Tag: CCIE Track

CCIE Routing and Switching Reading List – RFCs

Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

A listing of RFC’s that should be reviewed for the CCIE Lab.

This list was based from the list over at Internetwork Expert, with some additional RFC’s added (mostly recent ones).

Links will go to another page on this wiki with any CCIE-relevant notes that have been added regarding that particular RFC. For full reading, check out the main IETF page for RFCs at: http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html

Ethernet

Frame Relay

General IP Routing

RIP

OSPF

BGP

Multicast Routing

IPv6

QoS

IOS Security

IOS Management

IP Features

Source From: http://www.cciestudywiki.com/wiki/CCIE_Routing_and_Switching_Reading_List_-_RFCs

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CCIE Routing and Switching Reading List – Books

Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

Books that have been suggested for reading when preparing for the CCIE Lab exam

    Online Resources

    Source From: http://www.cciestudywiki.com/wiki/CCIE_Routing_and_Switching_Reading_List_-_Books

    General Troubleshooting and Verification Techniques

    Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

    A listing of articles discussing CCIE Lab exam troubleshooting.

    • You can limit your debugs to certain conditions with the debug condition command, thanks to Roy at Route Leaker for pointing that out.

    Source From: http://www.cciestudywiki.com/wiki/General_Troubleshooting

    CCIE Exam Study Suggestions and Plans

    Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

    Here’s a collection of links with study tips and suggestions for preparing for the CCIE Routing and Switching exam

    CCIE Routing and Switching Written/Lab Information

    • Some thoughts on the Routing+Switching 4.0 Blueprint from Scott Morris (Be sure to read the comments after – especially the one from Laura O who mentions that much of the basic routing and switching will be pre-configured!)

      CCIE Routing and Switching Study Hints and Materials

      • Brandon, from the CCIE Blog with his name on it, has some tips for making the most out of your lab study time.

      CCIE Lab Personal Experiences

      Source From: http://www.cciestudywiki.com/wiki/CCIE_Exam_Study_Suggestions_and_Plans

      The Journey to Becoming a CCIE

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

      Antonio Cunanan is an engineer with the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team in Richardson, Texas. Two-and-a-half years ago, when Antonio was part of the Cisco TAC team in Australia, he embarked on a journey to attain his Cisco CCIE® Routing and Switching certification with his friend and colleague Andy Wang. When they completed their journey, Antonio and Andy assembled this slide deck to present to their fellow TAC engineers.

      Antonio created the presentation, which he and Andy have presented five times, so that they could share with their peers what it was like to prepare for the CCIE exam. Antonio and Andy found that partnering up to study was very helpful. "You have all the motivation in the world that first week, that second week. Then, life catches up with you," Antonio says. Studying together made it easier for them to stay focused and motivated.

      Over the course of four months, Antonio and Andy studied every weekday from the time that they got home from work until late in the evening, and then all day on the weekends. Antonio even set up a sleeping bag in Andy’s lounge, so that they could begin studying first thing in the morning. This rigorous schedule left them with little time for socializing. They missed parties and nights out with friends, who would ask, "You already graduated—why are you still studying?" Balancing family and friends (not to mention their sanity) was challenging.

      Studying for the CCIE left Antonio and Andy emotionally and physically exhausted, with no time to do anything else. Slide nine of their deck shows one of their methods for staying motivated. They wrote down the CCIE numbers that they thought and hoped they would get and the amount of money they would potentially earn as CCIEs. They posted these motivators on the wall behind their work area and often looked to them for inspiration.

      Antonio and Andy took their CCIE exam on the same day. Both failed their first attempt. After taking a weekend off, they immediately returned to their studies. Though Andy’s apartment where they studied had sliding glass doors and a view of the airport, Antonio says it "started to feel like a little prison." He admits that he wondered how much longer he would be able to keep up with this commitment and this lifestyle.

      To stay positive, he reminded himself that with every attempt he was one step closer to passing. "I knew my technical skills were definitely more developed than they were before starting on the journey," he says. "I knew I was becoming a better engineer." He adds that studying for the CCIE is a "test of your character."

      "After failing it the first time the journey to the second attempt was much different," says Antonio.  "It was definitely more a mental/emotional challenge then a technical one. I felt after the first attempt I was definitely there technically but my exam technique was lacking." He worked on his time management techniques. "I made it a key point to question the proctor on anything I was unclear about on the second attempt.  My thinking was even if the proctor does not help at least I know deep down I had done everything I could to give myself the best opportunity to pass." Thirty days later, both men passed the exam on their second attempt. Their happy celebration is captured in slide 13.

