Contingency Plan

I really hope I don't fail. I feel as if I've learned pretty much everything I'm going to learn from the IPExpert an Internetwork Expert labs. I'll be a little unsure as to where to turn next. With the typical CCIE difficulty metric being a 7/10, I feel my knowledge is about 8.5/10 at this point.

I've told my wife I'm only taking 5 attempts. If I don't get it by then I'll give up. That gives me 4 attempts left.

I do get a little frustrated with IPExpert and IE labs. There are a number of mistakes that are obviously from failure to properly upgrade their workbooks over the years. I personally find this to be detremintal to my studying. I've had to get use to assuming things might need to be a little different than they way they are worded. On the actual lab, this is BAD. I need to make sure to assume absolutely nothing.

I don't feel there's anything else to learn with a free retake of the IPexpert bootcamp. Perhaps taking it with Scott for a different perspective would help.

There has been a lot of "testimonials" on the Narbik bootcamp lately. It's to the point that I'm actually steering away from it. From the reviews I'm reading, it's sounding more like he's teaching "stupid router tricks" than anything else. My impression could be wrong, so I'd open up some discussions on Monday if I need to.

I really feel the best preparation for me at this point is the Mock Labs. I've taken all but 2 of the IE mock labs. Another option would be to take the IE Mock Lab bootcamp.

Another possibility would be to swtich to NetMasterClass. A lot of people seem to recommend using them in tandem with IE. Their CheckIt labs are pretty expensive though--$250 each or 3 for $635. They also have a DoIT volume 2 plus 5 CheckIt labs package for $1324, which is about the same cost as a lab attempt.

Since I have been successful at studying at home, I think this would be a good approach to take. It would give me 1 graded lab a weekend and 1 workbook lab a weekend with 5 weekends before another attempt.

So that's my plan of attack. Purchase the $1324 package from NMC and reschedule for a month out.

Knowledge Assessment

So here I am, 2 days out from my second attempt. All in all, I'd say I'm feeling pretty good, but I certainly wouldn't say I'm overconfident. I didn't feel the lab itself was too hard last time. I finished the first run at about 6 hours and was only confused by a couple of tasks. Through further studying, I've realized I did a couple of other tasks wrong and probably should have asked a few other questions.

Here is a list of things that I still feel I could use some work on:
-Catalyst QoS mutation maps
-OSPF NSSA Type 7 suppression
-Reachability Verification--I always seem to miss a BGP route somewhere
-MBGP
-Multicast Troubleshooting--I'm still slower than I'd like to be
-PIM Mapping Agent placement
-CBAC and Reflexive ACLs--I'm still gunshy to implement these
-NTP--remembering to apply the trusted key to the ntp server
-Extended login options

Since my failed attempt

Here is what I've completed since my failed attempt

IPexpert labs: 1
IE labs: 5
IE Mock Labs: 2
Cisco CCIE assessor labs: 1

That's 72 hours of rack time in the past month.

IE Lab 17 breakdown

Not much to complain about. I knew I missed a couple of the oddball system management and security pieces. I spent a heck of a lot of time verifying bgp and igp. I found a few additional issues in doing that. Even with all that time I still finished with an hour to spare.

IE Lab 17

This is quite possibly my last practice lab before the real thing on Sunday. In light of my weaknesses, my plan is for the following:

Take extra time verifying every single last thing
Don't worry too much about time
Take extra time playing around with multicast
Do each QoS question using MQC and Legacy formats
Play with NAT

7:15 start
7:41 diagram complete
7:54 readthrough complete
8:18am 1.1 complete, 3 points
8:18am 1.2 complte, 3 points
8:19am 1.3 complete, 2 points
8:23am 1.4 complte, 2 points
8:27am 1.5 complete, 3 points
8:31am 1.6 complte, 3 points

Switching complete, 16/16

8:48am 2.1 complete, 3 points
8:48am 2.2 complete, 3 points
8:48am 2.3 complete, 2 points

Frame complete, 8/8, 24/24

8:54 3.1 complete 3 points
8:59 3.2 complete, 3 points

PPP complete, 6/6, 30/30

9:08 4.1 complete, 3 points
9:17 4.2 complete, 3 points
9:23 4.3 complete, 2 points
9:28 4.4 complete, 3 points
9:41 4.5 complete, 2 points
9:45 4.6 complete, 2 points
9:49 4.7 complete, 2 points
9:57 4.8 complete, 2 points
10:06 skipping 4.9, 0/3 points

