My CCIE Journey

It's taken a bit longer to get to this point than I had originally planned when I started on this journey but I'm glad to be here.

Tuesday, July 10 2012 was my fifth attempt at the CCIE R&S Lab.  The day started well enough, the Sydney lab is pretty good and the proctor is a friendly enough guy (having been there quite a few times, he recognised me but thankfully I hadn't been there enough that he recalled my name!)

When the troubleshooting section commenced I was able to address the easier tickets in relatively short order, however the three pointers took considerably longer but were not impossible (it actually ended up being one of those issues where it was staring me in the face but it took a bit of time to realise it) and ended up closing them out with about 10 minutes left on the clock giving ample time to go to the front and validate that they were still resolved and within the confines of the restrictions.

Each of my lab attempts displayed improvement in my troubleshooting skills (my first attempt resulted in me getting steamrolled in TS, the second attempt I was much better but with plenty of room for improvement, and the third I missed passing by what seemed one ticket, finally passing TS in the fourth attempt) this time round it felt like I had solidly addressed all faults, so I was able to proceed into configuration with a fair amount of confidence.

The Configuration component was traditionally an area I did well in - except for attempt number 4 where I just couldn't quite get my groove on and fell apart - this was quite unfortunate since this happened to be the first time I got through TS.  Fortunately this time around I was able to enter "the zone"  relatively quickly and get my layer 2 sorted out and get most of the IGP config complete before lunch.  The coke I drank at lunch much have given me enough of a jolt to blast through the BGP, services and other config pieces to result in a reasonable amount of verification time to spare, which was fortunate, my tcl and ping macros helped pick up a few simple but potentially costly mistakes and extra validation of various config components highlighted a number of minor corrections that I needed to make.

I left the lab location feeling quietly confident and after flying home, waiting in my inbox was that email with the subject "CCIE Lab Score Report".  I rushed to the website was very pleased to the see the "PASS" and an allocation of a number on that very 90's style webpage, resulting in a happy conclusion to this journey.

I made use of material from IPExpert (Video on Demand, Workbook Volume 1 and 3) , Internet Expert (Audio Bootcamp and Mocklabs) and Micronics training (Narbik's famous bootcamp and troubleshooting workbook) each has a slightly different way of building your expertise and understanding which can be helpful if you are having problems in grasping a specific concept. All are high quality products from top class vendors with good support from the people within the organisations.

I also did a number of the Cisco360 Mocklabs and found their TS scenarios were commensurate with the lab environment with a roughly equivalent topology and level of faults though sometimes I found the configuration labs sometimes easier or of similar difficulty to the actual lab.  Regardless of the vendor, any mock lab is good to ensure you've got the stamina and can work against the clock.

Mailing lists like Groupstudy, IPExpert's OSL and INE's IEOC Forum were very valuable in helping hone my knowledge and also reminding me that I'm not alone on what is pretty much a solo voyage. These resources are worth their weight in gold for inspiration and support.

Also, it must be said that while I was the one that passed the exam, it was only made possible thanks to the understanding and support of my wonderful wife which is something I am truly lucky and grateful for her being there and believing I can get there even though there were several faulty attempts.