Well if you haven't noticed I have IPExpert adverts on my blog. I was approached by Mike Down while he was with IPExpert and we struck a deal :) It worked out as I had heard great things about their products. After Mike left, I got in touch with Matt Brooks who has just been fantastic.
I have to say that I used their BLS product and actually only used volume 2 and 3 of their workbooks. They were excellent, very thorough, challenging and in all honesty, Fun! In conjuction with their Blended Learning Solution, I used ProctorLabs' vRack sessions which I found to be excellent as well. After hour support was incredible, I received a response in less then 20 mins and not only was my problem resolved, they added additional time to make up for time lost. I can't say enough about how great IPExpert as a company and as a vendor are.
Volume 2 and 3 soldified my knowledge, enhanced my technique and was excellent practice to simulate the real lab. The 8 hour mock labs were exactly what I needed in order for me to be comfortable with going in to take the real thing. I did about 8 of the 10 labs in volume 10, beating myself up along the way. They are challenging and you can certainly get down on yourself when you can't figure things out BUT they're a must. If you train in the most brutal of environments, when the real thing comes along, you'll feel confident and you'll be able to perform and execute.
Volume 3 is a must and volume 2 added to my knowledge by allowing a mixed protocol environment where a previously configured task may be broken by a later task. It's important to know potential pitfalls and how to recognize them in order to save time and increase your chances of passing.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Micronics Training
Micronics Training with Narbik
www.micronicstraining.com
This is a must attend bootcamp for CCIE candidates that want to expedite their progress, increase their knowledge and skills, and exponentially increase their chances of passing. The reason being, Narbik not only teaches you the fundamentals but MAKES you understand the functionality and behavior of each IOS feature in his workbooks. The Tasks and the Explanations are very well thought out and logical, the questions you have of "why does this happen?" is answered in his explanations. But before I get into the benefits of the workbooks, including the pre-camp Soup to Nuts/GAP workbooks, I should talk about the class itself. It's 5 days, Monday through Friday of about 10 to 12 hour days, with the last day being a bit abbreviated. Narbik lectures for 30 to 40 percent of the time with the remainder of the time spent on doing labs of the topic he had just discussed. He's in the room, available to answer any questions you may have. I recommend taking as many notes during the lecture as possible, you should write down every word he says and/or writes on the whiteboard, because even 5 days of 12 hour days can go by fast and you're bound to have a moment where you say "Now what did Narbik say about...". He lectures strictly off the top of his head, no notes, slides, handouts, nothing. You know that he knows from the ground up what he's talking about and not only that but he PROVES to you everything he says. You never have to believe a word he says on faith, he shows you "the WHY", that's comforting to an engineer who thinks analytically. I think the most valuable piece of advice comes at the end of the 5 days. He tells you exactly what you need to do in order to pass, so pay attention!
His workbooks. Thorough, in depth, clear and concise. You can tell the methodology is "There are no shortcuts". The workbooks are geared to show you how things work, what the behavior is, how to change the behavior. It's geared for you to learn and know what a good engineer should know. There's no short cuts. The pre-camp workbooks were great, I got a feel for what to expect from class and I learned a great deal, just as I did with the in-class Volume 1-5 and Bootcamp 1 and 2 workbooks. It's all the technologies broken into mini labs, it's the best place to start, at the bottom and work your way up.
Next entry is on IPExpert... stay tuned!
www.micronicstraining.com
This is a must attend bootcamp for CCIE candidates that want to expedite their progress, increase their knowledge and skills, and exponentially increase their chances of passing. The reason being, Narbik not only teaches you the fundamentals but MAKES you understand the functionality and behavior of each IOS feature in his workbooks. The Tasks and the Explanations are very well thought out and logical, the questions you have of "why does this happen?" is answered in his explanations. But before I get into the benefits of the workbooks, including the pre-camp Soup to Nuts/GAP workbooks, I should talk about the class itself. It's 5 days, Monday through Friday of about 10 to 12 hour days, with the last day being a bit abbreviated. Narbik lectures for 30 to 40 percent of the time with the remainder of the time spent on doing labs of the topic he had just discussed. He's in the room, available to answer any questions you may have. I recommend taking as many notes during the lecture as possible, you should write down every word he says and/or writes on the whiteboard, because even 5 days of 12 hour days can go by fast and you're bound to have a moment where you say "Now what did Narbik say about...". He lectures strictly off the top of his head, no notes, slides, handouts, nothing. You know that he knows from the ground up what he's talking about and not only that but he PROVES to you everything he says. You never have to believe a word he says on faith, he shows you "the WHY", that's comforting to an engineer who thinks analytically. I think the most valuable piece of advice comes at the end of the 5 days. He tells you exactly what you need to do in order to pass, so pay attention!
