Paralyzed.

As the title says, this is how being a CCIE candidate can feel sometimes, most times - all the time.

My wife, she is a Neonatal nurse, work in the NICU. Basically she works with the premature babies that are born and can start an IV in veins that are the size and thickness of a needle....using a needle. While that is impressive in itself, it's not what I wanted to say but hey there it is.

My REAL point is this. Her and I were talking and our daily conversation always ends up with me talking about the CCIE, bless her heart for dealing with it. We were talking about College and nursing school. When most people go to college, some know what they want, some don't. She knew she was going to nursing school after college (that's how it is 3 years college, finish with 2 years nursing school) she basically took things one year at a time.

She did not have a FULL blueprint of EVERYTHING she had to learn before she could graduate.

I seperated that above line to toss a point out there. I don't know if knowing or not knowing EVERYTHING you have to do is a good or bad thing. On one hand, if everything is given to you then you can set the pace and milestones for how you want to tackle it.

On the other hand if you don't know and have some kind of "structure" of a class environment spoon feeding you information and only giving you pieces, don't know if this good or not.

Either way, it's tough. There is so much damn information on the CCIE RS that it can paralyze you. So much information that even though you know what you got to do, it's hard to do it as what you do makes such small tiny tiny dents in the overall scheme of things in terms of your learning.

Yikes. Some people know what I am talking about, some people don't. Either way

THE CCIE AIN'T NO SIPPIN TEA.

Basically sippin tea vs non sippin tea means that instead of sipping on some beverage, you pound it down as quick as possible.

XMAS and the CCIE

Xmas is coming. I had family in town this week so it was hard to study. I am on Ch 8 of the CCIE RS 4th edition. This chapter covers OSPF which I am well familiar with, but hitting the review pieces.

The LSA's are always tricky and this covers that nicely.

Here are the highlights of LSA

LSA type:
1 - Router. Lists RID and all interface IP add, shows stub networks as well.

2 - Network. One type 2 per *"transit" (see below) network . Created by the DR on the subnet, this shows what subnets and router interfaces connected to the subnet.

3- Net summary - Created by ABR's to show one area's type 1 AND type 2 LSA's when advertised into another area. Defines the subnets (the links) in the origin area AND cost - but contains NO TOPOLOGY data.

4- ASBR Summary - This is close to a LSA type 3. Except it advertises a host route that can be used to reach an ASBR. Basically, this says where the ASBR is located and how to get to it.

5- AS External - ASBR's create this for routes injected from an external network that is something other than OSPF. Like RIP into OSPF or something like that.

7- NSSA External -Created by the ASBR's INSIDE AN NSSA AREA instead of a TYPE 5 LSA. Basically, type 5's don't exist until they hit the backbone (area 0) which are converted from type 7 TO a type 5. Fun yes?

10 - I leave this one alone, MPLS traffic engineering. Nuff said.

* Transit network is where 2 or more OSPF routers became neighbors AND elected a DR. This is so traffic can pass through.

I know these, but I tell you there is a lot of documentation on this that is wrong. The RFC tells the truth which is where I got most of my information. Cisco, obviously has the NSSA which is a Cisco only feature, but the rest is fair game.

CCIE RS 4th edition explains it as well, which uses some of the same wording in some ways to explain it.

Some side notes:

LSA type 2 is NOT generated if there is no DR.

I tell you, OSPF no matter how long you work with it, learn about it keeps going with the concepts. It's easy to forget how the MASTER/SLAVE relationship works or what the Neighbor states are.

I'll post those now while im typing away. Actually, I changed my mind time to leave work :)

-Nick

FOCUS - Take the written SOON.

Silence. That's what's been happening with me. I *finally* found work, although only for 4 month contract...
So I *revised* my study schedule.

On drive to work I listen to Audio on Demand from Ipexpert and Internetwork expert. I rotate the 2 every week to get different perspective on things.
I study during lunch, I eat at my desk go to my car and study for 50 minutes.
I drive home, listen to more audio on demand. My commute is about 40 minutes to an hour each way.

