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