Introducing CCIE 24834!!!

Holy crap I passed on the first try!  Needless to say, I am pretty excited.  It’s such a relief to have this out of the way before little Jeff comes along (which will be in the next few weeks).  I’ll be sure to write up some posts reviewing the lab and recounting my experience soon.  I just wanted to announce the good news to the few of you who still check out my site from time to time.

One week before the big day

One week from today I’ll be in RTP taking my first crack at the lab.  It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.  I’m not going to be as ready as I hoped that I would be.  But, I also think that I have a shot.  I guess it’ll depend on what Cisco throws at me.

My original goal was to take the lab later in the year.  But since we have our first kid coming in a month, I wanted to try and get it out of the way before I lost all of my free time.  I’m sure hoping that I can pass on the first try here.  Otherwise, it looks pretty certain that I won’t be able to try again until after the v4 blueprint changes take effect.

My lab date is July 9.  So be looking for a post that evening or the next day with my results.  I’m hoping for a posting title that contains 5 numbers.

R&S Lab Ask the Expert session in progress

Sorry for the long delay between posts here.  But I just stumbled upon a current Ask the Expert session regarding the CCIE R&S lab going on over at Cisco’s site.  There is some good clarification on a couple of different topics already.  Plus, you have the chance to get your questions answered by the guy in charge of the R&S Lab.  It closes out on June 5.  So be sure to get over there soon if you want to ask a question.

http://forum.cisco.com/eforum/servlet/NetProf?page=netprof&forum=Career%20Certifications&topic=Certifications&topicID=.ee702b1&fromOutline=&CommCmd=MB%3Fcmd%3Ddisplay_location%26location%3D.2cd32078

Just took IE’s Mock Lab #1

I took my first full scale mock lab from Internetwork Expert today.  It was lab #1, which is rated at a difficulty level of 6.  For reference, level 7 is generally considered the actual lab difficulty on their scale.  So it was easier than what I should expect on July 9.

Here are a few details on the IE mock labs.  You won’t have access to any of the lab documents (diagrams and actuall lab tasks) until you actually start the lab.  You gain access to them electronically after starting the lab from your members page online.  It also doesn’t look like you can print the documents (I couldn’t at least).  So you’ll need to just have everything up on your monitor.

When you start the lab, you’ll have 8.5 hours to complete the lab.  After then, you will get kicked off of your rack.  The lab format an documentation are pretty  much identical to what you get in IE’s volume 2 workbook.  So if you’ve done some of those, you’ll be right at home.  The mock labs also use the same topology as all of the other IE stuff.  So it helps having some familiarity with that as well.

I knew that this mock lab would be easier than the real deal.  But it seemed like it was really easy to me.  The tasks never really got too deep into any technology.  As I went through the lab, I really didn’t come across any tasks that stumped me.  I was able to run through all of the tasks and check them off with at least some confidence that I had them completed.  So I’m left wondering how much easier than the real lab this mock lab was.

I got done with my initial configs after about 5.75 hours.  After that, I rebooted and went through the tasks again and verified that things were still working.  That’s when I found one problem that stumped me.  One of my hub and spoke frame relay setups didn’t have their OSPF adjacencies come back up.  It came down to a virtual link breaking my adjacencies .  It works just fine when you get the adjacencies up first and then get the virtual link established.  But on reboot, it breaks again.   I really couldn’t make it work.  Seeing as I couldn’t gaurantee that my lab would be graded on my current rack without being rebooted, I just had to get rid of the virtual link.  That’ll drop me a handful of points.  But that’s a lot less than losing my hub and spoke adjacencies.

The mock labs take up to 2 days to get your grade back.  So I’ll have to wait a few days before getting my final results.  But I’m fairly confident that I got a passing score.

R&S change repercussions

As I’ve been following the forums regarding the R&S lab changes, something is becoming fairly clear to me.  I may only have 1 shot at passing the v3 lab.  My lab date is still scheduled for July 9.  If I don’t pass then, my next opportunity will probably be later in August.  By then, I don’t know if there will even be any pre-v4 lab dates left.

So I guess that means I really need to do what I can to pass on my first try.  Otherwise I may not be ready to take the v4 lab until close to the end of the year.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.

R&S changes announced

I had an email sitting in my mailbox this morning announcing the changes to the CCIE R&S track.

Looks like the big news is that there will be a 2 hour troubleshooting section at the beginning of the lab.  Once that has been completed, you’ll move on to the config section of the lab.  It’ll be interested to get more info on this section, as it looks like once you’re done with the troubleshooting section, your rack will be re-initialized for the config portion.  So that makes me think that it will be graded for you before you can move on.  I wonder, if you fail this portion, if you’ll be able to move on to the config section.