I get home, hand out with the wife we eat then I study for 2 hours.
Rinse and repeat.....

Right now I am *100%* focused on reading the CCIE routing and switch certification guide 4th edition cover to cover. I started on Monday (12-14-09) and have already covered 4 chapters, which covered Layer 1 stuff like pin outs, layer 2 stuff like VLAN's, VTP, Etherchannels, trunking etc to IP addresses and subnetting. Stuff that by now I pretty much can do without blinking, which is nice.

However, things will slow down as I venture into IP services and all the IGP's and get to BGP. I have already circled the "basics" to every technology on the CCIE RS blueprint (using INE's "expanded CCIE rs 4x blueprint") and on a lot of things like OSPF, RIP, EIGRP I feel very advanced on. BGP, well I can do basic peering and some intermediate stuff but that's something I am working on.

I spent a LOT of time labbing and getting a feel for the technologies, and now I am going for the written. The CCIE RS 4th edition was specifically geared for the written so that's what I am using.

FOCUS and dominate. The written I have to concentrate on, read this CCIE RS 4th edition cover to cover multiple times and make sure I can pass the written on 1st try so I can go schedule my lab and pass that on the first try......:) :) :)

Until then, that's where I am at.

Right now, it's quiet time, read in my office time, read while im at work SATURATE myself with information no matter what I am doing - and remember to take breaks :)
-Nick

"I passed the CCIE RS v4 lab"

"I passed the CCIE RS v4 lab"

Ok yea, so you are here. You are wondering about this question aren't you?

You went on google and found this didn't you:

"Did anyone pass the v4 lab yet?"

Let me be clear - NO I did NOT pass the v4 lab, but since you are so curious let's talk about your obsession and really how worrying about what someone else has failed or passed.

Remember back when the CCIE RS was a 2 day lab? Then it went to one day and people FREAKED OUT saying it's impossible to pass. They overcame that. Flash forward to version 3.0 people said the same thing "no way". They passed it eventually. Same thing here, it's another version with it's own set of challenges. Are you going to sit there and CRY about it or you going to actually attack it? I want to be one of the "early adopters" of the version 4.0 so I can show it CAN be done and it WILL be done.


So I have been asked this question "Who has passed the version 4 CCIE RS lab ?" I have heard this question asked on study lists, forums etc etc etc etc all over the net.

I wondered about it briefly but then realized who cares? My discipline and study regiment I believe will carry me through. Someone else passes, ok how does that help me? It doesn't.

If someone passes or fails - does that mean you will? You can't compare what someone elses statistics regarding a pass or fail will do for you. Granted this is a new format, and even I am guilty of asking this question as well, but I am through with that. :)

I focus on my studies, identify weak areas and be "realistic" about what I know I can do and areas where I feel weak. I feel many people go into the lab ADMIT they were weak on technology x then get that technology on exam day. I am just another candidate who pays extremely close attention to what other candidates do and either learn by mistakes or absorb what "worked for them" and adapt it to my own style.

Don't know that's a rally speech or a venting session but that's how I feel about it.

So there you have it, my feelings on it. Love it or hate it I keep it real.

:)

-Nick

1st lab, workbook 1 ipexpert BLS

I finished my lab.

I actually did pretty amazing on it. There were 2 parts that did get me though.

"Ensure that the VTP management domain name is not advertised via CDP from R1"

Well, I knew what it was - but for some reason it seemed to obvious to me so I left it off haha.

The second one was configure telnet and use a password of ip?expert

Go ahead and try it.

It won't work - not unless you hit CTRL-V THEN the ? which apparently is some unix command and I found this very annoying. It was a small task.

16 tasks with many subtasks and I only missed 1 task and one subtask.

