Drinking from the Firehose (Narbik's Bootcamp Review)

Caution: Big wall of Text Warning!  If you're a TL:DR (Too long: Didn't Read) type of person maybe skip this post or just jump down to the conclusion.
 
At the time of writing (the Saturday after the bootcamp) I'm still recovering from the marathon Routing and Switching bootcamp that was run by Narbik from Micronics Training in Sydney, Australia between May 23 2011 and May 27 2011 but I wanted to give some impressions as to what I thought about it because when the opportunity to take a bootcamp came up, I wanted to be sure that I was spending my money (and time) wisely.  This is obviously all my opinion about my experience but I figure I'll try to give as much relevant information as to the bootcamp and the surrounding environent as possible because if you're going to be spending a lot of money on a bootcamp especially if its your own you want to know what your in for and what you get and what you need.  Your experience may be slightly different even if you do it in Sydney.

The class size with around 14 students with slightly more depending.  The reason for the slightly more is that once you have attended one of Narbik's bootcamps you are welcome to re-attend it for free.  Please note that this doesn't cover the Cisco 360 material (I'll get into that shortly) nor the use of Narbik's lab equipment (however you can rent a lab for what appears to be a very modest fee indeed, use your own rack at home if you have remote access, or simulate the topology using dynamips but accepting that you wont be able to do the advanced Cat 3560 features).  So during the bootcamp there were a few guys who popped in for a couple of days to brush up on some of the topics.   Actually when I asked the re-attendees if what was being presented was exactly the same, they mentioned that the information itself didn't really change but that in some areas Narbik was presented in a slightly different but more easily to understand manner which suggests that he's continuously refining his delivery method based on feedback.

Our class was located right in the Sydney Central Business District - initially on the website (before the class was 100% confirmed - I believe that there is a minimum of 7 new students required before a class can take place - so if you're looking at trying to get a bootcamp happening in your area if you can get close to 6 like minded mates together, it might be worth seeing if something can be arranged) it mentioned North Sydney and listed some hotels in the area.  I had booked a hotel in North Sydney (wanting to be in easy walking distance to the training centre) so was a little surprised when the venue had changed to the Sydney CBD itself (fortunately I didn't pre-pay my accomodation so I was able to re-book somewhere else without paying a fee) I would strongly suggest that rather than just reading the location on the website that you send an email to the people at Micronics to check.  It still may be worth foregoing any pre-payment discount just in case for whatever reason the course gets relocated or postponed)  I actually think that the different location was much better because North Sydney seems to shutdown not long after 5pm, where in the CBD is right near entertainment venues and many resturants etc so it was easy to get food at any time and there was a major grocery store (Coles) in very close proximity so getting your own supplies was easy.

Part of the way that the bootcamp costs are controlled is that you need to bring your own equipment - bring your own laptop - pretty much you just need something with a web browser and a telnet client.  While you could probably get by with linux, some of the material you get access to are locklizard protected PDFs so it might be a problem.  The material from Narbik can be read on Mac OSX but for some reason the Cisco 360 Assessment Lab Answer keys cannot be read on OSX (requiring a virtualised XP/Windows 7 instance or bootcamp to read it)  Network access provided was wireless (not so good most likely because other businesses in the building with their own wireless networks going) so I used the wired network which was very reliable and fast.  Besides bringing your own laptop, any meals, snacks, note pads, pens etc - bring that yourself.  As I said due to the location it was easy enough to be able to get your own stuff pretty much at any time (Coles for instance would open at 6am and close as midnight) with plenty of fast food options nearby with China town not that far of a jump for a more substantial feed at the end of the day if you so chose.  Actually I know a number of guys brought lunch/dinner from home and were able to use the fridge/microwave at the training centre to keep their food, so if you're on a tight budget that might help you some too.