IGP compelte, 19/22, 49/52 total

10:24 complted 4.9

IGP complete, 22/22, 52/52 total

10:29 pingtests complete

10:56 5.1 complete, 3 points
11:13 5.2 complete, 3 points
11:41 5.3 complte, 3 points

BGP complete, 9/9, 61/61 total

12:26 pingtests complete

12:39 6.1 complete, 3/3
12:55 6.2 complete, 2/2
12:55 6.3 complete, 3/3

Multicast complete, 8/8, 69/69 total

1:00 7.1 complete, 3 points
1:08 7.2 complete, 3 points

IPv6 complete, 6/6, 75/75 total

1:10 8.1 complete, 2 points
1:14 8.2 complete, 3 points

QoS complete, 5/5, 80/80 total

1:27 9.1 complete, 2 points
1:32 9.2 complete, 2 points
skipping 9.3

Security complete, 4/6, 84/86 total

1:38 10.1 complete, 3 points
1:38 10.2 complete, 2 points
skipping 10.3

System management complete, 5/8, 89/94 total

1:59 11.1 complete, 3 points
2:05 11.2 complete, 3 points

IP Services complete, 6/6, 95/100 total

Lab complete, 95%, under 7 hours

CCIE Assessor Results

I cannot get into many details here due to restrictions.

I did not pass. I broke this down into three reasons:
40% stupid mistakes
40% not enough time
20% not enough knowledge

Stupid mistakes hurt me on switching and redistribution. The main fault here was lack of verification.

Lack of time hurt me on Multicast and IP Services. I mostly blame this on not looking things up on the DocCd. If I had more time I would have looked them up and more than likely got correct.

Lack of knowledge hurt me on Multicast and QoS. There were items here I more than likely wouldn't have got correct, even if I had enough time.

So what does this mean? If I make no stupid mistakes, verify everything, and use the DocCd exhaustively for anything questionable, I can barely pass.

I have 8 days left until my next attempt. I need to get better with Multicast, QoS, and IP Services quickly. As far as stupid mistakes--VERIFY EVERYTHING!!!

CCIE Assessor

6:45am Lab Started
7:03am Diagrams complete
7:14am Readthrough complete
7:22am 1.1 complete, 2 points
7:30am 1.2 complete, 2 points
7:38am 1.3 complete, 2 points
7:41am 1.4 complete, 2 points
7:44am 1.5 complete, 2 points

Section 1 complte, 10 points

7:49am 2.1 complete, 3 points
8:09am 2.2 complete, 2 points (unable to verify)
8:19am 2.3 complte, 3 points
8:25am 2.4 complte, 3 points
8:30am 2.5 complte, 2 points
8:32am 2.6 compelte, 3 points
8:35am 2.7 complte, 3 points

IGP complete, 19/19, 29/29 total

Pingtests complete, 8:47am

8:53am 3.1 complete, 2 points
9:14am 3.2 complete, 2 points
9:17am 3.3 complte, 2 points
9:23am 3.4 complete, 2 points
9:25am 3.5 complte, 2 points

BGP complete, 10/10, 39/39 total

skipping 4.1
9:27am 4.2 complete, 1 point
9:37am 4.3 complete, 1 point

IE Lab 16

I realized I've already done Lab 12, so I'm going to Lab 16.

8:15am Lab started
8:36am diagrams complete
9:15am readthrough complete
9:32am 1.1 complete, 3 points
9:47am 1.2 complete, 3 points
9:55am 1.3 complete, 3 points
10:02am 1.4 complete, 3 points

Switching complete, 12/12

10:12am 2.1 complete, 3 points
10:49am 2.2 complete, 3 points--bridge 1 route ip
10:53am 2.3 complete, 3 points
10:55am 2.4 complete, 2 points

WAN complete, 11/11, 23/23 total

11:06am 3.1 complete, 3 points
11:43am 3.2 complte, 3 points
12:09am 3.3 complete, 3 points
12:17am 3.4 complete, 3 points
12:19pm 3.5 complete, 3 points

IGP complete, 15/15, 38/38 total

12:19pm taking lunch
1:02pm back from lunch
1:50pm Task 4.1 complete. There was missing information on the lab, 3 points
2:02 Task 4.2 complete, 3 points
2:05 Task 4.3 complte, 3 points
2:20 Task 4.4 complte, 3 points
2:24 Task 4.5 complete, 3 points