This lab was very intricate, but not really "hard" It just required a lot of thinking. There were issues with creating vlan 2300, which wasn't allowed on a switch in VTP server mode and I had to use transparent. That ended up breaking a few things and I had to shut/no shut a bunch of stuff.

I need to get faster though, the Layer 2 stuff is the most important foundation - but I need to just get faster at carving out my vlans.

I am really happy with my progres, I ACTUALLY feel like I am making progress.

So my grade that I got if taking a percentage is 88% if I was just taking away 2 tasks, that really didn't have any dependencies so they didn't "break" anything.

Until next time, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! GOBBLE GOBBLE

Lab workbooks.

As I get closer to my CCIE RS written exam at the end of December, I decided to hit the layer 2 topics hard with verification of my knowledge. To do this, I am doing some practice labs from my buddies at Ipexpert.com I am using the Volume 1 labs. Some would say I should do the written study guide, but I learn by doing and makes me understand better. For my CCNA and CCNP I took this approach and passed each exam on the 1st try, although I had only a minute to spare on my BCMSN exam, that was a beast! So in staying in line with that format, I decided to try it for the CCIE RS written. I know I have to be heavy on theory and I have been. I have read Doyle Routing TCP volume 1 practically cover to cover, and I am getting around to volume 2. I have read a lot of RFC's, read the CCIE RS 3rd edition cert guide among other resources such as Cisco.com

I want to have some fun now, and for me configuration is where the action is!

I will be doing lab 1 and lab 2. Lab 1 is supposed to be 1 to 2 hours and Lab 2 is supposed to be 3-4 hours. These cover layer 2 topics such as:

• Etherchannel
• Vlan Trunking
• VTP
• 802.1x
• Spanning-tree
• Port-security
• RSPAN
• Private VLAN's
• VLAN Maps

I feel very comfortable with the first 3 topic. 802.1x I am a bit fuzzy on, but I know how to set it up at least on a basic level. Spanning tree, I am good on, not great. Port-security I am pretty good on.

RSPAN - never touched it before.
Private VLAN's - same
VLAN Maps, I have done some of these - it's been a while.

I just got a bunch of sessions from ipexpert.com and so I shall begin at 1pm pacific time to 8:45pm pacific time. I believe I can get through Lab 1 and Lab 2 in that amount of time, but we will see.

I'll post back my results :) For now, I printed out the 2 labs and I will be looking them over tonight analyzing for anything that will give me trouble so that tomorrow when the rack session begins I won't waste any time. I will dump this format for the actual full blown practice labs, as I will not look at them at all until it's time for the lab - just like the real thing.

I also won't be printing those out. I will be using my 22" widescreen monitor to keep everything on screen, lab workbook, telnet session, topologies etc. Just like the v4 blueprint exam. I know it's not the most efficient way to do it, and I hope Cisco fixes that, gives a second monitor at least.

Anyway, it's PIZZA TIME and you can't hold me back from that. Pizza is life!



-Nick

Anthony Sequeira, #15626 gave good advice


"...Like the lab itself, when you look at the whole thing, it is very intimidating, but when you break it up into small verifiable pieces – it is manageable."

I keep in sight at all times, CCIE studies are daunting at best and the sheer amount of information keeps descending onto the brain. Breaking out the individual pieces makes it easier to digest.

That's all I got to say on that.

:)

PS, I don't know what the HELL I keep getting these adds from known "dump sites" like what's below. I am trying to fix this as we speak.

Play it again sam.

1.10 Implement Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

X (a) 802.1d

(b) 802.1w

(c) 802.1s

(d) Loop guard

(e) Root guard

(f) Bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) guard

(g) Storm control

(h) Unicast flooding

(i) Port roles, failure propagation, and loop guard operation

This is what I am doing. I am looking at this blueprint, and since I have already gone through most of the v.4 once in good detail, I decided I will START OVER.

