So Much Information: Part Two
By Jared Scrivener on Thursday, April 9, 2009 10:47Well, I’ve had a lot of requests for the follow up to my post last year, So Much Information: Part One. The focus of that post, which I strongly recommend you read, was on how to properly prepare for the CCIE Written exam for the Routing and Switching track so that you take away from that preparation enough knowledge to begin practicing for your lab exam.
The purpose of this post is to articulate the various resources that I would suggest the use of in preparing for your lab exam. This includes a variety of resources including the Cisco online documentation, various Cisco Press titles that didn’t fit in to my previous article and of course, IPexpert training materials.
I’d like to create a study path here to reference, that continues on from the point of passing the written exam and would be a feasible pace for most students. I am aware that it’s difficult to make a one size fits all plan as everyone has their own constraints with respect to their path, so I’ve opted to articulate a plan that is very similar to the path that I’ve taken for each of my CCIE labs, tailored to the R&S track. Using this approach let’s consider how to go from passing the written, to taking the lab.
So let’s assume that you’ve just returned home from the testing center, with your written exam results in hand and it’s time to consider setting aside the time and money to convert that written exam into a CCIE number. Before scheduling a lab date, take some time to get a sense of the cost of the lab exam. By that I don’t just mean the cost of the lab exam itself. I mean the cost of the materials, the travel, the accommodation, the training and the costs of potentially taking multiple attempts (the average is around 3 attempts to pass). These costs can add up, but remember the other cost – time.
The journey from the written exam to the lab can take anywhere from 3 months to many years. The amount of time you can commit on a daily or weekly basis will play a large role in how long that process will take. Everyone has different family, work and social commitments that factor into their calculation of time and different expectations for how long the process may take. Understand what time horizons are acceptable for you and keep them in the back of your mind as you design a study path. Set yourself a rough date (i.e October 2009) for when you’d like to achieve your lab and then read through this article to work out what methods may assist to prepare you in that time.
The first study tool I’d suggest using, as I did, is the IPexpert Blended Learning Solution, which contains all of our self study products – technology focused labs, multiprotocol labs, mock labs, video and audio classes on demand, video solutions, the works. Every CCIE student needs a set of lab workbooks written to give them opportunities to learn both specific technologies and how they’ll integrate together into a mock lab. From IPexpert, I generally recommend purchasing the complete set of workbooks bundled together with the other self-study products due to the savings associated with bundling.
Phase One: Once your workbooks arrive open them up and skim through them to get a grasp of the topics that you’ll be learning in the coming months. Focus predominantly on the technology focused workbook, reading through the different topics and noticing the topics where you have strengths and those where you need practice. To begin your preparation I suggest starting on those labs that correlate to your weaker topics as that will give you the most value from your study hours.
Work through the technology focused labs, allow yourself to refer to the accompanying solution guide (IPexpert provides these with each lab) when you get stuck or aren’t sure of the answer to a question. Configure each section as required using each of the “show” commands to verify your answers. As you configure each section, look up each and every command in the Command Reference and where possible, the Configuration Guide for that topic on the Cisco Documentation starting from http://www.cisco.com/web/psa/products/index.html just like in your actual lab.
While you repeat this process for each technology focused lab, over a month or two you’ll gain significant benefits both from comfort with the commands for each technology and from fluency in navigating the documentation. When you’ve done this for each technology you need configuration experience with, read through the solutions guide for each of the other technology focused labs that you don’t need to configure as you may find a few unfamiliar commands buried within them.
Phase Two: The purpose of Phase One was to gain fluency with the documentation whilst simultaneously gaining experience in unfamiliar topics. The purpose of Phase Two is to start integrating technologies together and to hone in on weaknesses and supplement them. The products I’d suggest you use here are multiprotocol labs in an 8-hour format similar to your actual lab. These are included inside IPexpert’s Blended Learning Solution and can be purchased separately. Work through each of these labs starting from the first one. As you discover new commands look each of them up on Cisco’s website as was done in Phase One. Pay attention to the areas that catch you out. In addition to the books listed in my prior article, there are a few that will offer some supplemental benefit at this stage of your preparation.
If you are finding that you are having challenges with routing protocols, the following book is excellent with respect to its methodology and detail in helping troubleshoot routing protocol issues.
If you are finding that you are having challenges with WAN technologies, the following book is a great resource by providing a process for troubleshooting them and detailed explanations.
Troubleshooting Remote Access Networks (CCIE Professional Development) by Plamen Nedeltchev.
Finally, for additional help with switching read the latest IOS Configuration Guide for the 3560 switch (and the QOS section for the 3550 switch).
This phase involves the configuration of about 5 to 10 multiprotocol labs over the course of a few weeks to a few months depending on how comfortable you become.
Phase Three: The third phase of lab preparation is where the prior preparation gets integrated into lab readiness. For those who can afford to this is where I’d highly recommend attendance in a boot camp. Whilst I have an inherent bias towards the IPexpert Instructor Led Boot Camp which I used both as a student and teach now, there are a few things to look for from a course. The purpose of a boot camp at this point in your preparation is to tie together the knowledge and experience you have already gained and to polish and prepare you for the final stage before your lab exam. Ideally, the course will be about 4-8 weeks prior to your real lab date so that you have time to polish or rectify any areas identified by yourself and the instructor after the course that you need improvement on.
A boot camp should provide you with a detailed strategy for taking the lab exam, it should explain to you the many different technologies you’ll encounter in the lab and how they interact with other protocols and it should give you a chance to demonstrate configuration of each technology with an instructor to assist you. This environment combining theory, hands-on and strategy is the best way to integrate your knowledge and prepare you to be ready to take a lab exam.
For those of you who don’t have the opportunity to take a class, I’d suggest continuing to work through multiprotocol labs and additionally watching the Video Class on Demand utilizing frank self assessment to recognize your progress or knowledge gaps.
Phase Four: The final phase which normally lasts 2-8 weeks is the period after a boot camp or immediately prior to your exam where you should polish any topics that you feel least comfortable on. This might require going back to your textbooks for additional reading, posting questions in forums (such as www.onlinestudylist.com) or configuring some ad hoc labs to specifically test and understand the technologies you need confidence on. I generally spend most of this phase reading through lab solutions guides to get comfortable with the wording of questions and to maintain my fluency at recognizing commands and what function they achieve. I’d suggest doing a handful (maybe 5 to 10) of the most difficult mock labs you can find during this period to ensure that you’ve tested yourself as strictly as possible prior to your lab date.
This approach I’ve articulated should take about 2-8 weeks for Phase One, about 2-8 weeks for Phase Two, about 2-4 weeks for Phase Three and about 2-8 weeks for Phase Four. That’s a timeline of about 3 to 7 months from passing the written exam to passing your lab exam.
If you have any questions please email me at jscrivener@ipexpert.com.
Cheers,
Jared
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