His workbooks. Thorough, in depth, clear and concise. You can tell the methodology is "There are no shortcuts". The workbooks are geared to show you how things work, what the behavior is, how to change the behavior. It's geared for you to learn and know what a good engineer should know. There's no short cuts. The pre-camp workbooks were great, I got a feel for what to expect from class and I learned a great deal, just as I did with the in-class Volume 1-5 and Bootcamp 1 and 2 workbooks. It's all the technologies broken into mini labs, it's the best place to start, at the bottom and work your way up.
Next entry is on IPExpert... stay tuned!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Timeline
Just wanted to post my journey, might help someone somewhere. This is the Timeline of events and then I'll post my review and benefits from each of the three classes/vendors I used. Terry's Class, Narbik's Class, and IPExpert in chronological order in the coming posts.
TIMELINE
I made the decision to pursue the CCIE Routing and Switching in January 2008, I had started a "new" job with a major service provider, taking on a Pre-Sales role. I say "new" in quotes because in fact I had worked for this company a few years back and left to expand my skill set and take on more responsibility by being the lead engineer of only 2 network engineers for a new company. I came back because I knew it was an environment that was conducive to studying but not conducive to retaining my implementation skills. I strictly spent the next 4 months studying for the written, going over the Official Exam Certification Guide (v2) and my CCNP books for reference. I scheduled the written exam in early May and passed.
Now that the written was done and over with in early May 2008, I knew I had 18 months to attempt the Lab. I also knew that I didn't want to spend the next year and half studying so that's where the real benefit of my employer came in. Management was supportive and encouraged certifications so I was able to spend my down time at work studying. I attend my first CCIE class in June of 2008 which lasted 10 Saturday's from 8 am to 5pm.
From June 2008 to the end of August 2008, I attended Terry's class and learned a great deal about strategy and technique. It was a great introduction of what to expect and I'll write more about this further down.
Once the class ended I signed up for Narbik's CCIE Lab class and attended in November of 2008 in Pasadena. Prior to attending, I worked on the pre-material that he emails his students and that was a really good start to learning the essentials. I'll also blog more about this in detail. I took Narbik's advice at the end of his class to review his Volume 1 thru 5 and BootCamp 1 and 2 woorkbooks THREE times, cover to cover. This took about 6 weeks, about mid January 2009. I then scheduled my exam 3 months ahead of time.
Finally, or actually concurrently, I had been speaking with Mike Down and subsequently Matt Brooks from IPExpert/ProctorLabs. They had been gracious enough to offer some discounts in return for advertising on my blog. I found that the material, volume 2 and 3 workbooks and the Blended Learning Solution, were essential to my success. Once I completed Narbik's workbooks, I ended up following his advice to take Mock Labs from a reputable vendor. I proceeded to do 15 labs from Volume 2 and then 8 labs from Volume 3. This took about another 6 weeks which puts me at the beginning of March.
I finally reviewed Narbik's workbooks along with all my notes that I had taken from the beginning. I felt confident and well prepared and I knew if I failed at the exam, I had done my best to prepare.
Next I'll blog about what I believe are the best parts of the three classes/vendors I attended/utilized.