BGP complete, 15/15, 53/53 total

2:32 Task 5.1 complete, 2 points
3:24 Task 5.2 complete, 3 points
3:31 Task 5.3 complete, 3 points

Multicast complete, 8/8, 61/61 total

3:37 Task 6.1 complete, 2 points
3:41 Task 6.2 complete, 3 points
4:04 Task 6.3 complete, 3 points
4:35 Task 6.4 complete, 3 points

IPv6 complete, 11/11, 72/72 total

4:42 Task 7.1 compelte, 3 points
4:58 TASK7.2 complete, 3 points
5:03 Task7.3 complte, 3 points

QoS complte, 9/9, 81/81 total

5:05 Task8.1 complete, 2 points
5:08 Task8.2 complete, 3 points

Security complete, 5/5, 86/86 total

5:18 Task 9.1 complete, 3 points

Status Update

Here are some thoughts on the status for my preparations for mock lab #2.

I now understand:

• How to set cost and port priority for mstp
• BGP address families
• ip forward-protocol
• ospf demand routing
• ospf authentication null
• bgp next-hop-self
• bgp cluster-id
• police cir

I've changed my strategy as follows:

• I now make a detailed L2 diagram
• I now make a loopback checklist
• I now add multicast information to the L3 diagram
• I now use 10 telnet windows instead of a single console

I'm still weak with:

• attention to detail
• verification plan
• multicast troubleshooting
• Catalyst QoS

IE Mock Lab #2 (Repeat)

I scored a 54 the first time around. I better be pretty close to perfect this time.

5:24am lab started
5:42am diagrams complete
6:08am readthrough complete
6:23am troubleshooting complete, 2 points
6:42am 1.1 complete, 3 points
6:42am 1.2 complete, 3 points
6:50am 1.3 complete, 2 points
6:52am 1.4 complete, 2 points

Switching complete, 12/12

7:05am 2.1 complete, 3 points
7:16am 2.2 complete, 2 points
7:24am 2.3 complete, 2 points

Frame relay complete, 7/7, 19/19

7:27am 3.1 complete, 3 points
7:39am 3.2 complete, 2 points
7:39am 3.3 complete, 4 points
8:00am 3.4 complete, 3 points
8:00am 3.5 complete, 3 points
8:15am 3.6 complete, 3 points
8:15am 3.7 complete, 3 points
8:18am 3.8 complete, 3 points
8:36am 3.9 complete, 3 points
8:53am Pingtests complete
9:11am 3.10 complete, 3 points

IGP complete, 30/30, 49/49

9:26am 4.1 complete, 4 points
9:38am 4.2 complete, 3 points
9:43am 4.3 complete, 3 points
10:17am 4.4 complete, 3 points
10:22am Pingtests complete

EGP complete, 13/13, 62/62 total

11:21am 5.1 complete, 3 points
11:25am 5.2 complete, 2 points
11:31am 5.3 complete, 2 points

Multicast complete, 7/7, 69/69 total

11:33 6.1 complete, 2 points
11:46 6.2 complete, 3 points
11:49 6.3 complete, 2 points

IPv6 complete, 7/7, 76/76 total

12:12 7.1 complete, 2 points
12:20 7.2 complete, 3 points
12:29 7.3 complete, 2 points
12:35 7.4 complete, 2 points
12:51 7.5 complete, 2 points (iffy)

QoS complete, 11/11, 87/87 total

12:54 8.1 complete, 2 points
1:00 8.2 complete, 3 points

Security complete, 5/5, 92/92 total

1:07 9.1 complete, 3 points
1:09 9.2 complete, 3 points

System management complete, 6/6, 98/98 total

1:10 10.1 complete, 2 points, 100/100 total

I have 14 minutes left to review

1:28 lab complete. In review I found I missed the CDP domain name.

