Section 1:
sh frame-relay pvc can verify a DE list via "in DE pkts" and "out DE pkts"
Section 2:
Wow, I totally misread the span session requirements. Even if I had read it right, rspan isn't a problem, but remembering to add it to be allowed across the trunk likely would have been.
Section 3:
no issues
Section 4:
More stupid mistakes. MFR isn't a problem as long as the solution's guide is followed. However I duplicated another ip address which caused 50% success. I spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting what I thought was a physical layer issue before a debug ip packet showed half my packets trying to go out another interface.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
I'm baaaaaccccckkkkk!
Ok, so that break took a little longer than I expected. I had been pretty busy between work, reading, golf, and enjoying family life. But not that I'm about a month out I need to get back on the horse.
I ended up purchasing the IPExpert SP Lab Mentoring Kit because I wanted to use another vendor but I really didn't feel the need to go through all the basics again. I wasn't too far off on my last attempt. I was mostly just missing a couple of advanced topics which cost me time to complete the other loose ends and verification time. So I'm hopeful these five labs will do the trick. Additionally, they are supposed to include video walkthroughs of each lab, which should be pretty handy for areas I'm stuck on.
I ended up purchasing the IPExpert SP Lab Mentoring Kit because I wanted to use another vendor but I really didn't feel the need to go through all the basics again. I wasn't too far off on my last attempt. I was mostly just missing a couple of advanced topics which cost me time to complete the other loose ends and verification time. So I'm hopeful these five labs will do the trick. Additionally, they are supposed to include video walkthroughs of each lab, which should be pretty handy for areas I'm stuck on.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
2nd Attempt Scheduled
I've scheduled my second attempt at the SP lab in RTP for June 26th. I spent last week on some much needed time off and put very little thought toward the CCIE or any work related matters. I've also decided to take a breather this week and next to re-energize for another full two months of lab prep.
After evaluating my failure, I feel the root cause was due to two factors.
First, toward the end of my studies I reverted to a brute force approach instead of taking my time and ensuring I fully groked the material. In the beginning of my studies I was very diligent in researching new topics, such as soo, down bits, and such subjects. But when I moved on to full scale labs, I stopped doing this. When something didn't work, I kept changing the config manically until I was able to get things to come up.
Second, I think I simply rushed into the lab too fast. I only really spent 2 months on full scale labs. I feel this was too much information too quickly for my brain to absorb. Since the next two months should be review and reinforcement, I'm hopeful the material will be much more natural to me.
I'm going to go back to rejuvination mode and will be back for studying at the end of April.
After evaluating my failure, I feel the root cause was due to two factors.
First, toward the end of my studies I reverted to a brute force approach instead of taking my time and ensuring I fully groked the material. In the beginning of my studies I was very diligent in researching new topics, such as soo, down bits, and such subjects. But when I moved on to full scale labs, I stopped doing this. When something didn't work, I kept changing the config manically until I was able to get things to come up.
Second, I think I simply rushed into the lab too fast. I only really spent 2 months on full scale labs. I feel this was too much information too quickly for my brain to absorb. Since the next two months should be review and reinforcement, I'm hopeful the material will be much more natural to me.
I'm going to go back to rejuvination mode and will be back for studying at the end of April.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Next Steps
First off, I wanted to say thanks to everyone's comments over the past couple of days. I'm now trying to figure out what to do next.
I scheduled the lab this week because I have a family wedding to attend at the beach next week, so I'll be taking some time to relax and unwind. The big question is what to do next.
My score on the lab ended up right around 50%. I'm not surprised because not only did I spend all my time troubleshooting and point hunting, but I didn't have any time to verify (since I had no shot at even an 80, what was the point?). Typically I like to spend the last hour just going over the entire lab step by step verifying configs.
I could repeat the IE labs and lab up some of the SP mini scenarios . I really do believe 90% of the lab was covered by the IE labs. I would just rank the real thing as more of a 9 on the difficulty scale. I was studying for it like it'd be a 7, as was the case for the R&S lab. It turned out the actual lab was a little harder than the IE labs.