TIMELINE
I made the decision to pursue the CCIE Routing and Switching in January 2008, I had started a "new" job with a major service provider, taking on a Pre-Sales role. I say "new" in quotes because in fact I had worked for this company a few years back and left to expand my skill set and take on more responsibility by being the lead engineer of only 2 network engineers for a new company. I came back because I knew it was an environment that was conducive to studying but not conducive to retaining my implementation skills. I strictly spent the next 4 months studying for the written, going over the Official Exam Certification Guide (v2) and my CCNP books for reference. I scheduled the written exam in early May and passed.
Now that the written was done and over with in early May 2008, I knew I had 18 months to attempt the Lab. I also knew that I didn't want to spend the next year and half studying so that's where the real benefit of my employer came in. Management was supportive and encouraged certifications so I was able to spend my down time at work studying. I attend my first CCIE class in June of 2008 which lasted 10 Saturday's from 8 am to 5pm.
From June 2008 to the end of August 2008, I attended Terry's class and learned a great deal about strategy and technique. It was a great introduction of what to expect and I'll write more about this further down.
Once the class ended I signed up for Narbik's CCIE Lab class and attended in November of 2008 in Pasadena. Prior to attending, I worked on the pre-material that he emails his students and that was a really good start to learning the essentials. I'll also blog more about this in detail. I took Narbik's advice at the end of his class to review his Volume 1 thru 5 and BootCamp 1 and 2 woorkbooks THREE times, cover to cover. This took about 6 weeks, about mid January 2009. I then scheduled my exam 3 months ahead of time.
Finally, or actually concurrently, I had been speaking with Mike Down and subsequently Matt Brooks from IPExpert/ProctorLabs. They had been gracious enough to offer some discounts in return for advertising on my blog. I found that the material, volume 2 and 3 workbooks and the Blended Learning Solution, were essential to my success. Once I completed Narbik's workbooks, I ended up following his advice to take Mock Labs from a reputable vendor. I proceeded to do 15 labs from Volume 2 and then 8 labs from Volume 3. This took about another 6 weeks which puts me at the beginning of March.
I finally reviewed Narbik's workbooks along with all my notes that I had taken from the beginning. I felt confident and well prepared and I knew if I failed at the exam, I had done my best to prepare.
Next I'll blog about what I believe are the best parts of the three classes/vendors I attended/utilized.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
CCIE #23895
Just a quick note :)
I took the lab on March 20th at RTP and passed, I'm CCIE #23895 , thanks to so many people.
I have to thank Narbik from MicronicsTraining, his class was exceptional.
I have to thank Matt Brooks from IPExpert, his generosity is amazing.
And last but not least, Terry Shen, his class was informational as well as entertaining.
I took the lab on March 20th at RTP and passed, I'm CCIE #23895 , thanks to so many people.
I have to thank Narbik from MicronicsTraining, his class was exceptional.
I have to thank Matt Brooks from IPExpert, his generosity is amazing.
And last but not least, Terry Shen, his class was informational as well as entertaining.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Lab's 6 and 7
So I think I'm going to stop with the full labs for now and go back to the fundamentals. I'm going to go through all the mini labs, make sure I know each of them completely and then reassess where I am.
I will however think about redoing some of the full labs I've done on the weekend but the weekdays should be dedicated to the fundamentals.
I'm changing gears because I think I'm not learning what I should be and I may be forgetting some of the basics... yikes.
I will however think about redoing some of the full labs I've done on the weekend but the weekdays should be dedicated to the fundamentals.
I'm changing gears because I think I'm not learning what I should be and I may be forgetting some of the basics... yikes.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Vol3 Lab5 - Not so bad :)
Completed lab 5! Half way done with volume 3 and I'm glad I was able to have a more decent time with Lab 5 after getting beat up on 3 and 4.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Vol3 lab 3 and 4... butt thoroughly kicked.
Wow... what can I say but that I got my butt kicked.
There are somethings that I just never have seen before, like using dot1q tunneling to terminate one end of a etherchannel... Has anyone ever seen this before or am I the only one?
I'm wondering if these labs are on par of what to expect of the real exam or if they're harder?
There are somethings that I just never have seen before, like using dot1q tunneling to terminate one end of a etherchannel... Has anyone ever seen this before or am I the only one?
I'm wondering if these labs are on par of what to expect of the real exam or if they're harder?
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