Re: CCIE #30131 - My Story - [Long Read]

Well done.

What an inspiration.

Kind Regards,
KG
CCIE#30089

On 24 Sep 2011, at 6:55, Jim Smith <jimsmiff_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> I've been a long-time lurker on this mailing list and have taken away
> and used some cool stuff over time - both in the lab and in real-life
> (yes there's a big distinction) so I thought I would try to give a
> little bit back to encourage you on this difficult journey. First up,
> I managed to pass first time, much to my complete surprise, so if you
> take anything away from this rambling waffle know that it IS possible
> and you CAN do it. Even if at times it seems like you'll never get
> there - and I know that feeling oh too well :)
>
> I'd like to apologise for the length of this, if it's too much just
> delete it - I won't mind :)
>
> A little bit about me. I got my CCNA in 2001, CCNP in 2004 (amazing
> to me that we could go from dial-up modem pin-outs to today's advanced
> technologies in 7 years) and then had a bit of a study-lull while I
> travelled around a bit, moved from London to Sydney and worked in
> various roles in the Enterprise and Telco space and these days at a
> large Cisco reseller. In October 2009 I got a job punching a little
> above my weight doing network design, implementation and consultancy
> work and so I decided to pursue CCIE R&S so I could have some
> confidence in myself and what I was implementing rather than just
> flying by the seat of my pants a lot of the time.
>
> The first thing I realised is most things I thought I knew, I really
> didn't know well at all or worse was just plain wrong about, even as a
> competent CCNP of many years.
>
> DISCLAIMER - I am not suggesting for one second that the following
> approach is the best one, or even a recommended one, it's just what
> worked for me and I thought it might be of interest.
>
> My Approach
>
> For the written exam I studied the Cisco CCIE Routing and Switching
> Certification Guide Fourth Edition and Routing TCP/IP vol 1 by Jeff
> Doyle - that was enough to see me through.
>
> July last year I started studying in earnest for the lab with a view
> to having a shot at it in 12 months time. Cisco 360 was the only CCIE
> training vendor material I used as well as the following resources -
>
> Routing TCP/IP vol 1 - Jeff Doyle, Jennifer Carroll - I read this
> three times in the end, what I enjoyed was that each time I returned
> to it, I understood things that little bit more. Legendary book
> Internet Routing Architectures 2nd Edition - Sam Halabi - Good intro to BGP
> BGP Design and Implementation - Randy Zhang, Micah Bartell - Advanced
> BGP book, gets pretty deep, pretty quick! In hindsight probably more
> suited to the SP track but in my view you can never know too much.
> Cisco QoS Exam Certification Guide, 2nd Edition - Wendell Odom,
> Michael J Cavanagh - I had this anyway and sometimes use it as a
> reference, good basic QoS guide, not everything you need though
> Routing-Bits Handbook - Ruhann du Plessis - Brilliant book which
> contains low-level technical detail on all of the topics in the R&S
> Blueprint down to the command level. I used this a lot in the final
> stages of preparation, awesome resource.
>
> From July to December I just studied and read as well as watching all
> of the videos on Cisco 360, a little bit of practical but not much, I
> constructed my home network during this time too - I used Dynamips on
> my laptop, a breakout switch (3550) and 2 x 3560s and 2 x 3550s. My
> job can be incredibly full-on and to be honest I was kind of dipping
> in to study as and when I could but not with any real structure, then
> I made a huge mistake, I went overseas for three months, didn't think
> about CCIE at all and put myself all the way back to square one.
>
> So round about Feb / March of this year once I returned from overseas
> I was still dipping in and out of study but with no real cohesion so I
> decided enough was enough and booked the lab for 6 months time, this
> was the point at which I really started to take it seriously and in my
> opinion is an essential step to focusing the mind to the task at hand.
> To pass the lab requires such a level of intensity that I think is
> hard to generate without the pressure of that looming lab date. At
> this stage I decided I'd done enough "learning" so to speak and now it
> was time to get practical and pick up anything I hadn't learnt or had
> missed along the way through practical experience rather than through
> reading or watching videos etc. I guess I should say I have been very
> hands-on with most networking technologies for the best-part of a
> decade so it's not like the CLI was a new thing to me, 6 months would
> probably be too short a time if I had less experience but it was
> enough for me in my personal situation to get through it.
>
> The last 6 months of my life up to last Thursday has consisted of
> practice lab after practice lab after practice lab after practice lab.
> I told everyone I know in the world I was disappearing for 6 months
> and created a schedule of 2 x 8 hr practice labs each Saturday and
> Sunday up to the date of the real thing. The first thing that took me
> by surprise was how hard those labs were, especially at first, 8 hour
> labs were sometimes taking me a whole weekend, sometimes more, once
> again I was struck by how little I actually knew, the gaps in my
> knowledge seemed to be getting larger and larger, not smaller, the
> deeper I got in to it. I would spend weeknights - work and partner
> permitting - going over the lab explanations and reading about the
> things I had got wrong, or just plain couldn't do, always using the
> Cisco Configuration Guides and Command References to look up formal
> explanations of things. This is very important and I can't stress it
> enough, if you don't know how to do something and you need to look it
> up, do not Google it, use the Cisco documentation on their website,
> this is all you will have available to you in the lab and you need to
> know it back to front (what used to be and still often is known as the
> Doc CD).
>