      When giving their presentation, Antonio and Andy try to emphasize the emotional side of the journey. You need to have "everybody on board" as a team, especially spouses or partners, they say. Andy’s partner would often cook for them while they studied. Antonio, engaged at the time, had little time to spend with his fiancée. (We were glad to learn that they have been happily married for a couple of years now.) Slide 12 shows "The Team" taking a well-deserved break.

      Lack of time for family obligations is something with which Antonio is all too familiar. He tells the story of his mentor, who passed his certification exam after a full year of studying. When he called his wife to tell her the good news, she was so overwhelmed with emotion that she almost got into a car accident. Another of his female colleagues said "I got my life back" after passing her certification, to which her husband replied, "I got my wife back."   As difficult as the journey toward obtaining his CCIE was, it has become a very fond memory for Antonio. He is proud that he was able to "overcome the obstacle and get through it." And after having a couple of years to recover, he is studying for his CCIE Voice with a group of his coworkers. "The power of doing it as a group is a lot stronger than doing it yourself," he says.

      Click the attached Powerpoint document below to view The Journey.

      The Journey to Becoming a CCIE_final.ppt

      CCIE at Age 21: Zeeshan Zanaullah’s Story

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

      “Our father bought our family computer initially for his video recording business. I started using the machine at home at first for games, but then I also used to corrupt the machine and then fix everything again on my own,” says 21-year-old Zeeshan Sanaullah, CCIE #25196. He earned his Cisco CCIE® in 2009. Sanaullah’s early family experiences inspired him to attend classes at the local learning institute in Karachi, Pakistan, where he still lives. “I was working on going into a career in web design, and my teacher was working on his Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification. He would bring books into the class and talk with me about what IT and networking was all about,” says Sanaullah.

      An early turning point for Sanaullah was when one of his distant relatives, who already worked in IT, advised him to steer toward a Cisco CCNA® certification. “I found the subject matter much more interesting and appealing,” he says. Sanaullah earned his CCNA at age 15 and had to prove himself to the CCNA class instructor, who initially turned him away, insisting that he was too young and that he would be wasting his money to attend a class at such an early age. “At the end of a few weeks time, I found myself helping the older students in the class [in their 20s] to learn the concepts.”

      Sanaullah says his personal connections with instructors and relatives, as well as online resources, were useful tools for CCIE preparation. “The Cisco Learning Network and blogs really helped me in getting my CCIE certification,” he says. “I used to read blogs to get motivated. The Cisco Learning Network, blogs, and online community really helped me out. Theseresources will continue to be helpful to me as I move on to studying for upcoming Cisco certifications.”

      Sanaullah now works for Future Technology, a Premier Cisco Partner in Pakistan. As a result of his experience and certifications, he is the team lead for the Routing Team. He works with individuals of all ages and finds friends who share his passion for technology. “In my work life, I find very few people who started their careers as early as I started,” he says. “I study Cisco because I love it. I study technology because I have a real passion for it. Money is important, but what motivates me most is the technical challenge.”

      Sanaullah says that he plans to pursue a Cisco CCDE® after many more years of work and network design experience. He is now working on his CCIE Security certification to help with his job at Future Technology. As a personal interest, the blueprint topics that are associated with the CCIE Service Provider are next on his list. As a final area of focus, Sanaullah is in search of a Learning Partner in Pakistan who is willing to sponsor him so that he can become a Certified Cisco Systems Instructor. With as much passion as he has for technology, it is a lot for him to look forward to in the coming years.

      From https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-6112

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      CCIE Study Tips

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification
      Disclaimer

      Listed here is the collection of tips and strategies that I found helpful in passing my CCIE exam on my first attempt. This information is provided as my personal recommendations, and are not endorsed by Cisco Systems. Furthermore, I took the exam before the switch to the one-day format. Unfortunately I do not have much advice to offer based on the new format (except to type fast!), but the core topics and advice below should still apply.

      Basic Strategy

      I cannot provide any better strategy than that already provided by Bruce Caslow and Val Pavlichenko in their book Cisco Certification: Bridges Routers and Switches for CCIEs. (I’ll refer to this as the BRS book for short) The strategy they provide for test preparation AND test taking was vital to my success in passing the exam. If I had to try and summarize the 900+ page book into a single key concept, it would be the explanation of how the CCIE lab exam attempts to test your networking knowledge and an appropriate preparation strategy. This concept is often described by the phrase "spot the issue", which has become sort of famous among CCIE candidates who are familiar with this book (which is quite a few; see for yourself on Amazon.com or Groupstudy.com).

