. The guys at INE helped out with a bunch of my
  questions and their hardest labs left my crying on the floor :) Narbik and
  Janet over at Micronics have been very helpful and Narbik's bootcamp was
  really a turning point for me that helped a ton of stuff really click in my
  head. If you get a chance to attend, I couldn't recommend it highly enough.
  
  To everybody out there studying, keep it up! It is 100% doable, absolutely,
  no question! Of course it is a hard journey, it wouldn't be all that cool
  if it was easy, would it?
  
  Thanks again everybody!
  
  Nate
  
  #25988 <-- I still haven't gotten over how cool it is to be able to write
  that :)

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Received on Tue Apr 06 2010 - 07:40:07 ART