> With a few months to go I was starting to be able to finish the
> practice labs in around about 8 hrs, nowhere near good enough but
> getting closer, to get to this stage was HARD. There were so many
> times I would get stuck on a problem for hours and hours and would
> almost hit the point of despair but I would stick at it, trying things
> out, learning the alternatives, I realise now this is what the labs
> are designed to do, force you to learn all of your options, if you
> don't know all of them, for every technology (certainly the core
> topics) you will fail. At this point I started to try to focus on
> what the real lab would be like, so I would give myself an 8 hr
> deadline for a practice lab and I would treat it like the real thing,
> really putting myself under pressure and trying to do things quickly
> and accurately, learning how to leave a 2 point advanced question for
> later in order to keep making progress through the scenarios. There
> is SO much to get through, it is really important not to get bogged
> down on a minor issue for hours, this is a difficult thing to do for
> us engineers, we like to keep plugging away at things until they're
> fixed to our level of satisfaction, you must be more pragmatic in the
> lab - time is short and it flies by quicker than you can imagine. The
> troubleshooting portion is an extreme example of this, you need to fix
> 8 out of 10 tickets in 2 hours, time-management is so important, if
> it's not happening, move on, I came so close to failing this section
> because I spent too long on a few things and started to panic.
>
> In the run-up to the lab I took 3 weeks off work and devised a
> schedule of 5 straight practice labs, one per day and then a day of
> reading / study and configuring anything I'd had issues with over the
> course of the previous labs. If there was a question or scenario that
> I didn't get 100% right I would read the entire Configuration Guide
> making sure I knew all of the commands and recommended configuration
> examples. The other thing I did was print out the CCIE Lab blueprint
> and went through every single item rating my knowledge of each one, if
> I didn't feel I knew something well, I would read the Config Guide and
> also practice a quick config on my home network, just to familiarise
> myself with the commands again. Two days before the lab I stopped
> everything, no more study, no more practical, if you're not ready with
> 2 days to go you're not going to learn anything new in that time, you
> need to go in to battle with a fresh mind (a 2nd try CCIE - and a
> brilliant one at that - gave me that advice and I thank him for it).
>
> I could say a lot more but I'm going to leave it here, a few words
> about the lab itself (mindful of NDA of course) and then some tips
> from me and then I'll leave you in peace.
>
> The Lab
>
> Be under no illusions, this is the hardest scenario you are ever going
> to encounter in your career for two reasons. Firstly it is
> technically very challenging, for the config section you must know
> your Layer 2 technologies, IGPs and basic BGP so well that you can
> configure them and all of their options without thinking, there is no
> time to be dwelling on this stuff and you need to knock it out to
> build your confidence levels and give you time for the advanced stuff
> that comes later. Likewise for troubleshooting, the scenarios are not
> as technically tricky but you have on average 12 mins a ticket, there
> isn't time to be wondering about things, you must know it, it must be
> there at your fingertips. Secondly, and this is what very nearly did
> for me, there is the mental aspect of the test. In my opinion your
> ability to be pushed to the limits and stay calm is being tested, the
> pressure is there from the first minute you start the test, I found
> the troubleshooting knocked me for six, I panicked in the first 20
> minutes and I had to fight to stay calm for the rest of the day. In
> some ways it's a battle with yourself, be ready for it. It is
> designed to trick you and to force you in to mistakes, it is
> structured so that something you may do with an hour to go may break
> something you did an hour in, you must be calm to detect this, it's
> hard. But it's possible, it is just a test at the end of the day, all
> mountains can be climbed :)
>
> Anyway, I think I've said enough, one of the greatest feelings of my
> life was seeing the word PASS appear a few hours after the lab. I
> just about hit the roof and I'm not sure I've totally floated back
> down again yet, it's still sinking in to be honest and I'm not sure I
> will ever do something that is as tough but ultimately as rewarding.
> Good Luck!
>
> My Tips
>
> - Know the documentation back to front, it can save you if you know
> where to look
> - Know the core fundamentals well enough that you can configure them
> without thinking (Layer 2, IGPs, BGP)
> - Learn time management, you must be able to leave something and come
> back to it later, don't get stuck on a minor thing
> - Read the questions slowly and then re-read them again. I am a quick
> reader and I struggled with this, there are hidden tricks and issues
> in most scenarios, you must not miss them
> - Understand the guidelines and limitations. They will tell you what
> you cannot do very clearly, remember this. Anything else is fair game
> - Don't solve a something you have been asked to solve. For example,
> if routing is sub-optimal and they haven't asked you to make it
> optimal - leave it, you have bigger fish to fry
> - Do not take troubleshooting lightly. This was a killer for me, it's
> the first thing you do and it can knock you right off balance. Be
> ready. The proctor told me so many people can get through the config
> but fail TS, I'm not surprised to be honest
> - Don't give up. At times it can seem like you just can't get through
> it all - you can, it's amazing how quickly you can knock off 4 or 5
> sections, don't be intimidated by the amount of content.
> - Breathe :)
>
> All the best,
>
> James Smith
> CCIE #30131
>
>
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Received on Thu Sep 29 2011 - 04:29:47 ART