      The strategies outlined in the BRS book is the basis for the 5-day course Routing and Switching NetMaster Class (RS-NMC-1) [NOTE: This is the new version of the famous Expert CCIE Preparation 1 (or ECP1) class which was offered by Mentor Technologies, but is no longer available. Bruce and Val, as well as Fred Ingham, teach this class regularly and can be scheduled by visiting the website for the class. There is also a follow-on course called RS-NMC-2 that will be offered in 2002. Both of these courses are some of the most intense, hands-on classroom training offered anywhere. You can expect to work from 8:30am until close to midnight most every day of the course.

      People often ask what is so special about the RS-NMC-1 course; there are other 5-day courses available for less money. I had the very fortunate opportunity to work as a lab assistant for the class 4 times before I took my exam. Based on this experience, I would answer the question this way: It is the "issue-spotting" and test taking strategies that are taught by the instructor and through the specially designed lab scenarios.

      In addition to reading the BRS book and attending the RS-NMC-1 course, a basic home lab and a commitment to spend a lot of time studying is necessary. I’ve listed other study resources below that I personally used and believe are critical for CCIE preparation. One of the most important is the creation of your own personal study notes for all of the relevant CCIE topics and your checklists. While the BRS book covers this, I provide my own recommendations and example of how to create the notes below.

      Outline

      Self-Assessment and Schedule >

      Probably the first step as you begin preparation for the CCIE exam; you want to assess your strengths and weaknesses; a good guide is the blueprint for the CCIE available on the Cisco website; you may consider using the spreadsheet I created based on the blueprint, available here. I highly recommend filling in the Due Date column-you really need to set milestones to get through this long process!

      Develop Personal Study Notes >

      See below for recommended technique; these notes should include a summary of tricky configuration tips, things to watch our for (landmines!), key show commands, and key debug commands BUT, do not try to re-write CCO!

      Develop Your Checklists >

      Trust me, these will save you in the exam! You need to have at least the following lists: Getting Started, End-of-day Wrap-Up, and Desperation. The details of these are covered in the BRS book and even more in RS-NMC-1.

      Build a Home Lab >

      Yes, it is expensive, but you really can’t get around this necessity. Hopefully you have some resources at work to augment your home lab for very expensive items such as ATM, LAN Switching, ISDN, and Voice. You should be able to cover a lot of topics with just 3 routers (BGP, OSPF, and the other core topics you need to know forwards and backwards). The good news is that most of the equipment maintains its value over time and is easy to sell. Check out some of the deals offered by Brad Ellis at Optimized Systems or on eBay. If you don’t have resources available at work, check out the various remote labs that will rent rack time (e.g. ccbootcamp and vLab listed below)

      Practice Lab Scenarios >

      The more lab scenarios you can get the better! Keep practicing various scenarios in your home/work lab until about a week before your exam (take a break during the last week so you’re fresh for the test). Once you think you know how to configure a protocol or technology one way, do it again using another technique. Remember, the lab will not tell you how to do a given task, but it will often tell you what you are NOT allowed to configure. Therefore you need to be able to accomplish the same task 2 or 3 different ways (when IOS provides the opportunity).

      Get a Study Partner >

      While not critical, this sure makes the long process easier. Try to find someone at or above your skill level so that you can push each other along. If you can’t find someone locally, the idea of a virtual study group is how www.groupstudy.com got started (see below).

      Other Resources
      Books
      • Routing TCP/IP Vol 1, Jeff Doyle (note: Vol 2 recently came out. I have not read it, but I do know that it covers additional topics such as NAT, Multicast, BGP4, etc.)
      • Internet Routing Architectures, 2nd Edition, Basam Halabi and Danny McPherson (the definitive BGP4 source)
      • Enhanced IP Services, Don Lee (source for IPSec and QoS)
      Online Information
      • www.groupstudy.com This is a virtual study group that has grown quite popular among CCIE candidates. You can subscribe to the email list for the lab after you pass your written, though it may take a while to get added. In the mean time, you can read the archives online. TIP: Despite what the welcome message for the list may say, do NOT introduce yourself to the list with a ‘hello’ email. Also, it is probably better to ‘listen’ for a while before posting a question and you should check the archives first to see if the question has already been answered. Ignore this tip at your own peril or if you enjoy being flamed!
      • www.certificationzone.com If you need some good white papers to get up to speed quick on a topic you are weak on, this is a great site and worth the $99 for a 6-month membership. This site is also very useful if you are still prepping for your written exam.
      • Cisco Technologies Page Yes, a Cisco site might seem a bit obvious. However, this is a link to the Technologies support page maintained by the TAC. It often offers much clearer explanations and examples for certain concepts that the IOS documentation. This was one of my favorite sites during my study time.
      Labs
      • vLab Since we developed this technology and host the labs, you shouldn’t be surprised to see this link. Our latest version of vLab, vLab Assessment, should be available soon and will provide the additional value of providing instant grading of a given lab scenario. Stay tuned for a version of vLab Assessment that will specifically assess your readiness for the CCIE lab exam. [This resource was lost with the demise of Mentor Technologies–there was some talk that a company bought the rights, but I am not sure the status]
      • www.fatkid.com This site gives quite a few good, FREE lab scenarios to practice your skills on various technologies.
      • www.ccbootcamp.com Probably the most popular site for complex, multiprotocol lab scenarios specifically designed to prepare you for the type of scenarios you may see in the exam. These are not cheap ($650.00) and you only get paper copies of the labs with the solutions sent to you electronically. One nice feature is that it is like a subscription service where you get new labs for free. It is also probably worth noting that our last 6 CCIEs all used these labs.
      Personal Study Notes