A number of the guys in the class were Sydney based and took public transport to the site which just because they lived a fair way out could take over an hour in travel in each direction and worse outside of peak travel times.  The hours of the bootcamp are going to be longer than a typical workday, so if you are able to, it could be worth looking at getting a hotel room nearby just so you can cut down on that (there is some homework that you don't have to but if you can you should be doing - knocking out 2 hours of travel so you can do that may be a good idea, so you can get some sleep in - it's not essential but it may help you get that little bit more out of your bootcamp experience)


Okay, so you've decided you're going to do the bootcamp - you book the class, and pay your money.  Not too long later you'll get some workbooks "The Foundation Volumes 1 and 2" from Janet (Narbik's wife) that are in your interests to go through prior to attending the bootcamp.  These are the first of the locklizard protected workbooks you get.  If you have performed these labs or are familiar with the topics, you are going to get the most out of the bootcamp.  To be honest I looked through these but didn't do the labs (I have been doing my lab prepation with another training vendor's materials)  If you come to this bootcamp towards the beginning of your CCIE study journey rather than towards the end like myself, I think this material will be very beneficial and you may not need to necessarily look elsewhere.  So while there is probably an advantage to booking onto the bootcamp early to get access to these workbooks early to prepare yourself for the bootcamp, I did ask Janet if I purchased the workbooks on their own - if I would get a discount from the bootcamp fee and she indicated that this was the case.  I guess if you wanted to dip your feet in the water and de-risk things for yourself, I guess you can start with just purchasing the foundation workbooks, see if you like the labs and style (the bootcamp labs use the same topology) and then sign up for the bootcamp.   Please note that the foundation workbooks themselves are not actually used or referred to in the bootcamp and are simply there to help ensure you have the fundamentals down in order to get the most out of the bootcamp.  Coming up to the bootcamp you'll need to have a valid cisco.com account, Janet will ask you for your details since the Cisco 360 program uses those credentials to send you your relevant information and setting things up for Cisco 360 rack access.  During the bootcamp you will have access to two racks.  One rack will be a Cisco 360 rack which you really only use for the Assessment Labs and another being Narbik's.  Everyone has their own gear, there's no sharing.  Access to the labs is via a terminal server so if you prefer to have a separate telnet/ssh session for each device or just go through the terminal server and using the control shift 6 (or whatever it is - that's not the way I work my lab) you can go that way.

The day before or the day of the bootcamp, you'll get the access credentials from Cisco 360 and you'll get a bunch of other workbooks from Janet.  You'll get the Advanced Routing and Switching 4.0 Workbooks Volumes 1 and 2 - which have the worked out labs inside (other vendors may call this the detailed solution guide) You'll also get the Bootcamp 4.0 Workbook (again with worked out labs and explanations) and initial configurations for the Bootcamp Workbook labs.  These workbooks are actively being worked on and Narbik was mentioning that there are some new sections being added which will be get access to (that said these are very comprehensive as is)

The reality though, is that this is a 5 day bootcamp and there is no way to cover this all in depth, so only a limited list of the blueprint topics can be covered.  That's not to say that Narbik wont talk to you about an area you are having issues with - its just that to cover all of the topics listed with the depth required, it's impossible to touch everything (I think if you were to look at the Services portion of the blueprint you could have a dedicated bootcamp just for that)

Day 1 (Monday)
Just about everyone shows up just before 9am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to get into it, if they are like me they have heard all the good things about Narbik and are wondering if he's 10 feet tall and can fix faults by staring hard at routers.  Well, he's not 10 feet tall and I don't think he stares hard at routers to fix problems, though perhaps he looks intently at telnet sessions - he's a very likable and knowledgable person.  He very quickly goes into his background and puts down what the agenda for the following days are going to be and then goes around the room asking us to talk briefly about ourselves, what we do, where we are at with our studies, if we have a lab date scheduled yet, if we have already attempted the lab and what we want to get out of the bootcamp.  If I remember correctly, at our bootcamp Multicast and MPLS were hot topics (mine was L2 QoS)

After that we pretty much jumped into the Cisco 360 lab racks and started on an 8 hour Assessment lab exam.  It wasn't the hardest of exams but I think it was good thing to do, as it helps Narbik gauge what else the class might be have problems with and can ensure that those topics are particularly re-enforced throughout the bootcamp.  Also for myself it helped to clarify what topics I might need to attention on.  The Cisco 360 Assessment Labs are automatically graded but besides being sent the answer key (this is the file that can only be opened in windows) their is a web page that takes your configs and compares them with the reference configs, allowing you to see side-by-side of what you did vs what the recommended method was.  Besides that, you could simulate the commands "show ip route", "show ip bgp summary" and many many more on the simulation and see what you had and should have seen, very nice but probably better if you had more time to review.