IE Lab 12

I only had time to complete about half this lab. I made the following mistakes:

• port security recovery cause is psecure-violation
• cannot use MAC access-list to filter IP. Use static mac entry instead
• ip ospf demand circuit
• I actually got the multicast helper-map figured out, but was testing it wrong. Need to use ip sla to test specific multicast ports

Mock Lab 5 Score

I scored a 71 on IE Mock Lab #5. Still not passing, but this was ranked a 9/10 so I'm pretty happy with the performance. I'm also getting closer to my score estimates--only 13 points off this time. Here's what I missed that I didn't expect:

Configured an IP on an interface instead of on a vlan, as specified on the diagram. I changed two of these from the initial config, but I must have missed one. -2
Loopbacks were not summarized. I'm suprised here, I spent quite a bit of time on them. It's possible some of my later EGP redistribution broke this again. -2
Missed an OSPF adjacency password. -2
Incorrect IGP metric. -2
Multicast, -4 because of incorrect L2 vlan.
I seem to have lost a point in the wash somewhere.

Lessons learned

• Compare the diagram to the configuration for review. Device by device.
• Re-verify summarizations and metrics after EGP is complete
• Check each ip ospf interface for authentication

These mistakes were nothing to do with the complexity of the lab. I think I just get overwhelmed with review near the end of the lab and don't check every little detail. This happened to me on the actual lab as well. I need to get more disciplined with this.

With the difficulty of this lab, I really feel I have a pretty strong grasp of the technologies and concepts. I just have to do better at verification. Because of this I'm going to adjust my study schedule to the following:

2/16: IE Mock Lab #1. Pretty easy and I better get near 100% on it. Only 41% last time due to little mistakes.

2/17: IE lab #12. Just taking this for the sake of practicing with something new.

2/23: Cisco CCIE Assessor. By now I better be doing a good job of verification. I want to make sure I'm doing tasks to Cisco's level of expectation.

2/24: IE Lab #16. Again, doing something new.

3/1: Rest

3/2: Lab Attempt #2

IE Lab 10

6:50am lab started
7:21am diagrams complete
7:43am readthrough complete

7:53 1.1 complete, 4 points
8:03 1.2 complete, 3 points

Switching complete 7/7 points

8:07 2.1 complete, 2 points
8:13 2.2 complete, 2 points
8:14 2.3 complete, 2 points

Frame relay complete, 6/6 13/13 total

8:24 3.1 complete, 2 points
8:54 3.2 complete, note traffic share count in sh ip route , 3 points
9:00 3.3 complete, 2 points
9:03 3.4 complete, 3 points
9:22 3.5 complete, 3 points--virtual links can extend for area 0 preference as well
9:26 3.6 complete, 3 points
9:28 3.7 complete, 2 points
10:10 3.8 complete, 3 points--weird stuff. a /24 was getting redis as well. I still don't understand why but it's blocked now
10:14 3.9 complete, 3 points
10:22 3.10 complete, 3 points

IGP complete, 27/27, 40/40 total

10:30 pingtests complete, no issues. Taking lunch
10:45 back from lunch
10:58 4.1 complete, 3 points
11:08 4.2 comlete, 3 points. Had to go back and filter out a default route from ospf->eigrp
11:19 4.3 complete, 3 points.
skipping 4.4. I know how to do this, but it would kill BGP reachability.
12:01 4.5 complete, 3 points
12:31 pingtests complete. Had some sloppy routing decisions to fix up

EGP complete, 12/15, 52/55 total

12.40 5.1 complete, 2 points
12:50 5.2 complete, 3 points
12:50 5.3 complete, 3 points
12:56 5.4 complete, 3 points

Multicast complete, 11/11, 63/66 total

1:00 6.1 complete, 2 points
1:12 6.2 complete, 2 points
1:18 6.3 complete, 3 points

Ipv6 complete, 7/7, 70/73 total

1:38 7.1 complete, 4 points. OSPF doesn't care much for frame-relay fragmentation
1:51 7.2 complete, 3 points. available bandwidth feeds off mincir
2:53 8.1 complete, 3 points. Couldn't verify for some reason
skipped 8.2, 0/3 points. not sure how to change telnet port
3:07 9.1 complete, 3 points
3:07 9.2 complete, 2 points
3:15 10.1 complete, 3 points
3:22 10.2 complete, 3 points
3:27 103 skipped, 0/3 points. Not sure how to renew dhcp every 3 hours outside of interface

Lab 10 complete. 91 points possible. Time to check.

1.1 because I can't read. sw2 transparent -4
4.4 looks like killing reachabilit was fine -3
8.2 rotary -3
9.1 banner exec -3
10.3 funny, I was thinking kron -3

Total score: 84

IE Mock Lab #4

I didn't do much studying at all during the week. Grad school is picking up now so there probably won't be much time. This is why I moved the real lab for the end of January, originally. I was hoping to get it completed before school started.