      As mentioned previously, I feel that creating your own personal study notes is one of the most important test preparation tasks. I considered providing a copy of my notes as part of this web page, but decided against it because I feel the real value is the effort required in creating your own set of notes. Instead, I want to provide some tips for creating your notes and will also provide the MS Word Template that I used to create my notes. Several people will think that this is way to much trouble for taking notes, but I think it pays off in the long run (if you can type, which is a skill you will need in the exam anyway!) The template should save you significant time in getting your notes file setup.

      To see how I would recommend you create your own personal notes, please see the "Taking Electronic Notes" tip in the Consulting Tips and Tools section of my web page. A snapshot of the file I used for all my notes is below. The advantage of this method is that it helps you to keep your notes organized as you make them and allows for very fast lookup for almost any topic. It is probably not visible in the graphic, but my notes were about 38 pages long. However, I could very quickly jump to any topic using the document map feature in MS Word.

      As can be seen in the graphic below, the document map on the left side of the screen is organized according the strategy described in the BRS book. Underneath each of the major headings for each level of preparation, there is a standard set of headings for each technology. These headings include ‘How to Configure’, ‘Landmines!’, ‘Key Show Cmds’, and ‘Favorite Debug Cmds’. The significance of each heading is apparent after reading the BRS book and/or attending the RS-NMC-1 course.

      Example of Personal Notes:

      Download MS Word Template for Electronic Notes: You will want to save this file to your templates folder (you can verify location from the Tools | Options | File Locations menu). To create a new electronics notes file, select File | New and the new template name (‘electronic-notes’ if you didn’t change it). For more info on taking electronic notes, see my Tips and Tools page. ELECTRONIC-NOTES Template

      From: http://www.wgustavus.com/CCIE-tips.htm.

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      A Sneak Peek at the CCIE R/S Lab

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

      The recently announced changes to the CCIE R/S written and lab exams took effect this week. I recently had the chance to take the R/S lab again, as part of the Beta testing – so I decided to save up some observations and post them around the time the new exam has come out. Today I’ll look at a variety of things about the lab exam, and make another post next week concentrating on the biggest change: The 2-hour troubleshooting section.

      You know, the strange thing is that many times over the years, I’ve wondered if they’d let me take the CCIE R/S Lab again – and not take away my CCIE number if I failed. It has certainly changed a lot since I took it back in 1995. I’ve always had the itch to try for another CCIE, but I think I’ve had a cumulative 3-4 weeks in the last 5 years without a book to work on (that’s definitely not a complaint), and it obviously takes more than casual effort to prep for another CCIE lab. And getting a CCIE in your spare time pretty much changes your life until you get it done, and I’ve never wanted another CCIE bad enough to make that sacrifice. But, I just always thought it’d be interesting to sit the lab again. And then Maurilio asked a few of us Cisco Press CCIE authors, plus others I’m sure, to sit the lab and give it a test. And it was fun.

      OK, on to stuff you folks might care more about. I came to the exam with several specific items to keep an eye out for – things like the impact of adding a 2-hour troubleshooting section, how the config section would be different now that it’s 5.5 hours instead of 7.5, and the supposedly-dreaded open-ended questions. But the biggest surprise was obvious from the first few minutes of lab time – they changed the user interface of what you see to access the lab, and as a result, there’s no printed lab exercise book. The only paper for the lab is the note paper they give you to write on.

      In the old days, you got a lab booklet that you couldn’t write on, but you could do the natural thing and pick up the book to look at the various lab requirements. I believe it’s true that the book had some lab diagrams as well. Now you get a GUI interface from which you can pull up the many different lab diagrams, read the various lab exercises. My gut reaction was that I didn’t like not having a book. After experiencing it, I thought the replacement GUI would have been reasonable if I had had time to practice with it.