Another option would be to use IPexpert. I used them as well for R&S. I really found the annoying lack of clarity in the IPexpert tasks to be great practice for the lab.
I've also seen some folks recommend iementor.com's products for SP.
It looks like I'll have to wait until July to retake the lab, unless I want to schedule it for the week of Memorial Day, which I really don't.
I also think I'm going to buy a hard copy of at least one MPLS book. I've done ALL of my studying via Books Online and the DocCd, and I think I'd like to have something physical to thumb through.
I scheduled the lab this week because I have a family wedding to attend at the beach next week, so I'll be taking some time to relax and unwind. The big question is what to do next.
My score on the lab ended up right around 50%. I'm not surprised because not only did I spend all my time troubleshooting and point hunting, but I didn't have any time to verify (since I had no shot at even an 80, what was the point?). Typically I like to spend the last hour just going over the entire lab step by step verifying configs.
I could repeat the IE labs and lab up some of the SP mini scenarios . I really do believe 90% of the lab was covered by the IE labs. I would just rank the real thing as more of a 9 on the difficulty scale. I was studying for it like it'd be a 7, as was the case for the R&S lab. It turned out the actual lab was a little harder than the IE labs.
Another option would be to use IPexpert. I used them as well for R&S. I really found the annoying lack of clarity in the IPexpert tasks to be great practice for the lab.
I've also seen some folks recommend iementor.com's products for SP.
It looks like I'll have to wait until July to retake the lab, unless I want to schedule it for the week of Memorial Day, which I really don't.
I also think I'm going to buy a hard copy of at least one MPLS book. I've done ALL of my studying via Books Online and the DocCd, and I think I'd like to have something physical to thumb through.
Monday, March 30, 2009
No Chance
I'm still waiting for the score report, but I know I don't have a chance to pass. Even if I got everything right that I thought I did, I'd still be left with less than 80.
So what happened? I can blame a little bit on poorly written tasks, but for the most part I simply wasn't ready.
There are still too many topics that I can figure out if I spend 15 or 20 minutes troubleshooting. I need to be automatic with all of these.
I lost an hour troubleshooting a stupid mistake that I would have caught right away if I had verified properly. What's worse is I did I verify it, but I missed something. Not only did I lose valuable time, but I kind of spooked myself when I got stuck on something so vital. By time I found it I was a little burned out as well.
I also didn't stick to my game plan. For some silly reason, I opted to skip the VPN diagram right away. I was having a hard time understanding some of the requirements, so I chose to jump right in instead of doing a diagram. What the heck was I thinking? Regardless, this may have made the VPN portion take longer than normal, but it wasn't a killer.
In a nutshell, there are 4 or 5 topics that I need to be COMPLETELY automatic on. I need to have the ability to look at the topology and already know the issues and how to work around them. This is the level I was at when I passed R&S.
When you can look at the topology and think "I bet they're gonna throw this, that, and this other thing at me, and here's how I'll work around it", then you're ready.
All in all, it was a fair exam. If I was a little more solid in 2 or 3 more areas, and had another hour, I believe I would have passed.
Internetwork Expert did a great job for preparing me for the exam. There material is great, I just plain wasn't ready yet. I need to put more time in.
I'm waiting for the score report now to see how I fared on the tasks I think I completed. If my total score is in the 60% range, then I'm right on track. If it's much lower than that, then I really misunderstood some of the requirements or my attention to detail faltered.
I plan on shooting for it again in May.
So what happened? I can blame a little bit on poorly written tasks, but for the most part I simply wasn't ready.
There are still too many topics that I can figure out if I spend 15 or 20 minutes troubleshooting. I need to be automatic with all of these.
I lost an hour troubleshooting a stupid mistake that I would have caught right away if I had verified properly. What's worse is I did I verify it, but I missed something. Not only did I lose valuable time, but I kind of spooked myself when I got stuck on something so vital. By time I found it I was a little burned out as well.
