BGP Exam 642-661

I'm gonna take a stab at this exam sometime this week, possibly as early as today. From looking at the exam topics I just couldn't imagine having too much difficulty with this. Aside from ORF and Hierarchical Route Reflectors, I have quite a bit of experience on the rest of items.

I hope I can pass this today and get myself back on the right track.

I have been defeated by BGP+MPLS

Today I failed BGP+MPLS for the 3rd time. During the exam I thought I had it this time. Many of the questions were repeats and I felt pretty good about the answers. I did do better this time, but I wasn't quite there.

I'm throwing in the towel on this one. I'm pretty sure what's killing me is that I just don't have the practical experience with BGP.

Jumping in to CCIE studying would certainly give me the hands on. I was hoping to use the CCIP to springboard into that, and to be honest I feel like it has already served that purpose. I understand the concepts of MPLS pretty well, I think it's just some of the peculiarities that are throwing me off.

So what now? I've had it with this exam and I'm giving up on it. I was hoping to be into CCIE SP studying by the end of this month. I really want to recertify my CCIE R&S by the end of the year as well.

That basically leaves me with three options:

1. Take the BGP and MPLS exams separately. I think that would be helpful because the score reports should be a little more granularized. That way I should at least know what my weaknesses are. The BGP+MPLS score report is pretty vague.
2. Take the R&S CCIE Written again to renew my cert and then decide what to do next.
3. Jump straight to the SP CCIE Written. I might end up failing it repeatedly as well.
4. Jump straight to studying for the CCIE Lab. I should get enough hands on experience with MPLS to come back and knock out the CCIP after a little while with it. Of course once I'm a month or two into labbing it up on the IE, I probably wouldn't want to bother backtracking for the CCIP.
   

I think I'm going to knock out the BGP exam because I shouldn't have any problems with it. Then, depending on how that goes, I'll regroup from there.

Failed BGP+MPLS Again!

I tried to pass 642-691 again today and once again I didn't make it. My score actually went down. My wife asked me if that means I got stupider--apparently I have!

So what to do now? Do I split them up and take BGP and MPLS exams separately, or keep banging my head against the wall on this exam.

I'm going to digest this for a bit and make up my mind when I'm a little less pissed off at the people who make up these ridiculous questions!

Changed MPLS Books Yet Again!

I've now switched over to MPLS Configuration on Cisco IOS Software. This book seems to be the most readable of the bunch and has lots of pretty pictures. I'm going to review the VPN portions here and lab up some of the exercises. I hope to take another stab at the BGP+MPLS exam by Friday.

Failed 642-691 BGP+MPLS

I attempted the BGP+MPLS exam and didn't quite make it. I was hoping my good knowledge of BGP would be enough to carry my through my limited MPLS knowledge.

The BGP portion went fine. I'd estimate I got over 90% on those questions. Unfortunately many of the MPLS questions were from areas I didn't study enough on. That being said, I had an idea on many of the MPLS questions, I just wasn't quite sure what the correct answer was.

The bottom line is I have to do a lot of studying on MPLS VPNs. I think if I get more comfortable with them I'll be ready to go. I'll try to focus on that topic and take the exam again next week.

CCIE Worldwide Statistical Analysis

PBS has an interesting article here regarding the analysis of the number of CCIEs per nation.

The writer makes the bold statement that "Looking 30 years into the future I think it is clear that the regional leaders will be China and Korea, NOT India and Japan."

CCIE Numbers

Today marks 6 months since I passed the CCIE lab. My number is 20152. A quick look at internetworkexpert shows the most recent number issued using their materials is #21910.

Knowing this yields the following statistics:

• There have been 1758 new CCIE numbers awarded in the past 6 months
• Averaged out, this is 293 per month or approximately 10 per day.

For those of you who want a number in the 20,000s, you have approximately 2 years and 4 months left, assuming the rate stays the same.