In terms of specific topics covered in the lab, Frame relay is still there.  MPLS has been added.  There are also some extra small topics added.

Here are a few quick links.

Lab Overview

Lab Blueprint

Written Blueprint

I’ll write more later.  But I jsut wanted to get this out there.  These changes take effect on October 18, 2009.

Thoughts on rumored R&S lab changes

I apologize for my long absence. Life gets busy sometimes and things fall by the wayside. I though I’d chime in regarding the rumored changes to the R&S lab as posted on IP Expert’s blog. The big content change rumor is the addition of MPLS and layer 3 VPN. MPLS has been on the written exam for some time now. Up to this point, I believe only the SP track has MPLS in the lab. Personally, I think it should stay that way. From an enterprise admin perspective, we don’t need to do any actual MPLS config work to use the MPLS solution. That’s all done on the service provider side. I think it’s good that we have MPLS in the written exam so we have to be familiar with how the technology actually works. But from a practical configuration standpoint, that should all stay in the SP track. I don’t think it belongs in the R&S lab. The other big rumored change is that there will be an extensive troubleshooting portion added to the lab. I personally hope that rumor turns out to be true. This would be good for a number of reasons. One, troubleshooting is a core skill that we all need to be experts. Two, if done well, this would be a great way to combat the brain dumpers/cheaters. Three, I’m praying that this will cause the core knowledge question section to go away. That has been such a stupid inclusion into the lab. I can only hope that it was a temporary measure until a better solution could be implemented. Over on Internet Expert’s forums, Anthony Sequeira said there were rumors that Frame Relay would be going away. That would be a little sad since it sure did introduce some “fun” twists in the lab with hub and spoke topologies and broadcast/multicast issues. But I could understand seeing as MPLS is where it’s at. Anthony also said that the changes are rumored to be announced on May 5. So we hopefully don’t have too long to speculate until we know for sure. My first lab attempt will be well before any changes come into effect. So hopefully I won’t need to change any study plans. But if I don’t make it on my first try, I’ll have about 3 months after that before the changes take place. 2 of those months will be with a new baby in the family. So it’ll be an interesting decision on making another try before the changes occur, or taking my time and shooting for a November/December timeframe for attempt #2.

Locked and loaded

Well, Cisco officially has my money, and I’ve got my plane and hotel booked.

My main focus at the moment is identifying weak technical areas so I can work on shoring those up.  I’ve been losing too many points in certain technologies due to lack of knowledge and experience.  So I’m going through workbook 1 from both Internetwork Expert and IP Expert.  I figured that would be the fastest way to identify the specific areas where I need work.  It should also get me practice in all areas so I can either learn or increase speed.  Once I get through these workbooks, I’ll move back into hammering through workbooks 2 and 3.

My biggest concern right now is actually the Core Knowledge questions.  They seem like such a wild card.  Nobody really has a great method for preparing for them.  And I continue to read reports of people who would have passed the lab if it wasn’t for those questions.  I really would hate to waste a week of vacation and $2200 on an unlucky batch of questions.

No turning back now

I gave Cisco my credit card info last night.  It sounds like they won’t actually charge me until 90 days before my lab.  But that day would be tomorrow.  So I’m locked in to my lab date of July 9 in RTP.

Now it’s time to really kick my studying up a notch.  Nothing like a deadline to motivate you, right?

I have a feeling with this time table, I won’t be a total R&S wizard by then, but I should be good enough to have a decent shot at passing.  Time will tell.

IP Expert Core Knowledge Quizzer

IP Expert recently came out with a free Core Knowledge quiz program.  Be sure to download it from their site.  You will need to have Adobe AIR installed to use the program.

Let me say that this is a very basic program.  It asks you a question, you type an answer, it tells you if you were right or wrong and shows the correct answer.  Rinse and repeat for 100 questions.  At the end, you’ll get a score report.  There are no links to more information or methods to go back and review.  You also can’t take a shorter exam and the question order does not get randomized.

So basically what I’m saying is that outside of the actual question writing, this probably took them 1 hour to make.  But there are good questions in there.  With any luck, they will improve it over time.  On their blog, they even said that they rushed this out, just to get something in people’s hands.

All R&S candidates should download this and go through the questions at least once or twice.

**Update**

In a recent blog post, IP Expert said that they plan on bringing out monthly updates to their core knowledge quizzer.  So expect new questions and product enhancements to come over time.