Go CCIE Go!! - A Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert

Thanks for all the replies i am getting for this huge post. I hope this helps many aspirants as well, i was one of them a week ago. I am always open for any queries or questions you have. It would be great if the brian’s would reply or comment on to my strategy about how i used their products.
… after this post i have noticed a huge surge of visits on my website as well … a week ago it was 246, now its over 3000
Regards,
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Ash Garg wrote: > Thanks Farhan, your fantastic post closely reflects where I am and how I > hope to move towards those elusive digits! > > There is till hope for me yet! > > Kind Regards, > Ash > > > > > —–Original Message—– > From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of > Farhan Anwar > > Sent: Sunday, 27 January 2008 12:27 PM > To: Cisco certification > Subject: How i became CCIE — caution Huge Post > > > > Hi All, > > Since my last post regarding my CCIE# i have received countless > unicasts from different professionals asking for advice on how to > start their studies and how i did it in the first attempt. Finally > since I am still resting and evaluating Job Offers in my mailbox , > I have decided to write my journey towards becoming a ccie. I couldn’t > find any better place than the GS itself so pardon me if you don’t > like the size of it. Here it goes, pardon me for any typos and NO I > don’t work for any workbook vendor , telling ya straight. > > I started preparing for the CCIE roughly 4 years ago when i did the > CCIE Routing & Switching Training from a local institute during my > studies. But then I entered in the professional field, got married > and things slowed down to a halt due to my OTHER activities. > > I started my personal goal again over 1.5 years ago but things were > going very slow, until i finally decided to take CCIE Certification > Seriously and devote time and resources to it, i started studying in > nights and on whole weekends. For Practicing I was in search of > low-cost lab equipment when a friend told me about dynamips as a Cisco > 7200 Router Simulator; i was impressed with the performance and its > ease of use. I immediately started searching for its features, > configuration settings and found a detailed article from Brian Mcghan > of internetworkexpert explaining dynamips, furthermore the HACKI’s > forum was very much helpful in the initial stages of dynamips / > dynagen experiences. > > I tuned, tweaked and optimized dynamips configuration files and idlepc > values for one month while practicing my Routing Techniques on it, and > it was in JANUARY 2007. A CCIE Friend told me about > internetworkexpert.com. And also about the groupstudy.com, At that > time I didn’t have a clear view of what to study how to do it and what > to practice for the CCIE due to a number of topics being covered in > the R&S Program. Brian’s detailed CCIE R&S Topics list in their Free > Resources section helped me enormously till the last day for tracking > my performance and topics to cover. > > I already had a strong base in IGP and BGP but i was weak in Advanced > Switching, QoS, Security and Multicasting. For getting an edge in > non-core topics i reviewed KnowledgeNet QoS and Multicast. I polished > my security and Switching skills using the Cisco DocCD. > > Afterwards, i started viewing Class on Demand Videos of Internetwork > Expert. After digesting that video of several hours in one month by > seeing it again and again. I started doing Advanced Technology Labs on > Dynamips. It took me another one and a half month to finish them off > completely and tuning Dynamips Topological File for Advanced > Technology Labs, i changed the interfaces, switch connections and > frame-relay topology to suit my needs. Some Tasks were not supported > in Dynamips such as Dot1x Tunneling, VLAN ACLs, RSPAN, Dynamic > Trunking etc. so i skipped them and lateron rented a rack several > times for practicing those specific topics. During this time, i > reviewed the CoD countless times to gain a deeper understanding of > technologies. > > My next move was to purchase a dedicated dynamips server to support my > topology as my laptop was not enough for it, i purchased an AMD Athlon > 64 4400+ with 2 GiG RAM as a dynamips server machine. Here Scott > Vermillion came to the rescue as I was using Windows as my primary OS > but I failed miserably in running the full topology, Scott insisted > and encouraged me to use linux as at that time he was using MacOSX. > You can find my huge post in the GS Archives. > > I started doing the Core-Labs as my next move to improve my IGP, BGP > and Redistribution skills, additional one month just for the 10 Labs, > they surely were hard as i think now . Core Labs were done easily > done on the Dynamips Server that i had purchased because they focused > on IGP, Redistribution and BGP the most. Switching was mostly simple > and when i was stuck with an unsupported task, i always skipped it and > did them later on a rented rack if I had the chance. > > Finally i started R&S Workbook Labs, the first five labs were just > warm up labs as the authors said but they looked really hard to me at > the first glance, they can be done using Dynamips but some tasks were > skipped in Switching. Initially it took me 3 days to finish only one > lab with research on every topic. When i reached Lab5 i gained speed, > accuracy and got familiar with most of the problems. Lab5 was done in > 13 Hours in first attempt on my dynamips. > > I continued doing the workbook labs 6,7,8,9 and 10. The hardest of all > was Lab 7 which again took me two days to figure out. After finishing > Lab10 i almost knew all of the problems and i could solve most of the > tasks at the back of my head. Labs 11 - 13 i did with a pencil just to > save some time. Then I did all the remaining 14 b 20 Labs. Next, I > rented rack equipment and did several labs on them again. Again My > CCIE friend came to rescue and generously gave access to his own rack > with 9 Routers and 2 3550’s I used it to do Labs again and gained some > speed and accuracy. Thanks Ghias for that. > > In total I did the IE Labs 3 times on different equipment, 1st time on > Dynamips, 2nd time on rented rack and third time on Physical Rack. > Finally, in the last month, I reviewed most of the content again, > reviewed the Class on Demand Videos to refresh some of the topics such > as Catalyst QoS (freely available on internetworkexpert free resources > section), IP/IOS Services, Multicasting, Security and BGP. I took > references from the DocCD to memorize where to find stuff like Router > Menus, WCCP, Nat, Reflexive ACLs, CBAC, IGMP Filtering, Multicast Stub > Routing, IPv6 etc. > > I sat for lab in dubai on 22nd Jan 2008 and fortunately attained the > number in the first attempt. For the last 2 nights i couldn’t sleep > and i just kept on praying and building strategies like should i do > frame-relay first restart the routers then go on switching or the > otherway around etc etc.. > > Well, I hope this LONG LONG Post will help most of the people who > emailed me for guidance on how to start and where to search the > material. I specifically used IE Material but I have also seen other > vendor’s workbooks such as IPEXPERT, IEMENTOR, Soup-to-Nuts etc. and I > have found them equally good for practicing the labs. It’s a personal > preference and what your company/budget allows you to purchase. > > Lastly, i would say, this was my technique, i cannot guarantee that > following this one could lead you to success but it worked for me. I > did the core-labs first, authors dont recommend this way, but i did > it. > > Regards, > — > Farhan Anwar > > > CCIE(R) .N9lN9..N9lN9. #19871 > www.farhananwar.com > > _______________________________________________________________________ > Subscription information may be found at: > http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html > > –
Farhan Anwar CCIE #19871 Web: www.farhananwar.com Blog: sfarhananwar.blogspot.com