      The good part of the GUI was that once I was used to it, I could navigate to the next topic for both troubleshooting and config easily. The GUI essentially indexed the main lab exercise tasks, which may be a bit more convenient than flipping pages in a booklet. Once I got used to it (20 minutes maybe), I stopped to ask myself if the user interface itself would slow me down compared to the paper booklet, and I decided that if the small bugs were removed (e.g., no back button on the browser to get to the docs), AND if I had a chance to practice before the lab (so that 20 minute learning curve wasn’t part of the timed test), that it wouldn’t have hurt. Otherwise, call it a 20 minute hit for the day, wild unscientific guess. (I did ask, and as of now, there is no tutorial available before the exam; if it’s your first lab with this interface, you’ll get to learn it concurrent with doing the troubleshooting. I’d suggest asking as many questions as you can about the user interface before starting the timer.)

      There were negatives to the GUI, but of course GUIs often have to do with personal preference. In this case, a few of my author friends and I were allowed to discuss amongst ourselves our impressions, and we all agreed that the navigation in the GUI was a bit of a problem. EG, to view a figure, you click, and a window pops, which is fine. However, you can’t minimize the window so that the bigger window behind it, where you access the console windows, is hidden. You can re-size, and move, but not minimize. To see another figure, the figure shows up in the same window, so to view both – like a cabling reference and a different VLAN reference – you have to toggle back and forth, and never see both at once. Then, to see the console term emulator windows, you have to move the figure window to the side, and then drag it back to see it again. No minimize/pop-open toggle like with Windows. Each figure required a different window size/shape to see the whole figure, and all the figures showed up in this one window, so there was no ability to make it the right size and find a good place on the screen for it.

      Sorry for the ramble, but I wanted enough detail out to make a point: If I were taking it again to pass, I’d consider drawing a few of the figures for the config section, particularly the LAN layer 2 figure – both cabling and VLANs – on paper before even beginning to configure. (I would do this for the config section, but not for the t’shooting section.)

      Next, let me give you some idea on the whole "is it too much" issue.

      Most CCIE lab candidates that pass seem to do so with at least a little time to spare, and those that fail often run out of time, or don’t have time to review. So, I came to the test asking myself "if I were truly prepared for the lab, could I have finished on time enough to review my work?" This question has a new twist, now that it’s 3-part: open ended questions, then 2 hours of t’shooting, and then 5.5 hours config. (FYI, I didn’t study except on the flight to Raleigh, and I don’t stay current on everything so I could go fast enough to pass – so I estimated what "well prepared" meant.) The short answer is that I think that the troubleshooting section was attainable for a well-prepared candidate, and maybe a little too much (maybe shave 10% of the tasks to be fair), but the config section was too much by at least 20%. (My buddies co-authors thought roughly the same on config, and maybe that the t’shooting needed to be shaved more than my 10% guesstimate.)

      Sitting back contemplating the whole "is it too much" thing, I came to two conclusions:

      • 1) It was a Beta, and Cisco needs some experience with specific lab exams to figure out how much is too much. I’m sure they didn’t write all new lab exams, so the trick is to figure out how to compress the former 7.5 hour lab into 5.5 hours. They want you to pass if you know your stuff, and fail if you don’t. They don’t want you to fail if you truly know your stuff but they just gave youtoo much . From a systematic perspective, I think they’ll get the right mix. (Granted, I’m sure some of you have contradictory experiences on this point!)
      • 2) I wonder if Cisco considered that the shrinkage from 7.5 to 5.5 hours on the build section was like removing the final 2 hours – the hours in which you are most familiar with the lab – rather than removing the first two hours. By the end 3rd hour of the build section, I needed the figures less and less. From a sheer mechanics perspective, I worked faster. Call it 3 hours in the config section before I was somewhat comfortable with the topology. With a 5.5 hour build, that splits the unfamiliar/familiar time as 3/2.5 hours. The old 7.5 hours would have given a 3 /4.5 hour split, so it felt like I was losing 2 hours of very productive time.

      The next thing I was particularly curious about was the open-ended question section. Frankly, I’m a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde on this one. Wendell the cert guy looked at my open ended questions, and asked himself: "If I was truly prepared for the lab, would these questions be a problem?" Absolutely not. As a guy who has an interest in seeing Cisco certs thrive, I see the open-ended questions for what Cisco claims them to be – a cheating prevention tool. However, Wendell the imaginary CCIE R/S lab candidate says that the whole idea scares me to death, and may be too unfair to use as a cheating prevention tool. If I had been taking the lab on my nickel for real, rather than just kicking the tires, I would’ve been pysched out by the open-ended questions. You could get an unlucky draw of questions and get sent home. For real CCIE R/S candidates, I think this means that you don’t get ready for 70% of the topics, and go take the lab to experience it – you may not get past the questions. However, from what I saw, and from other discussions, I think if you’re ready for all aspects of the lab, you’ll be ready for the open-ended stuff. It’s just a little scary.