Why? It just feels like the right thing to do. I originally went through the v4 blueprint on my own without knowledge of the "expanded" blueprint on http://blog.internetworkexpert.com/2009/05/12/ccie-rs-4x-expanded-study-blueprint/

After looking at my "blueprint" compared to that one above, I realized I was lacking in many areas. So rather than trying to "fill in the gaps" by chasing down everything and figuring out "Did I cover that" I am just going to start from the beginning and nail everything down.

What's the point in all this? Right now, I am still working on my CCIE RS written. However, I am a practical hands on guy so I learn by doing really. I have Routing TCP/IP v1 2nd edition and Volume 2 as well. I have MPLS Fundamentals. Those books I mentioned are in hard copy. I have soft copies of troubleshooting routing protocols, qos certification guide and a soft copy of the CCIE RS guide 3rd edition. The 4th edition comes out in the first part of December '09.

As I take a look at what I just wrote, I should mention if you are going after the CCIE RS you should be WELL aware of tcp/ip v1 and v2 as they are the bibles. Read those cover to cover, I have done so ONCE. I don't know if I could do it again! I do however, open up to specific sections I need to know about like my favorite BGP. The most pain in the ass protocol in the entire world. Some people like it, I do like it actually but there is SO much to it!

Alright, getting sidetracked so back on point. The reason why I started over is to see what I remember and more importantly what I don't remember. If I am fuzzy on something but not quite "there" then at least I do remember it.

Last night I studied for 1 hour and I learned one single thing.

802.1d STP. That's it, how it works and what it does. Dropping trees on redundant links. So simple, yet there are entire books dedicated to the design of STP. I am not just talking about 802.1d I am also referring to all the other flavors of STP as well.

So that's where I am at, the very very bottom of the list. Nailing layer 2 as that is critical to getting layer 3 going. In the lab, if you don't have good layer 2 connectivity you are screwed as it can break everything else like ospf, bgp etc. Yea, not good.

That's all I got, figured I share.

Starting over is hard, but knowing it's the right thing to do is easy.

Ahh yes. You hear that sound? It's the sound of coins dropping into my pocket :). I got a contract job as an "Consultant". Yes, very very vague as to what that is. Basically, it's an all in one package, servers, network, applications etc.

I shall have to push ye CCIE written back though, my original goal was Dec 15th 2009, but I might be able to squeeze it in at the end of the year.

In other news, looking at the expanded blueprint for the CCIE RS v4.0 I took what I have for my browser homepage, and edited it for one note.

http://blog.internetworkexpert.com/2009/05/12/ccie-rs-4x-expanded-study-blueprint/

That link above shows the expanded v4.0 CCIE RS blueprint, however I still added yet more to it. Under VTP, I added all the modes as the link above just had transparent mode. I added Client and Server. Also added creation of Vlan's, access ports, trunk ports etc. I am really just breaking it out into tiny tasks as my time is going to get cut very short now that I will start working on Nov 30th 09.

Here is a screen cap of my one note, you'll see it's empty as this is just showing you what you can do with one note. I can also "tag" certain subjects and sync that to outlook (I hate outlook btw) and have it "remind" you on certain tasks. That's all fine, but I don't use it. I just stay on point :)


Click on the picture so it's clear :) Otherwise, it's fuzzy and you'll be mad at me :)


At any rate, that is just a couple of sub sections from the Layer 2 portion of the CCIE RS v4.0 blueprint. Even though INE broke it down, I think it needs to be really broken down into smaller tasks. There is so much to cover it really does boggle the mind. I also need to book a lot of rack time with www.ipexpert.com, but looks like weekends and late weeknights will be what will have to work for me...

What else? Hmm, I think I am done. Bye!

-Nick

FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!

Yes, I said FASTER. Since march 2009 when I started my CCNA through my CCNP and now on my CCIE I have wanted FASTER learning. Well, I have at least tackled one part of this problem: Videos.

Yes, videos. More importantly speeding up videos. I have to read and watch a TON of content, which helps keep content fresh but also keeps me from getting bored, always a good thing.