After the Assessment Lab we started on the switching lecture, there's a level of expectation here, so we dont go into STP and basic stuff like that, rather it's more on the security related features including port-security and dhcp snooping and a good session on Private VLANs and dot1x.  The next session goes into Frame-Relay topics.  All of these lectures are Narbik standing at a whiteboard going through the topics in what is obviously orchestrated to go through a sequence (to ensure nothing gets left out) but is certainly free-flow with active discussion with the class.  One of the things that comes to light early on is that Narbik has a great passion to teach and has a great desire to ensure that any uncertainties someone has, things are clarified using different examples until they comprehend a topic.  I think one of the things that Narbik enjoys is seeing someone's expression change from looking quizzical about something to looking satisfied that they understand the how and why.

At around 9:30pm we leave the class to go home or back to our hotels with the advice to do some of the Frame-Relay labs from the Advanced CCIE Routing and Switching lab book

Day 2 (Tuesday)
Most people show up around 9am a little tired and ready to get into it - some of the guys probably weren't quite prepared for the length of the day (and if you factor in the travel time they might have had, they would have had very little sleep if they spent a couple of hours or labs) which is really just sign of things to come.

We spent a few hours in the morning doing some more Frame Relay Labs.  The point of the bootcamp is not just to get a face full of lecture but to also play with the equipment, observe the behaviour, verify it and take advantage of Narbik (and the other students) to help clarify your problems or misunderstanding (as a student I find trying to explain how things work to someone else, helps me ensure that I actually know it)

The two topics under discussion are OSPF and EIGRP with most of the day associated with OSPF.  To be honest coming in I thought I knew OSPF pretty well but now I understand it a lot better, particularly in areas around filtering and summarisation.  Narbik made it a point to talk about things from an IOS point of view rather than what RFCs say.  Even then sometimes IOS documentation can be ambiguous at best or misleading in other cases, so whatever Narbik described as a behaviour, he was able to back what he was saying with labs in his workbook (the whole bootcamp is done that way, so he can back up anything he says with a demonstration)

At around 9:30pm we leave the class to go back and do some OSPF labs.

Day 3 (Wednesday)
Not too long after 9am most people are ready to start, the enthusiam is still there but people are starting to look a little weary but Narbik is like the Energizer Bunny and is ready to go like its his first day.  After doing more OSPF and EIGRP labs in the morning.  The main topics for the day are BGP, MPLS and L3 VPNs including the different CE-PE routing protocols and possibly implications you need to be aware of.

We finish up the around 9:00pm as Thursday was going to be a long day indeed...


Day 4 (Thursday)
Everyone is looking a little rough around the edges and kind of dreading what a long day it's going to be, that is everyone except for Narbik who is fresh as a daisy.  I've had so much coffee, that the guy at the coffee shop starts making my coffee before I order it - I've become a regular there in less than a week!

After a few hours of labbing, the QoS lectures kick in.  Starting with MLS QoS which was a particular topic I don't know if I was looking forward to as such but certainly wanted to ensure that I would help get some clarification as to how things work, particular around the srr-queue area.  The lecture was great, I've taken a lot of notes in that area now and have access to some good labs to help crystalise my thoughts further.  We then go stuck into L3 QoS primarily on FRTS and CBWFQ.

At around 6pm we started the troubleshooting portion of the Cisco 360 Assessment lab which went for about two and a half hours.

After this we had a dinner break and the Assement lab Configuration portion started at 10pm with 6 hours to complete the tasks. There was enough time for some of the locals to head home to do that component.  I stayed at the class because my hotel internet connection was pretty average and it was a short walk from the class room to the hotel.  At around 4am I saved my configs and walk to the hotel and organised a wake up call for 7:30am since I needed to get ready for check out to fly home on Friday evening.  After being pumped up on caffeine and sugar for most of the night, towards the end I was stuck in a task because the router was doing what I was telling it do to do, rather than what I though I was telling it to do :)

We were told roughly that if we were to put the level of difficulty of the Monday Assement lab as 3, that this might be considered about a 9, however this was not really analagous to the actual R&S Lab and that doing well in this was not a guarantee that you would pass the R&S Lab exam but to be used as a datapoint in determining your readiness.