      Last thing for today: general difficulty. I tried to imagine myself as a well-prepared candidate, but not over the top – you know, if I took the classes, did labs from a few lab books, read Doyle/Halabi/etc, practiced a lot for speed, then the lab I got was not too difficult. In fact, I did not see a single item that I viewed as a "trick" – no wording that made me do function X using methods no one in their right mind would try. Everything I saw was detailed – it required mastery of a lot of topics – but it was all stuff that you might come across as something you’d really use in the real world. Really. That was a nice surprise. The difficulty level comes from seeing the requirements, mentally putting it all together, deciding what to configure, configuring, t’shooting to make sure it works, and doing that 5X faster than you would have to do in real life. But it was refreshing to not see anything that looked like tricks just to make sure you knew how to make one parm on one command do its thing.

      One more note on the difficulty level: I think if you prepared with the traditional tools – books, classes,  lab books, lots of hands-on practice, and understood it, that the difficulty level was very fair and reasonable.

      OK, that’ it for today. Next time, I’ll look at the Troubleshooting section in particular.

      From: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/46561 By Wendell

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      CCIE Warm-Up Advice and Learning Labs

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

      One of my goals in pursuing the CCIE was to be able to write a book about how to prepare for the CCIE Lab. This is the book, with practical advice and practice scenarios meant to impart to the reader many of the important lessons I learned during CCIE Lab preparation.

      The intended audience is CCIE candidates in the first six months or so of focused preparation for the CCIE Lab exam. The CCIE Lab I took was in the Routing and
      Switching Track, but many of the central lessons I learned should be useful in other tracks. The labs in this book focus heavily on therouting protocols BGP, IS-IS, OSPF, EIGRP, and RIP version 2, and covers numerous Quality of Service features such as priority queueing, custom queueing, class-based weighted-fair queueing, frame-relay traffic-shaping, PPP multilink fragmentation and interleaving, and rate-limiting. The scenarios also address IP Multicast, IPSEC, IOS firewall, and basic DLSW+. The reader will configure a Catalyst 3550-EMI as a switch and as a router, but the labs focus more onrouting than on switching.

      The advice and scenarios emphasize lessons that candidates preparing for the CCIE Lab Exam need to learn. This book is not intended for use in preparation for the CCIE written qualifier exam, which is a very different test, covering much material that Cisco has expressly and publicly removed from the CCIE Lab Exam, such as IPX, ATM LAN Emulation, and Token Ring.

      As of the release of this Lulu Press edition, Cisco has announced that ISDN is soon no longer going to be tested on the Lab. I am sorry that I do not have the time now to rewrite the Scenarios to take out all reference to ISDN.

      The scenarios would, incidentally, serve as excellent lab material for the student preparing for the Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) Exam, which is required for the CCNP, CCDP, and CCIP certifications, as well as for theRouting and Switching Specialization for Cisco Partner resellers. The student could simply ignore the QOS tasks and other tasks that are obviously beyond the scope of the BSCI Exam, and enjoy some very challengingrouting labs.

      I designed the five practice scenarios in this book to teach crucial CCIE lessons, not to resemble the CCIE Lab Exam. Since I use an affordable lab topology that includes only one Catalyst 3550-EMI, it will never be said of any of these labs that, “it was just like the real lab exam.” I want readers to know this up front so that they will not expect scenarios that are “dry runs” of the Lab exam. My tasks involve very little cryptic language, so you will usually know what you need to do. You just may not know how to do it until you do some research or read my solution configuration scripts and explanations. Much of the value of this book lies in the explanations of the tasks that require explanations.

      The lessons run the gamut from efficient CLI practices, diagramming techniques, and technology-specific tricks and traps, to subtleties of route redistribution. I am obsessed with route redistribution. I found it challenging while preparing for the CCIE Lab Exam, and still find things to learn about it.

      CCIE Warm-Up Advice and Learning Labs .Pdf  | Download

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      Cisco Revising CCIE R&S Certification (V4.0 351-001)

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

      The upcoming Version 4.0 of Cisco CCIE® Routing and Switching certification will test hands-on troubleshooting, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), and VPN networking

      To reflect the growth of the network as a service platform, Cisco is revising the certification requirements for CCIE Routing & Switching (CCIE R&S)–the expert level certification for network engineers. The new requirements were developed with assistance from Cisco enterprise customers and reflect the expectations of employers across industries.