What I do right now is I watch videos at 1.5x the normal speed. If you are watching something like TrainSignal or CBT Nuggets or other material in Microsoft Media player you can try this out yourself.

I am using Windows Media 11, but I believe this feature works on version 10 as well.

Click on "Now Playing" > "Enhancements" and then "Play Speed settings"

A slider will now appear in the lower left hand corner. You can adjust it to whatever you want, I use around 1.5x or faster depending on the content.

If you watch TrainSignal CCNA or CCNP Videos, you will note that "Chris Bryant CCIE number One Two Nine Three Three" is from the south. Now, I am not saying anything bad about southerners as my Wife's family is from Louisiana so this is not a toss at Chris Bryant. The reason I bring him up in particular as he talks pretty slow, below the normal speed I am used to. I am out in the Los Angeles area in CA and people out here we speak much faster as we are always busy and on the run. Well, my study time reflects this I want to know stuff fast fast FAST! I get complaints on instant messenger that I type to quickly, but really I am like that in life as well.

So what do we do about it? We speed things up - in this case video.

Now I have to say something about the speeding up, in some cases the "pitch" will be preserved where other times it will not. My laptop works great and preserves the pitch - so Chris Bryant will sound like Chris Bryant but will talk much much faster but his voice doesn't sound like a chipmunk. He knows what he's talking about that's for sure and I learned a lot from him for my CCNA and CCNP studies along with CBT Nugget's Jeremy Ciaora.

My other machine in the office has same installation of Media 11 yet when I speed it up, it sounds like a chipmunk. I can't figure out why.

After doing this method for close to a year now, It's PAINFUL to listen to stuff at normal speed. Try it out at 1.5x speed for an hour, let your mind adjust and then go back to normal. It will torture you big time.

I say again, this helped me out a TON and other people I should try this for watching shows I like to watch, but not sure about that haha.

Hope it helps you out.

-Nick

Version 4 - expanded blueprint. :)

Quick post. It seems that I have found my new best friend. This is from internetworkexpert.com, and as you know I use Ipexpert.com material. However, since I don't see this on ipexpert website I found this to be MOST helpful at the time being.

What is it? It's a expanded blueprint, or what I call a "Realistic Blueprint" as the CCIE RS blueprint version 4.0 as it stands now is pretty vague. Just take a look at the IPV4 section 2.40 of OSPF and you'll see what I mean. It's HUGE once it's broken out like this:

http://blog.internetworkexpert.com/2009/05/12/ccie-rs-4x-expanded-study-blueprint/

Enjoy!

-Nick

Alrighty, so right when you think I am done with OSPF Joe Astorino over at IPexpert.com stirs up my thought patterns in my brain and causes me to rethink OSPF LSA's. I am still digesting it now, but here is the link to the article.

http://blog.ipexpert.com/2009/11/04/ospf-type-4-lsa-the-forward-address-part-1/

The main Focus for me is the following quote:

"Let’s talk about the ASBR and the type-4 LSA. This is a topic that seems to confuse many people. Doing a quick Google search will turn up plenty of results claiming that a type-4 LSA is generated by the ASBR. This is simply not true. The type-4 LSA is generated by an ABR. The purpose of it is simply to inform other areas of next-hop information for the ASBR. In other words, it is injected into other areas by the ABR so that routers in other areas know how to get to external routes through the ASBR."

I'll let that digest for a while as I contemplate my next move.

Car problems:

In other news, my Wife's Ford Explorer fuel pump took a nice large steamy pile of crap (hey I am very descriptive ok?) so $1345.00 for the repair today. $55 dollars shy of a Lab attempt! Yea, I am pretty mad about it but I can't do anything about it. 15 years ago, I was studying for my ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) and decided not to do it and went into IT, so I know a lot about cars, but somethings like taking the gas tank out and dropping the axle out and replacing all that stuff - I just don't have the equipment for that, so I have to pay them to do it.