That said, one of the advantages of doing this bootcamp is with the association with the Cisco 360 program, if you do well in the assessment labs, you can qualify for a free lab re-take voucher.

Day 5 (Friday)
Around 9am the classroom was half empty and those that are present are looking like extras from a zombie movie except for Narbik who looks like he has just had 2 weeks of vacation.

No one really feels like labbing this morning, so it's mainly chatting about how things went in the Assessment lab until more and more people come back to class.

The topics covered today are Multicast, and the other sub-topics we didn't quite finish on previous days (things like ZBPFW and class based policing)

Upon closing Narbik mentioned about the free re-attendance to the bootcamps for past students in the same track (as I mentioned there were some guys here doing just that) and that he expected that we treat the bootcamp as the beginning of our relationship with him, the expectation of using email and forums with him and other students to help clarify problems or concerns.

He also again re-iterated that the bootcamp didn't cover all of the topics of the blueprint, there just isnt enough time, however the workbooks (which I believe are subject to free electronic updates) do cover these topics.


Overall conclusion
I really enjoyed this bootcamp.  If I were to do things differently, I would probably have looked at attending one of Narbik's bootcamps earlier into my studies, gone through his workbooks and then re-visted his bootcamp within a few weeks of attempting the lab.  This hasn't worked out that way in my case but I think the current preparation that I have done (using material from other vendors as my prime resource) has helped me, with this bootcamp enabling me to solidify what I do know and helping to uncover what I thought I knew but didn't.  I will be attemping my lab exam in a few weeks, and I will most certainly be using the material in the workbooks as well as my notes to do my final bit of preparation.  Should I not pass on the first attempt which is a possibility, I will certainly look at taking advantage of the lab re-take voucher and again make use of the material.


The ratio of labbing to lecture was around 40:60 but that is kind of skewed with the assessment (mock labs).

Being with a bunch of people where you can talk directly and/or draw on a whiteboard your problem and get help either from Narbik or your fellow students just isn't as easy to get from mailing lists and forums (which I most certainly have used)

How do I rate the workbooks?  I haven't had enough use to give a comprehensive review but so far I think they're great, they're different in format to the other vendor's material I've used (Narbik's topology is slightly smaller but I believe is on par with the CCIE R&S Configuration topology), I don't necessarily think they're better or worse, the labs in Narbik's workbooks appear to focus on individual subtopics.

I haven't been on another bootcamp so I cant compare it to anything else.  I have used Video on Demand material which simulated a one week bootcamp and while I did get value from the VoD, a prerecorded non/dynamic environment is just not the same as being able to interact directly.

It does appear to be a program that you could follow with a single investment of the bootcamp which includes the workbooks and a training sessions from an instructor that really knows his stuff, and is passionate about transferring his knowledge to you.


I liked the idea of the mocklabs but that's probably because I'm closer to sitting the exam than most of my other classmates (plus that lab voucher is a good draw card to the bootcamp) however I do see an advantage to covering the same level of material in smaller assessment labs spread out across the days so you don't have such an overload on the second last day.  Spreading it out may mean that there is more information retained on Day 5 - Narbik mentioned that this might be on the cards for future bootcamps so get in touch with Micronics for the latest information in that area.

I kind of hope I don't come across as some kind of religious fanatic praising Narbik or his methods, I'm just attempting to help those that may be trying to determine if they want to go on a bootcamp, what they need to put in to get value, and what they get for their money for the one I went to.  Pass or fail the Lab, it will be down to the individual and not the training vendor, regardless of the training vendor and the material used, all that can do is help unlock the knowledge required but its the perserverance, determination and desire of the CCIE candidate to achieve the status.

I hope that this rather long posting should anyone read it helps someone determine if they want to go on a bootcamp what they might expect, or even if they were interested in starting their CCIE studies, how a program such as this one might help them along.  I think going for a CCIE is possibly like scaling a mountain, it's not really a race, it's something you pretty much have to do yourself but there can be people around to help you out but it's up to you to get to the peak and it's great that there is a whole community of training vendors, CCIE candidates and CCIEs and others out there helping us all to success.