      The competencies required for CCIE R&S v4.0 certification were released on May 5, 2009, and are available on the Cisco Learning Network under the CCIE R&S v4.0 Written Exam topics and CCIE R&S v4.0 Lab Exam topics. Exams based on the new requirements are scheduled for release on October 18, 2009, and will immediately replace the currently available v3.0 exams. Candidates who plan to take their exams on October 18, 2009, or later should prepare usingthe new v4.0 exam topics.

      Both the written and lab exams will be refreshed with new questions and will cover MPLS and VPN networking. The written exam will add scenario-based questions to the multiple choice questions, and the lab will now require hands-on troubleshooting of preconfigured networks, in addition to configuration. Exam duration and pricing will remain the same, with the two-hour written exam at USD$350 and the eight-hour lab at USD$1400.

      A beta version of the new CCIE R&S v4.0 written exam (351-001) will be available to all customers in the July–August 2009 timeframe at a discounted price of USD$50. An announcement will be made when scheduling begins.

      Frequently Asked Questions

      1  -  Q: What exactly is being changed on the CCIE R&S written exam?

      A: The CCIE R&S v4.0 written exam will be refreshed with new questions to reflect the current job role expectations of employers. Scenario-based questions will be added to the multiple choice questions. New topics include the skills associated with planning and evaluating network changes, implementing MPLS, Layer 3 VPN, IPv6, EIGRP and multicast; and configuring performance-basedrouting.  More information is available on the CCIE Written Exam Overview page.

      2  -  Q: What exactly is being changed on the CCIE R&S lab exam?

      A: The CCIE R&S v4.0 lab exam will be refreshed with new questions to reflect the current job role expectations of employers. The equipment in the testing lab will be updated with Cisco 1800 and 3800 Series Integrated Services Routers running Cisco IOS® Software Version 12.4(T) and Cisco Catalyst® 3560 Series Switches running Cisco IOS Version 12.2 Advanced IP Services. The biggest change will be the testing of hands-on troubleshooting for the first two hoursof the eight-hour exam. Candidates will be presented with a series of trouble tickets for preconfigured networks, and they will need to diagnose and resolve the network fault or faults—a realistic and challenging job task. Candidates who finish the troubleshooting section early can move on to the configuration section, but they will not be allowed to go back to the troubleshooting section, since their equipment will need to be reinitialized for the configuration portionof the exam.

      To make time for new material, CCIE R&S v4.0 exams will put less emphasis on equipment operation and concepts generally understood at the professional level. These skills are still assumed, but will not be the sole objective of CCIE test questions. Go to the Lab Exam Study/Learn section for more information.

      3  -  Q: Now that the CCIE R&S v4.0 has been announced, can I still take the CCIE R&S v3.0 exam? How long will it be valid?

      A: The CCIE R&S v3.0 written exam will be available through October 17, 2009, at all Pearson VUE testing centers. Passing the v3.0 written exam qualifies a candidate to take any available version of the CCIE R&S lab exam. As with all CCIE written exams, a passing score on v3.0 written exam will remain valid for three years, as long as the candidate attempts the lab exam once within the first 18 months. If the lab is not attempted, thewritten exam becomes invalid and the candidate will have to retest using whatever written exam is available at that time.

      4  -  Q: If I take the CCIE R&S written beta test in July or August 2009, will I still be able to schedule the CCIE R&S v3.0 lab exam?

      A: Scores on CCIE written beta tests are not available until 4 to 6 weeks after the close of the beta period. At this time, there is no guarantee the CCIE R&S v3.0 lab exam will still be available when a beta test candidate receives his or her score. Beta testers should plan on taking the CCIE R&S v4.0 lab test to achieve certification.

      5  -  Q: If I don’t pass the CCIE R&S v4.0 written beta exam, can I take it again in five days?

      A: No, a candidate can only take a CCIE written beta test once during the beta testing period.

      6  -  Q: Will there be any changes to the recently-added Core Knowledge portion of the exam, the part with the short-answer questions?

      A: The questions in the Core Knowledge section of the lab exam may cover any area on the CCIE R&S v4.0 Lab Exam topics.

      7  -  Q: What can a candidate expect in the troubleshooting portion of the lab exam?

      A: Troubleshooting is allotted two of the eight hours required for the CCIE lab exam. Candidates will be presented with a series of trouble tickets for preconfigured networks and will need to diagnose and resolve the fault or faults. As with previous CCIE labs, the network will need to be up and running for the candidate to receive credit.  Candidates who finish the troubleshooting section early can move on to the configuration section, but they will not be allowed to go back to the troubleshooting section.