Studying:

So ok - I am done talking about that. I also took 2 FULL days off to re center myself. I have been studying like a beast and I needed a good break. I think it will do me good, it's 4:30pm and I am just about to crack open Doyle's "Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 second edition" to read more on IPv6, since that is one of my weak areas. Turns out, IPv6 is not that bad which is welcome in the CCIE RS blueprint where everything it seems can be a large list of tasks to get things working right. Ipv6 while yes it's got a lot to it, it's just different.

Trying to get things going so I can get my CCIE RS written done by December 15th 2009, but as you find out things such as stupid car problems and life in general can slow you down. Right now, I am on target to meet this goal but with Thanksgiving coming up, having to go out of town etc - I hope I can still achieve this.

-Nick

CCIE - 1 million clams coming for you.

I was talking with someone earlier today, we were having a discussion on network security. He uses internetworkexpert, I use IPexpert. He asked me what was on there.

I said it's a crapload of everything, aaa, zone base FW, COPP, IOs fw, ssh, nat, 802.x, IPS, ACL......enough to piss off an army of clams.

I then told him this:

Imagine 1 million little tiny clams all chasing after you - they are wearing no clothes with a bullseye on your "package"

Each clam on it's own seems cute and harmless, until they team up and start owning everyone in town.

At this point I practically fell out of my chair dying of laughter as I just started getting giddy.

That's what the CCIE does to you folks, makes army of cute little defenseless clams create armies and come after your nuts. :)

Run!

So the history of what I've been doing and what makes this blog exist is simple and can be explained in one word - CISCO.

I started Cisco certification back in march of 2009. I obtained my CCNA on May 15th, 2009. I then went after the CCNP, which I obtained on September 2nd, 2009 just a few days short of my birthday.

So here I am it's November 2009 and right after getting my CCNP, I took 2 weeks off and then started on the CCIE RS track. For those of you who dare go after this thing, I warn you and ask that you really sit down for a moment and ask "Why?".

Why? The question is simple, the answer complex. If the first thing you said was money - then quit now and go away. You really really really (really) have to like networking and working on Cisco equipment (really enjoy it, really) to be able to seriously consider the CCIE.

CCIE for me so far has been life changing. What I mean by this is my time was already stacked against me with work, wife, friends and sleep. 85% of my free time was spent studying for the CCNA/CCNP and that same holds true for the CCIE.

The more you know the more you DON'T know, is the best way I can put studying for the CCIE. It's a mental exercise in frustration a MENTAL BEAT DOWN OF WILL that will TORMENT YOU IN EVERY MOMENT AWAKE OR NOT.

Yay, my blog won't let me un bold text so now you get to see over emphasized text. Aren't you happy?

The CCIE RS (I am sure it's the same with other tracks) is something that you cannot forget about. You can take a break but in the back of your mind you are saying "Man, I got to study, I need to learn about BGP regular expressions, I wonder how to manipulate a route this way or that way ...YEA" this will happen regardless of situation.......trust me.

You can be at a movie - you are thinking about it. You can be elsewhere behind closed doors, it shall cross your mind.

So if you still reading at this point, hey that's great. I am not going to post the ins and outs and rehash everything that has been said before you can hit many many sites that will do this. My first CCIE I read was "So you wanna be a CCIE" and then went to www.ccieguide.com I warn you this is a pretty lengthy read, but really hits a lot of good points, and it's by Scott Morris. If you don't know that name, you will soon it's a household name with CCIE's and those are are a good way through the CCIE studies. You will just happen to come across articles, responses on forums or whatever - Scott is everywhere it seems.

That's all I got for now, I was going to go off on something else, but I forgot what it was. Studying for the CCIE will do that to you.

CCIE Chase. In the beginning....

My first blog, ever. Yeah that's right it's so old school yet how else am I supposed to yap on how much a pain in the ass the CCIE is? Hmmm?

-Nick