Category Archives: Catharsis

CCIE RS Lab Exam failed, for the second time.

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It’s been a good experience so far, knowing that I failed my CCIE R&S lab for the second time. Well, certainly not the best outcome but certainly was a good experience.

Last year, 31 May 2012, I failed my first lab exam. That time was pretty rough. I was too emotional and nearly walking out of the building for not knowing enough of the technologies. I came out of the building felling stress out. It could probably be that I went to the exam just couple of days after I finished with Narbik’s Bootcamp. Exhausted and agitated.
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Gotta Set My Sail Again.

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Few weeks ago, May 31, 2011, I sat my CCIE lab exam and failed. I knew I was going to fail but somewhere inside just want to keep trying and wanting to know how far I would get. This exam is not an impossible exam. Yes, it is hard, but not impossible to achieve. I’ve seen all of the technologies but I didn’t know it enough to pass.

Enough for the rant, I’m starting my INE WB from the beginning and it feels like things are keep unlocking itself and I have lots of Aha moments. I guess whatever I read before still inside, somewhere.

Previously I studied like a running train and tried to read as much as I could but not necessarily trying to understand it. That’s why I failed. I can be efficient to read more but it wasn’t effective enough to make me to understand it. This time is different, I have that eagerness to know more and don’t really care about the time, as long as I can learn 1-2 hours a day and make it count, it will be much better rather than learning until 2am in the morning but understand nothing.

Just before the exam, I was quite lucky to be able to attend Narbik’s 5-day Bootcamp, for those who wants to know what is it like in details, please visit this article. From my own point of view, this training has opened my eyes that CCIE is not for the faint-hearted, no shortcuts and you have to walk the process. I’m planning to join his 5-day bootcamp again in December 2011.

For all of those CCIE candidates out there, it’s hard but not impossible.

Study Update; 26th April 2011

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It’s good to have Easter break. I can use it to get some of Video-on-Demand study done. In the last two weeks, i’ve closed the gap for IPv6 and Multicast. Thanks to INE for making awesome product.

I’m really happy to know that Brian McGahan is back on-track making the Video-on-Demand. He went down very deep and this course has everything you need to know for Multicast in CCIE RS lab. I actually wish that INE can drop the Advance Technologies lab and concentrating making these type (deep-dive) technology section.

Next step would be for MPLS. I’ve checked the first session of Video-on-Demand this morning at 2 AM and it looked and sounded good! Keith Barker was doing this and I guess he set the bar quite high.

Ideally, I should finished all of the IEWB lab 1, 2, 3, and 4. But I guess, considering that I only have 5 weeks and I’m also considering to use 1 week of it for Narbik 5-day course (Sydney) then I need to adjust which WB that I will work on. Otherwise I’ll be burned out like before.

My first-born due in August 2011 and If I couldn’t pull this exam through in May, then this study would be really hard for us.

I’ll be having two weeks leave before the exam and my company has been good enough to give study leave on every Friday for 10 weeks before the exam. I also got some cut-overs on Sat for the next 7 weeks which I’ll take some time-in-lieu to compensate.

Below are the progress list the Workbooks that (ideally) I need to complete.

Technology Lab. All completed.

Configuration Lab

IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 1 Difficulty Level 6 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 2 Difficulty Level 6 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 3 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 4 Difficulty Level 7 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 5 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 6 Difficulty Level 7 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 7 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 8 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 9 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 10 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 11 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 12 Difficulty Level 7 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 13 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 14 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 15 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 16 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 17 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 18 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 19 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 20 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED

Speed Lab

IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 1 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 2 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 3 COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 4 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 5 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 6 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL3 Lab 10 NOT COMPLETED

Troubleshooting Lab

IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 1 Difficulty Level 5 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 2 Difficulty Level 6 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 3 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 4 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 5 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 6 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 7 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 8 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 9 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 10 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 11 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 12 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 13 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 14 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 15 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 16 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 17 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 18 Difficulty Level 7 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 19 Difficulty Level 9 NOT COMPLETED
IEWB-RS VOL2 Lab 20 Difficulty Level 8 NOT COMPLETED

Lab Exam Date, Booked!

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It is really surprising to feel the difference given that I’ve booked my CCIE RS Lab exam for 31 May 2011. This is the 18th month since I passed my CCIE RS Written and I cannot postpone this anymore.

Previously I kept saying that I would take my exam, one day. That’s actually the sign that I was not really ready to tackle this. Having the lab date set makes you cannot back off anymore for any reason.

Spending my Christmas and Year-end 2010 was really giving the traction to get this thing out of my way. There was actually some moments that I doubted myself and question the purpose of this long and dreading journey.

I was so frustrated to start INE WB2 lab1 and spend a week to finish that. What the hell was wrong with me, this lab was the easiest and I had to finish that in less than 8 hours. Hence my WB1 preparation that took 2 years didn’t actually give me the technical confidence as I keep forgetting things, or did it?

I was wrong! I was quite surprised that I could do my 30 OSPF labs within 3 days while it took me months just to make those OSPF labs sane. I do remember, not the most of it, but I do remember.

Yeah, been there done that. I’ve done enough excuses to justify why I should not move on and given up. Hey, CCIE is just not for anybody. I guess I just need to do it and give all my best to it. There’s just too much at stake and I’ve invested a lot of money and time. I would be a fool If I gave up knowing that I’m not that far behind. Everybody who passed this exam have the story of their life and I need to have my own story. I will have my own story.