      8  -  Q: Does a candidate have to pass both the troubleshooting and configuration sections in order to pass the entire CCIE R&S v4.0 lab exam and earn a CCIE?

      A: Candidates will receive a single pass/fail grade on the entire exam, including both configuration and troubleshooting. Failing score reports will give an indication of where the candidate scored lower, to help the candidate prepare for another attempt.

      9  -  Q: Will the CCIE R&S mobile lab exam also be updated?

      A: Yes, CCIE R&S mobile labs use the same lab version as Cisco office locations, and they will switch to the v4.0 lab exam on October 18, 2009 as well.

      10  -  Q: Which exam will be used for recertification?

      A: As of October 18, 2009, CCIEs who take the CCIE R&S written exam for recertification will be given the v4.0 exam and should prepare using the exam topics found on the Cisco Learning Network.

      11  -  Q: Are the previous Cisco 360 components applicable to the CCIE R&S v4.0 exams? Should candidates studying for CCIE R&S v4.0 exams wait forthe new Cisco 360 materials to begin work?

      A: The learning components available at first launch of Cisco 360 are still relevant to candidates studying for the CCIE R&S v4.0 certification exams. No Cisco 360 Learning Program components are being retired.  There is no need for candidates to wait for revised Cisco 360 material to begin their study and practice. The subscription model ensures that Cisco 360 customers can take advantage of all new content as it is released and do not need to wait.

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      Troubleshooting and its Role in the new CCIE Blueprints

      Certification Track, Certification Vendors, CISCO, General Certification

      Troubleshooting has always been a part of the CCIE lab in one form or another. Whether we look back to the days when the lab was a 2-day lab and the 2nd half of the 2nd day was entirely set aside for troubleshooting, or moving to the 1-day format where your own careless mistakes could mean you were in for a world of debugging to see what you did wrong, or even more recently up until now where Cisco began building small inherent errors into your initial configurations and then giving you a heads up with a task and points associated to fixing it. By the way, for you conspiracy theorists out there, they put the errors in before you get to your lab – and NO, they do not perform any ‘live’ error introduction while you are inside of your 8 hours, thus my word “inherent”.

      Well moving on from those days till now, we come up against a new blueprint change recently for Voice and Security. This past year at Cisco Live! Networkers ‘08, we got to talking with a fewof the Cisco Content Managers for various tracks (mainly Voice and Security) and also listening to their presentations and Q&A time with the crowds after the Techtorials. What we very solidly came to understand was that it is Cisco’s goal moving forward with the CCIE program to largely increase the amount of troubleshooting they request the candidate to perform, hoping to increase the amount of expertise they garner from said candidate while they have them captive in the lab. I mean let’s face it, configuration is absolutely necessary and fundamental – no one is contesting that – but without a solid understanding and ability to troubleshoot, that knowledge only goes so far in the field.

      Simply put, the ability for an engineer to be able to troubleshoot effectively in the field is paramount. So now Cisco hopes to certify you ability not only to configure well, but also troubleshoot errors that they might have put there for you. Just the same as if you walked into a situation with a client on a network that you had never seen – you would need to be able to perform there as well.

      This is the reason behind our decisions to not only mirror the new v3 blueprints for both Voice and Security, but to breakout each section into sub-sections – A & B. The A part of any given section deals with the configuration of a given technology, but the B partof the given section deals with troubleshooting that technology.

      For more of a convincing argument simply take a look at the new v3 Voice blueprint and take a look at every section header. Notice that every section begins with “Implement and Troubleshoot”.

      Now candidates may ask themselves if they really have time to debug protocols and look at traces (in the case of Voice) while in the CCIE lab. Many candidates that have gone before and ultimately passed have argued in favor of both views, some that there is time enough, and others that there simply isn’t. The argument for not having enough time has been loudest argued (at least that I have heard) by Voice candidates who, up until now, have had so many menial building-block tasks to accomplish to get to the stage to be able to configure the more complex technologies. While I believe that there was very little time in the previous lab for such a thing, I still think there was in fact time, but believe that in the new formatof the lab where much more emphasis (and points) are placed on troubleshooting, that you will be given more time to do so. This might mean that the proctors have prepared a lab for you in which many of the more menial tasks that take up a great deal of time, but don’t necessarily prove expertise (registering phones, assigning line text labels, etc), are already configured for you and built into the “Initial” configuration when you go to sit down and begin the lab. How much time you have fortroubleshooting also largely depends on your familiarity and comfort level with debugging and trace output. So if you haven’t found that “comfort” (oxymoron?) with them yet, time to dig in and get comfortable – you’re going to need to be!

      Source

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