Strike 2

Just a few days ago I gave the CCIE R&S Version 4.0 Lab Exam a second shot.  Unfortunately for me I am not bragging about having a CCIE number allocated to me yet.

I certainly felt pretty confident and prepared when I sat the exam.  Especially in the troubleshooting I felt more relaxed and was going through the trouble tickets much more methodically and quickly than last time.  Although there was one ticket in particular I couldn't resolve, at the close of that session I actually thought I had enough points to have passed TS.

The config section was pretty good as well, I found it fairly straight forward, there were some things I hadn't used in particular combinations before but they came together pretty well and in the end I recieved a pass in Config.

As part of the preparation efforts for attempt #2 I used the Micronics Training troubleshooting workbook, I definitely found that it contributed to my speed and methodology in identifying and resolving issues.  I also used a mocklab from Internet Expert which also indicated that my troubleshooting techniques were well under way.

It's a little disheartening to have not passed, particularly since I felt I was as prepared as I needed to be, however this was not my last shot at the lab.  I have invested a lot of time and money on this and I know for a fact that this exam is passable for me to give up now (realistically if I keep hitting a wall I may need to re-evaluate this decision).  In between lab attempts I have seen improvements in myself and they have been realised in the score reports so there is a fair chance that it will be it.

I tell myself that if it was so easy, everyone would have the certification and there would be no desire to achieve, nor any prestige associated with the certification.  The study up to now has pushed me to cover areas of networking that I wouldn't necessarily need to know in my day to day job and has caused me to understand protocols in greater depth and opening my eyes up to potentially more possibilities in future projects, so I am seeing value in the study itself even without the certification.  At the moment passing the exam is more of getting an affirmation that I have that capability (and can pass a synthetic exam)

When will I give attempt #3 a go?  Probably sooner than later, it would be particularly good to pick up my number by years end.