I’m starting to enjoy my rhythm by spending at least 6 hours for study each day and taking a break every now and then spending time with my wife.

From this point forward, I’ll try my best to keep the rhythm steady and would need to advertise to all of my friends for the 100th times that I need to skip that dinner. Well, sorry mate!

This time, I’m following INE suggestion and see whether I can advancing more.

Nothing fancy, I just need to do it. No questions asked!

All right! This is it! Now you all know me, so I’m going to say this as simply as I can. If it’s our time to die, it’s our time. All I ask is, if we have to give these bastards our lives… WE GIVE ‘EM HELL BEFORE WE DO! – Matrix Revolutions

Is it hard?

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I’m not trying to diminish the effort that we’re, mere mortal, trying to get our CCIE. I should be ashamed to myself If I can even think that getting and being a CCIE is hard.

Bart Bunting, right, of Australia, and his guide, Nathan Chivers, ski in the men’s giant slalom visually impaired event during the Winter Paralympic Games in Whistler, British Columbia on March 16, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jonathan Hayward)

More about Bart Bunting.

Picture taken from here

Reading MPLS Fundamental

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Crawling slowly for the Internetwork Expert CCIE Routing & Switching Lab Workbook Volume I version 5 – MPLS. I don’t have any background on MPLS and I thought reading MPLS from CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide (4th Edition)should at least give me a slight background of MPLS. Wrong, MPLS section on CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide (4th Edition)was not even close enough to cover the basic. I can see it tries to cover all MPLS stuff for CCIE RS but the explanation was too shallow and makes it useless.

The WB has more than enough for the CCIE RS candidate need to know. This is where it hits me so hard then I need to start reading MPLS Fundamentals

Finished reading CCIE RS Exam Prep.

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I’ve decided to read CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide (4th Edition)page-to-page, cover-to-cover. I have the previous one (3rd Edition) yet I used it for reference only.

The book arrived on 21 December 2009 and I’ve been using my annual Christmas Leave for reading. I did actually enjoying Christmas this year with friends and family and using some spare time to read. My wife get used to see me reading a book morning and late night but not some families who stay over.

Reading this book will at least gives me what I need to know on CCIE R&S Exam, both Written and Lab

As CCIS R&S exam covers a lot of topics, this book will let you know what you need to know. Then, at the end of every chapter it will give you some link or more books to read. As common to other Exam Preparation series, this book does not cover in details. So consider this book as a summary only.

Next step is to do INE R&S WB vol1 and digging it deep with all necessary reading for each topic. INE starts to updates the WB as it contain a lot of errors on it. I guess this is just because INE trying to complete the release of WB vol1 on 2009 as Beta and working with updates after that. Actually, I’m quite happy to hear that INE starts updating the INE R&S WB vol1 so I can start my study using the latest and updated WB.

Study Updates

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Multicast is a new domain for me as in the past I’ve never configured any real network for multicast scenario. Few weeks ago a colleague asked me about configuring multicast and I can only guessing what was the right thing to do.

I took the opportunity to study Multicast 3 weeks ago using IEWB version 5 Multicast and stuck for 16-hour for the first 5 tasks knowing that the workbook is not actually ready yet. After I forwarded my complain at 1am in the morning, INE replied that the new updates will be coming soon. Well, what can I do? I looked at the old version of Multicast workbook (version 4.10) and did the whole lot.

Apparently, my understanding to Multicast is improving. Doing the workbook, watching the CODs for the last 3 weeks makes me knowing what should be done to accomplish different scenario. I still need to dig more about MSDP, SSM, MLD, and other weird scenario presented on version 5 and I really look forward but at least I’m moving forward.

Previously, questions kept popping up whether I’m making progress or just going nowhere. Felt like in a deep pit and get frustrated feeling that this thing was just too hard and wasn’t making any progress. Apparently, through this Multicast part, I regained my confidence and actually making progress. Slow, but progressing.

I’m expecting to sit for the Written test this year. I’ll try my best!

Closing to December, projects are just keep coming and coming. Some of the big projects are due on December. Not to mention urgent requests to action few stuff that keep coming every week. It’s really fun knowing that I work better under pressure.

I tried to start early and finish early then cranking up study for at least 3 hours a day and as I got every Friday for study leave, now I can have 12-hour lab on Friday and Saturday to catch up my lab sessions. It feels really funny after doing those 2 days 12-hour lab. That’s why Sunday can be good a good day to start new project. Putting a new lawn!

Badminton was also part the Sunday project if schedule permit. Last Sunday felt really great after not playing Badminton for about 20 years. Well, at some point I can felt the relieves and also sore muscles for the next 4 days.

Anyway, now I know my limit and need to have a good break. After all, exercise always good to keep the blood flowing.

Finished IEWB EIGRP

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Last night I almost turn my study table upside down due to boredom. It feels like it’s not moving anywhere. But I try to keep moving on with few labs every day. Rather than hit it in one go for 4 hours during the night, I’ll try to do whatever I can where my brain still functioning properly. During the morning before work probably 1 or 2 labs and night after work for another 1 or 2 labs. Those little amount of time make up all of those labs for IEWB Vol1 EIGRP. I just finished it.

Moving on to OSPF…