First Post CCIE Journey

I have been Networking with Cisco equipment for the last 4-5 years. I got my CCNA 3 years ago, which was quite tough for me. At that time I was not aware of Dynamips or GNS3 to help. Since I learn via hands on experience, it was tough for me to pass the CCNA exam without hands on.

When I started my CCNP studies I used dynamips to help get me through these exams and it made it alot easier. I completed my CCNP November 2007. A month later I took the CCIE R&S written and passed but I didn't have the time to completely dedicate myself to CCIE R&S lab studies. Ok, I will also add I was quite a bit intimidated with the lab and all the horror stories you hear about it.

So here i am December 2009, and I'm starting this journey all over again. I have started by reading through the CCIE 4.0 R&S written certification guide. This book seems to be alot better then the 3.0 book, a ton of information to say the least especially with the new topics they have added to the lab exam(MPLS, EIGRPv6, EEM, PfR) just to name a few.

To supplement my reading studies I have decided to go the route of buying all of the required equipment to build a home rack along with the www.internetworkexpert.com self-paced training materials. So far I have purchased the following for my rack:

• 3 x 2500 Series - BB1, BB2, BB3
  
• 3 x 3640 Routers - R1, R2, R3
• 3 x 1841 Routers - R4, R5, R6
• 2 x 3560 L3 Switches - SW1, SW2
• 2 x 3550 L3 Switches - SW3, SW4
• 1 x 4000 Router acting configured as a Frame relay Switch
• ***** I still need to buy 9 WIC 1-T Cards for my routers and my lab will be complete!
  

Yes this cost me so much money, I don't really want to talk about it!! -- I just tell myself its worth it and let it be. Yes I could have just rented rack time, but I commute 4 hours daily to work so I thought it would be best to be able to power on my own rack whenever I felt like it to get some lab time in.

My Plan to achieve the CCIE R&S milestone is as follows:

• Finish reading CCIE 4.0 Certification Guide ( then re-read again alot of good information)
• Read TCP/IP Volumes I and II
  
• Watch the Adanced Technology Videos on Demand (VoD) from internetworkexpert

During this time of reading and watching the videos I would like to include a hands on portion to help get the details ingrained into my head. For Example, Lets say I wanted to study OSPF v2 and all of its entirety. First step would be to read OSPF sections from each of those books I listed above. The next step would be to watch the internetwork expert VOD on OSPF. Finally, I would start doing some of the OSPF Technology labs from Internetwork Expert's Volume 1 Version 5 workbook. I want to purse each technology in the CCIE Routing & Switching blueprint with this process. Once I have followed this long process witch each technology I will start doing the Lab workbook 2 from internetwork expert. This workbook contains 20 full 8 hour CCIE lab scenario's that will test and grow my knowledge of all these technologies. Once I get a few of those down and I feel pretty good about my progress I will start working on speeding up my Core topics( all layer 2 config, L3, Routing, Route redistribution ---eeew this kills me, BGP etc) Yes I know it sounds like a bit much, ,but to me, its the best approach that I think will work for me to achieve the end goal of getting my CCIE #.

My future posts will include what I am studying that day. I will be blogging what I learned, what confuses the crap out of me, etc. Basically you will read my daily grind :)