Today I'm taking IE Mock lab #4. It has a difficulty of 9, which means it's supposed to be harder than the actualy lab. To make things worse, they put a timer on now and will automatically kick me off the equipment 8:30 after I start.

I'm going to try one different approach this time. I'm going to open 10 terminal windows instead of just the 1. I was afraid before that I would get confused, but I'm sure there'd be a big benefit to catching debug ip routing messages and others if I go this way. I hope by practicing a month with this I'll get the issues straight.

6:32am Started Lab
7:00am Diagrams complete
7:18am Readthrough complete
7:42am 1.1 complete, 2 points
7:42am 1.2 complete, 3 points
8:10am 1.3 complete, 2 ponts
8:10am 1.4 complete, 3 points
8:10am 1.5 complete, 3 points

Bridging and Switching complete, 13 points

8:25am 2.1 complete, 3 points
8:35am 2.2 complete, 2 points
8:35am 2.3 complete, 2 points
8:35am 2.4 complete, 2 points
8:38am 2.5 complete, 2 points

Frame-Relay complete, 11 points

8:45am 3.1 complete, 3 points

HDLC/PPP complete, 3 points

8:52am 4.1 complete, 2 points
8:56am 4.2 complete, 2 points
9:01am 4.3 complete, 2 points
9:22am 4.4 complete, 4 points
10:07am 4.5 skipped, 0 of 2 points
10:20am 4.6 complete, 2 points
10:28am 4.7 complete, 2 points
10:32am 4.8 skipped, 2 points
10:36am 4.9 complete, 2 points
10:39am 4.10 complete, 2 points
10:42 4.11 complete, 3 points
10:47 4.12 complete, 2 points
10:50 4.13 complete, 2 points

IGP complete, 27 of 29 points

11:16 pingtests complete, beginning lunch
11:35 back from lunch
11:45am 5.1 complete, 3 points
12:04pm 5.2 complete, 2 points

BGP complete, 5 points

BGP Pingtests complete

12:40pm 6.1 complete, 3 points
12:40pm 6.2 complete, 1 point
12:44pm 6.3 complete, 1 point
skipping 6.4, 0/2 points

Multicast isn't working right, I may lose all 7 points here

1:06 7.1 complete, 2 points
1:09 7.2 complete, 1 point

IPv6 complete 3 points

1:17 8.1 complete, 2 points
1:36 8.2 complete, 1 point
1:36 8.3 complete, 2 points
1:36 8.4 complete, 2 points
1:36 8.5 complete, 2 points

QoS complete, 9/9 points

1:42 9.1 complete, 2 points
skipping 9.2
skipping 9.3
10.1 complete, 3 points
10.2 complete, 3 points
10.3 complete, 3 points
10.4 complete, 3 points

Grading
4.5 -2 points. I was close, need to play with the area command some more
4.8 -2 points. ip ospf authentication null
6.4 -2 points. I knew this--need to research ip pim nbma-mode some more
9.2 -3 points. Need more practice with reflexive acls to be mroe comfortable
9.3 -2 points. aaa authentication password-prompt, username-prompt, login local
10.2 -3 points. snmp-server tftp-server-list
11.1 -2 points. Need more pracitce wtih NAT

Total estimated score, 84

IE Lab 5

And now it's time to change gears with an IE lab. I'm doing all the ones straight from the "recommended lab studying" from their resources page.

7:05am lab started
7:26am initial diagrams complete
7:55am final diagrams and readthrough complete--I may complete a mcast diagram later
8:04am troubleshooting complete, 2 points
8:12am 1.1 complete, 3 points
8:14am 1.2 complete, 2 points
8:32am 1.3 complete. It took me a bit to get inarp figured out. Needed a multipoint interface along with the interface-dlci command. Switching from subinterface p to m required a reboot as well., 2 points
8:36 1.4 complete, 2 points

Section 1 and troubleshooting complete. 11 of 11 points

8:41 2.1 complete, 3 points
8:53 2.2 complete, 4 points
9:00 2.3 complete, 3 points
9:02 2.4 complete, 2 points
9:12 2.5 complete, 4 points