I also didn't stick to my game plan. For some silly reason, I opted to skip the VPN diagram right away. I was having a hard time understanding some of the requirements, so I chose to jump right in instead of doing a diagram. What the heck was I thinking? Regardless, this may have made the VPN portion take longer than normal, but it wasn't a killer.
In a nutshell, there are 4 or 5 topics that I need to be COMPLETELY automatic on. I need to have the ability to look at the topology and already know the issues and how to work around them. This is the level I was at when I passed R&S.
When you can look at the topology and think "I bet they're gonna throw this, that, and this other thing at me, and here's how I'll work around it", then you're ready.
All in all, it was a fair exam. If I was a little more solid in 2 or 3 more areas, and had another hour, I believe I would have passed.
Internetwork Expert did a great job for preparing me for the exam. There material is great, I just plain wasn't ready yet. I need to put more time in.
I'm waiting for the score report now to see how I fared on the tasks I think I completed. If my total score is in the 60% range, then I'm right on track. If it's much lower than that, then I really misunderstood some of the requirements or my attention to detail faltered.
I plan on shooting for it again in May.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Game Plan for tomorrow
Here is how I plan to attack the lab.
1. Contrary to popular strategy, I am NOT going to do a read-through the first time. In the past I've found doing a read-through to be a waste of time because my short-term memory just ain't that good.
2. If there are troubleshooting tasks, review the config and spend 30 minutes or so trying to spot them.
3. Attack L2, IGP, and EGP immediately after. I'll go ahead and configure authentication/encryption type tasks that aren't required for core connectivity, but I won't hesitate to skip them if I hit a snag.
4. Diagram entire BGP/VPN topology. Note that I wait until core is complete before doing this. I like having a good feel for the core before starting the diagram.
5. Complete the VPN configuration. While I'm comfortable with TE now, I'll consider skipping it if it's just a few points because it just seems to have a habit of breaking other things. If I can have VPN completed before lunch, I'll be extremely happy because that should give me plenty of time to polish off the other tasks and do verifications.
6. Diagram and complete multicast. Nothing too fancy of the diagram, I just find it greatly helps me spot rpf and inter-AS issues when I have a separate mcast diagram drawn out. Unfortunately, I know how nasty multicast can be from the R&S lab, so I need prepared to give up these points altogether if need be.
7. Complete the rest of the lab. Consider skipping any traffic filtering related security tasks altogether. If I'm feeling confident in my points, I'm not even going to bother with them because I'm just too afraid of breaking my core. Seems like there's always a routing protocol or tunnel involved that get broken. If I must filter, I'm going to throw an explicit deny log at the end of the access-list so I can see everything that's getting dropped.
At this point, hopefully I have at least an hour left to go back through the lab, step by step, to verify everything. When I passed R&S, I found at least 6 points doing this that were due to stupid omissions (e.g. only applying QoS policy to R5 instead of R5 and R6).
Then, with 30 minutes left, I won't make any more configuration changes unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.
My speed has been fine though, so I'll be a little surprised if I don't have the whole lab wrapped up with 2 hours to spare. If I do, I'll probably keep doing verifications and annoy the proctor with the pickiest little questions I can think of until the labs over or the proctor kicks me out.
And here's what worries me:
Layer 2:
PPPoE. I've done a few basic configs, but it seems like it could get pretty complicated.
l2tp/AToM. There really isn't much to it, so it shouldn't give me any problems.
ATM: I have the basics down, but if some knobs get thrown my way I could have issues.
IGP: IS-IS knobs make me a little nervous.
EGP: I could have spent more time on advanced BGP features like orf and fast external failover. But these seem to be covered well in the doccd.
MPLS: ldp knobs, such as funky neighbor attributes, label filtering, and label retention
VPN: Making sure to spot if/where I need to use domain-id, sham links, and soo. Broken LSPs can be nasty to figure out too.
