BSCI Exam - 642-901

Ok, the very fact that I have to take this exam is a little strange. I have been a CCNP since 2004 and am a CCIE. Why don't these fill the "routing" exam requirements?"

According to the certification progress website, the version of BSCI exam I passed over 4 years ago is too outdated to count. So I have to knock this exam out instead.

As far as I can tell, there is only one topic that isn't covered by the R&S written: IS-IS. I'm guessing they're just going to be asking questions about the intricacies of L1, L2, and L1/L2 behavior.

Aside from that, I'll need to brush up on all the "booksmart" material such as timers and metric computation.

I think I'm going to shoot to have this knocked out by Friday.

I have my weekends back

On Friday I completed my final presentation for my Master's Project at Towson University in Maryland. For the first time in over 5 years I don't have any studying or homework to worry about over the weekend. All the more time to spend studying for CCIE #2? Nah, I think I'm going to be taking a few weekends for myself until I knock out the written and am ready to start working on the lab.

CCIE Worldwide Statistics

It's official, North America no longer holds most CCIEs. As of the recently released statistics here, Asia now has more.

QoS Exam Passed

Wow, all I can say is do not underestimate this exam. I knew it wasn't going to be simple, but it was much more challenging than I expected. If I missed one more question I would have failed. Actually, before I saw the congratulations message, I thought I was going to be rescheduling this thing.

I'm off to do my Master's presentation on Friday, so I won't be starting to study for another exam until next week sometime.

QoS exam 642-642

I'm feeling pretty good about this exam and will take it either next week or the following week. It's amazing how much LESS material there is in a professional level exam vs an expert level one.

As there's a lot of overlap with my R&S CCIE and my previous voice experience, I'm not stressing out much over this. Of course, there's always the fear of taking it for granted and failing and wondering how the heck I can pass the CCIE written and Lab and bomb the QoS exam.

Anyway--here are the topics I need to commit to memory:

• Higher drop precedence means more likely to be dropped. But higher IP precedence means less likely do be dropped. Huh? Who designs this stuff anyway? Just remember, AF11 will be dropped before AF21; however AF12 will be dropped before AF11. That last number means drop precedence, as in higher priority to be dropped. Whereas the first number means the traffic itself is higher priority, and less likely to be dropped. It makes me think they designed it this way simply because they knew they'd get a few good test questions out of it.
• RTP Header Compression also compresses the UDP and IP headers, and therefore must be enabled on both sides of a link. Could the name be any more misleading?
• COPS, aside from one of my wife's favorite TV shows, is a protocol that allows centralized monitoring and control of RSVP. Bad packets, bad packets, what'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when QoS comes for you?
• ECN is like frame-relay adaptive shaping, except it's not shaping and there's no frame-relay. If a router is nearing congestion, it can use the last two bits of the ToS field to notify the upstream host. Then the upstream host relays this information to the sender. Finally, the sender slows down sending. It's like FECN and BECN, and like being issued a warning before WRED steps in and destroys your packet.
• BGP can use communities to propagate QoS policy information (bgp-policy command)

CCIE Service Provider Next

It's official, I'm definitely going for Service Provider next.

I'm considered studying for the lab first and then knocking out the written once I'm comfortable with the hands on, but I'm changing my approach.

I'm going to go ahead and knock out the CCIP first. This should put me well on the way toward passing the written. It's also a little more manageable to cover the material this way.

The first exam I'm going for is QoS, since there's a lot of overlap with R&S and I've had a decent amount of experience with it. I picked up the Boson ExSim test for the exam. I've always been pretty fond of Boson and have been using them for over 6 years. They have a heck of a lot of material, are inexpensive, have great explanations, and the questions cover the topics well without being too close to the real exam.

My strategy is as follows:

1. Take a 20 question Boson practice test every day
2. Review the DocCD on anything I miss
3. Review Safari Books Online if I need further explanation of the topic

Since there are roughly 250 questions, I should be ready to knock out each professional level exam in about 2 weeks with this approach.

Goodbye, Randy Pausch

I first learned about Randy's story last fall from one of my professors. The night after I heard, I watched The Last Lecture on Youtube. I've seen quite a few inspirational speakers over the years, and most have a knack for making me feel all pumped up for a few days. But after a week or two I can barely remember any of their lessons.

This is not true with Randy Pausch. I can honestly say his lecture changed my life. I'm going to paraphrase a bit, but two points in particular had a big impact on me:

• Brick walls aren't there to stop you, they're there to prove how bad you want something
• You have four categories of tasks: urgent and important, non-urgent and important, urgent and unimportant, and non-urgent and unimportant. Do the non-urgent important tasks before the urgent unimportant ones.
  

These are two VERY important pieces toward the CCIE. The lab exam is a BIG brick wall. It will make you prove how bad you want it. It is also generally going to be non-urgent and important. If you really want it, study for it before the things that "need" to be done right away but don't really matter.

Thank you Randy, you will be missed.