Bridging and Switching complete, 16 of 16 points, 27/27 total

9:21 3.1 complete, 3 points
9:25 3.2 complete, 3 points
9:35 3.3 complete, 2 points
9:37 3.4 complete, 2 points
9:40 3.5 complete, 2 points
9:49 3.6 complete, 2 points
9:59 3.7 complete, 3 points
10:14 3.8 complete, 3 points

IGP complete, 20 points, 47/47 total

12:27 pingtests complete. A couple of redis conn needed and all was well

11:06 4.1 complete, 2 points
11:54 giving up on task 4.2. In the real lab I would have moved on much faster
11:59 task 4.3 complete, 3 points
12:02 task 4.4 complete, 3 points

BGP complete, 8/10, 55/57 total

Taking lunch

12:22 back from lunch
12:28 task 5.1 complete, 3 points
12:52 task 5.2 complete, 3 points
12:58 task 5.3 complete, 2 points
1:00 task 5.4 complete 1 point
1:07 task 5.5 complete, 2 points

Multicast complete, 12/12, 67/69 total

I'm pretty comfortable with IPv6 so I'm going to skip it

1:14 task 7.1 complete, 3 points
1:22 task 7.2 complete, 2 points
1:39 giving up on task 7.3, how to set the queue depth
2:04 task 8.1 complete, 3 points
2:09 task 8.2 complete, 3 points
2:17 task 9.1 complete, 3 points
2:19 task 9.2 complete, 3 points
2:29 skipping task 10.1, no idea
2:30 skipping task 10.2, no idea

Lab complete, 84/100. Barely passed, but I skipped IPv6 which would have been a relatively easy 7 points

Here's what I missed
Task 4.2--neighbor x.x.x.x remote-private-as
Task 5.2--I needed to use ip pim rp-announce-filter rp-list x group-list y on R1
Task 7.3--I should have trusted my instincts, it used the shape max-buffers command
Task 8.1--I should have used the established keyword on the telnet access list.
Task 8.2--I didn't even think of using a VACL
Task 10.1--Transport preferred non fixes the annoying dns lookup issues
Task10.2--I stink at privilege levels. Learned a little more though.

H Continued

11:50 back from lunch
12:17 OSPF complete, 10 points
12:32 pingtests complete
12:42 BGP complete, 10 points
12:52 Router Redundancy complete, 8 points
1:04 Multicast complete, 9 points
1:40 IPv6 addressing complete, 8 points
3:45 had to take a break at about 2:30 for some other commitments. Now I ran out of time. I was most of the way through ipv6 routing, so I'll give myself 6 of 9 points.
I'll do QoS in notepad by hand
3:57 QoS completed, 5 points

Summary:
7 hours
97 points

The focus of this lab was obviously IPv6. I was disappointed I ran out of time because it was a pretty difficult IPv6 scenerio. I was picking things off one by one, just hadn't quite had it finished yet.

Interestingly, there was no ipv6 routing protocol running in between two ipv6 IGPs. I setup a tunnel to overcome this. The answers went with a default route and policy routing instead.

IPExpert Multiprotocol Challenge H

7:36 Lab started
7:51 IP, routing, and BGP diagrams complete
8:20 readthrough and initial configs complete
8:21 Infrastructure complete, 1 point
8:30 Basic configuration complete, 3 points
9:20 WAN almost complete. Need to find RFC2427
9:30 found it--frame-relay ietf, WAN complete, 12 points
10:42 LAN configuration complete, 9 points
10:51 RIP complete, 6 points
11:20 EIGRP complete, 10 points
11:20 lunch started

Lunchtime thoughts

• I spent some extra time trying to get fallback bridging to work. I have to keep remembering that it doesn't bridge IP. The question I was working on obviously had some tricky wording. I caught onto that right away, but wanted to go ahead and try it the hard way. It didn't work, so I eventually reverted back to the other way.
• I wonder if there is a way to verify the DE bit is getting set
• I'm assuming /31 is the most effective use of point-to-point IPs
• It took a while to figure out RFC2427 was frame-rel IETF. I never could find it on the DocCD, but I found it by doing an interface-level "encap frame-rel ?". I had a feeling this was frame-relay from the start but I wanted to try to verify it. Since it was an RFC, HDLC was ruled out. So that pretty much left PPP or frame-rel IETF.
• I learned something new about MSTP. I was always setting the costs wrong before. I need to set the cost for the instance of MSTP, not the STP way. This explains a lot of confusion I was having regarding priority in the past.

3:44 down, 41 points complete