Multicast:
I'm happy with MDTs and bgp ipv4 multicast now. I'm still a little uncomfortable with MSDP. I think I just have to keep in mind that if I don't have a pim path between two hosts, I'll need two RPs and will need to join them with MSDP.
QoS: They always seem to find something nasty I haven't thought of. I'll just need to spend a little extra time verifying that what I put on is working properly
Security: Bottom line, don't break the core
System Management and IP Services: Gotta find those knobs.
1. Contrary to popular strategy, I am NOT going to do a read-through the first time. In the past I've found doing a read-through to be a waste of time because my short-term memory just ain't that good.
2. If there are troubleshooting tasks, review the config and spend 30 minutes or so trying to spot them.
3. Attack L2, IGP, and EGP immediately after. I'll go ahead and configure authentication/encryption type tasks that aren't required for core connectivity, but I won't hesitate to skip them if I hit a snag.
4. Diagram entire BGP/VPN topology. Note that I wait until core is complete before doing this. I like having a good feel for the core before starting the diagram.
5. Complete the VPN configuration. While I'm comfortable with TE now, I'll consider skipping it if it's just a few points because it just seems to have a habit of breaking other things. If I can have VPN completed before lunch, I'll be extremely happy because that should give me plenty of time to polish off the other tasks and do verifications.
6. Diagram and complete multicast. Nothing too fancy of the diagram, I just find it greatly helps me spot rpf and inter-AS issues when I have a separate mcast diagram drawn out. Unfortunately, I know how nasty multicast can be from the R&S lab, so I need prepared to give up these points altogether if need be.
7. Complete the rest of the lab. Consider skipping any traffic filtering related security tasks altogether. If I'm feeling confident in my points, I'm not even going to bother with them because I'm just too afraid of breaking my core. Seems like there's always a routing protocol or tunnel involved that get broken. If I must filter, I'm going to throw an explicit deny log at the end of the access-list so I can see everything that's getting dropped.
At this point, hopefully I have at least an hour left to go back through the lab, step by step, to verify everything. When I passed R&S, I found at least 6 points doing this that were due to stupid omissions (e.g. only applying QoS policy to R5 instead of R5 and R6).
Then, with 30 minutes left, I won't make any more configuration changes unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.
My speed has been fine though, so I'll be a little surprised if I don't have the whole lab wrapped up with 2 hours to spare. If I do, I'll probably keep doing verifications and annoy the proctor with the pickiest little questions I can think of until the labs over or the proctor kicks me out.
And here's what worries me:
Layer 2:
PPPoE. I've done a few basic configs, but it seems like it could get pretty complicated.
l2tp/AToM. There really isn't much to it, so it shouldn't give me any problems.
ATM: I have the basics down, but if some knobs get thrown my way I could have issues.
IGP: IS-IS knobs make me a little nervous.
EGP: I could have spent more time on advanced BGP features like orf and fast external failover. But these seem to be covered well in the doccd.
MPLS: ldp knobs, such as funky neighbor attributes, label filtering, and label retention
VPN: Making sure to spot if/where I need to use domain-id, sham links, and soo. Broken LSPs can be nasty to figure out too.
Multicast:
I'm happy with MDTs and bgp ipv4 multicast now. I'm still a little uncomfortable with MSDP. I think I just have to keep in mind that if I don't have a pim path between two hosts, I'll need two RPs and will need to join them with MSDP.
QoS: They always seem to find something nasty I haven't thought of. I'll just need to spend a little extra time verifying that what I put on is working properly
Security: Bottom line, don't break the core
System Management and IP Services: Gotta find those knobs.
MPLS VPN Inter-AS Feature Guide
This document could be a life saver tomorrow. It's located under the 12.0S(29) feature guides.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_0s/feature/guide/fsiasleb.html
It has a wealth of information on the send label command, route reflectors, and peering non-adjacent vpnv4 routers.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_0s/feature/guide/fsiasleb.html
It has a wealth of information on the send label command, route reflectors, and peering non-adjacent vpnv4 routers.
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