Hello -
Long time lurker, not often poster. Wanted to post to say thank you and
hopefully provide a nice story like the many that I enjoyed reading
sometimes which were just as helpful for encouragement as the technical
advice on here was for practical. Sorry for the ramble, I'm still very
tired.
Was studying for my CCIE, and passed written 5 years back. After taking
a job at an ISP and moving accross the counry gave it up due to lack of
equipment and wanting to focus on my new role. Less than a year ago got
back on the horse and passed my written in August. Started rigourous
lab study in November after getting some equipment together and
purchasing the Netmaster DoIT V2 practice labs. These were very helpful
for pointing out technologies I needed to get further involved in (usual
suspects: QoS, Multicast, IPv6, Security) as my experience was mostly SP
Routing. I read and reread many books both five years back and recently
that were critical to understanding topics, all of which are CiscoPress:
Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 & 2 (mostly found V1 useful)
CCIE Practical Studies (only found partially useful, but then again
didn't actually do the labs in here so I'm not best source)
Cisco QOS Exam Certification Guide (new version of DQOS, very helpful)
Developing IP Multicast Networks Vol 1 (great, but dated: Beau, how
about a V2?)
Implementing Cisco IPv6 Networks
I also read almost every configuration guide on all Blueprint topics
in the 12.4/12.2(25)SEE docs for the routers and switches on the lab and
I will spend most of the next week finding them all laying around my
house. I also surfed to these topics manually whenever I got stuck on a
requirement in one of the NMC labs, and having never tried to use the
search function was not overly impacted by the email when it came saying
it was broken.
Tips on the actual lab:
1. Know your basics and use the published blueprint to evaluate
yourself.
2. Practice drawing (I am not artistic and this made my life hard).
3. Don't eat a lot at lunch, use the time to think through your
problems and strategize about remaining time, sometimes it's easier to
think without the computer staring back at you.
4. Check and double check work. In the last 45 minutes I found several
goofs in my work, referencing things by wrong name, configuring
requirements on the wrong router. Whenever I read this from someone
else, I ignore it thinking it never happens to me, but under the gun of
the lab it did. I also realized on the flight home that I totally
forgot to configure a 3 point requirement and was beating myself up
until the email came. Use the often mentioned TCL reachability tests.
5. Do what the exam asks, no more, no less. Ask the proctor when
something is unclear about what fork to take (if you don't know
see the roads, this is more your issue) needed, that's what they are
for.
6. Relax on exam day, if you are overly anxious to pass during
the exam, this will work against you. I just (tried) to treat it like
one of the NMC practice labs...
7. Your exam is graded by someone else (see point 5), so results may
take longer than some people here mentioned, mine took 12 hours.
Good luck to all,
-Jon
#15953
Long time lurker, not often poster. Wanted to post to say thank you and
hopefully provide a nice story like the many that I enjoyed reading
sometimes which were just as helpful for encouragement as the technical
advice on here was for practical. Sorry for the ramble, I'm still very
tired.
Was studying for my CCIE, and passed written 5 years back. After taking
a job at an ISP and moving accross the counry gave it up due to lack of
equipment and wanting to focus on my new role. Less than a year ago got
back on the horse and passed my written in August. Started rigourous
lab study in November after getting some equipment together and
purchasing the Netmaster DoIT V2 practice labs. These were very helpful
for pointing out technologies I needed to get further involved in (usual
suspects: QoS, Multicast, IPv6, Security) as my experience was mostly SP
Routing. I read and reread many books both five years back and recently
that were critical to understanding topics, all of which are CiscoPress:
Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 & 2 (mostly found V1 useful)
CCIE Practical Studies (only found partially useful, but then again
didn't actually do the labs in here so I'm not best source)
Cisco QOS Exam Certification Guide (new version of DQOS, very helpful)
Developing IP Multicast Networks Vol 1 (great, but dated: Beau, how
about a V2?)
Implementing Cisco IPv6 Networks
I also read almost every configuration guide on all Blueprint topics
in the 12.4/12.2(25)SEE docs for the routers and switches on the lab and
I will spend most of the next week finding them all laying around my
house. I also surfed to these topics manually whenever I got stuck on a
requirement in one of the NMC labs, and having never tried to use the
search function was not overly impacted by the email when it came saying
it was broken.
Tips on the actual lab:
1. Know your basics and use the published blueprint to evaluate
yourself.
2. Practice drawing (I am not artistic and this made my life hard).
3. Don't eat a lot at lunch, use the time to think through your
problems and strategize about remaining time, sometimes it's easier to
think without the computer staring back at you.
4. Check and double check work. In the last 45 minutes I found several
goofs in my work, referencing things by wrong name, configuring
requirements on the wrong router. Whenever I read this from someone
else, I ignore it thinking it never happens to me, but under the gun of
the lab it did. I also realized on the flight home that I totally
forgot to configure a 3 point requirement and was beating myself up
until the email came. Use the often mentioned TCL reachability tests.
5. Do what the exam asks, no more, no less. Ask the proctor when
something is unclear about what fork to take (if you don't know
see the roads, this is more your issue) needed, that's what they are
for.
6. Relax on exam day, if you are overly anxious to pass during
the exam, this will work against you. I just (tried) to treat it like
one of the NMC practice labs...
7. Your exam is graded by someone else (see point 5), so results may
take longer than some people here mentioned, mine took 12 hours.
Good luck to all,
-Jon
#15953
