IPExpert Lab 23 Complete

Ahhh, a much easier one for a change. There wasn't anything too complicated in here at all. I did make a couple of minor mistakes--completely skipped a small step and messed up a couple of access lists.

I spent a little more than than I would have liked on OSPF authentication and a poorly worded RIP section. Other than that, things went pretty well.

I took a different approach this time. First I setup the required parts of the Cats. Next, configured IGP, EGP, and anything else required on R1. I intentionally left off anything related to security, redistribution, or filtering at this point. Then I did the same with R2, ensuring all adjacencies, etc. formed with R1. I followed the same process until I got through all the routers. Then I went back through on the items I skipped--authentication, filtering, summaries, etc.

I felt pretty good about the way things went this way. By 2.5 hours, the entire core was up and connectivity was verified. At 4.5 hours, all advanced core features were completed. At this point I just picked off the advanced features one by one and had the whole lab finished in about 7 hours.

The nice part about this approach is that I get any design concerns out of the way early on because I'm getting end to end reachability up pretty fast and including BGP in that initial design. I'm also saving a lot of time because I'm not jumping back and forth between routers so much. The only real negative to this approach is I am jumping around in the workbook a lot so it makes it really easy to accidentally skip something.

IPExpert Lab 22 Complete (sort of)

For once the core portion of the lab was pretty easy. I still have to get faster, but everything through BGP took about 5 hours. There's definitely some room for improvement. Primarily, this involves setting up everything in OSPF and BGP the first time. I have the tendancy to get everything up on OSPF and then setting up the virtual links and then encrypting. It'd be nice to do it all the first time rather than having to visit each router 3 or 4 times. The same goes with BGP adjacencies and reflectors/confederations. I bet hitting all of these in one shot would take a hour off the time.

The rest of the lab got pretty tough. Some of this, such as the logging section, was due to poor explanations and not having a proctor around to ask clarification. The VPN section was a wash. Same with a VMPS question on the advanced switch part. As always, some annoying ports to try to figure out. And then just when it seems as if the lab should be ending, in comes two IPv6 sections. One was easy, the other was pretty complicated.

So, I ended up running out of time. I'm intending of repeating Lab 21 due to the complicated redistribution. Well, I need to repeat this one, primarily to improve time management. This lab was supposed to be diffiult, with a complexity of 6.5. The next three labs are easier, at 4.5, and then the rest of the workbook looks pretty rough. So, I think I'll knock out the next three easier ones, and then repeat 21 and 22. And then I'll be into the hard ones. That should put me right about to January to where I'll be beginning to panic with the lab date getting close.

IPExpert Lab 21 Complete

Ok, this one took me a little bit longer than the last few. The complexity is a little higher at 4 out of 10. I finished the lab with about 15 minutes to spare, with a few unplanned breaks that took up about an hour. I had to rush a little through the QoS section, but not much so I would really say I was pressed for time.

So what took so long? Primarily, understanding what the heck they were asking for. It was evident this lab was barely rewritten from an older version with fewer switches and other technologies. A lot of the language just didn't add up. And with a couple typos in the beginning stages, I spent a lot of time asking myself if something later was a typo or if it was the desired config.

For example, I was told to configure OSPF on 4 serial interfaces. Well, 2 of those interfaces were already running EIGRP. OSPF could not form an adjacency over the frame relay links because they were spokes and the hub was not running OSPF. So my choices were either to run OSPF on the hub as well, or to add OSPF to the ethernet links. The strange part of this is that OSPF would end up configured on the frame relay links, but there wouldn't actually be an adjacency. Well, they didn't say an adjacency was needed, so that's the path I chose.

Redistribution was a major pain in this lab. Every other step of the IGP configuration required to check that things are still up if link x or y goes down. So a bit of time was taken up shutting down interfaces and running ping scripts from distant ends to ensure things come back up. There always seemed to be a loopback or two that needed to be manually redistributed into another protocol.

So, the bottom line is I can do complex redistribution, I just need to get a lot faster at it. The latest trend seems to recommend doing a few labs 4 or 5 times. I think I'll add this one to be one that I'll do multiple times before gameday.

As for the rest of the tasks, I think things went pretty well. I still stink at Catalyst QoS. I didn't catch the aggregate policer. I need to commit to memory that if shared bandwidth must be below a certain level I need to use aggregate policers. I also wish for once I could remember to classify video, use "match protocol http mime "video/*". I was closer this time, I just had "*video" instead of "video/*"

I'd give myself about 90% on this one, with a total time, minus interruptuions, of 7 hours.

IPExpert lab 20 complete

I found this one relatively easy. The 8 hour lab took me about 5 hours to complete and was nearly perfect. The only real issue was I neglected to realize I needed to setup NAT. This is still one of the easier labs, but it's certainly helping to build my confidence. I'm pretty sure if I do one of these each Saturday I'll be ready to go once February gets here!

Progress

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. Believe it or not, I have been making progress. I took the IPExpert bootcamp with Marvin as the instructor. I highly recommend this. I learned a heck of a lot, while at the same time I got by butt kicked enough to motivate me to keep studying until my lab date in February.

Today was the first time since the bootcamp that I was able to get some studying in. I attacked ipexpert lab #19. I was able to finish it in 6 hours with about 95% accuracy. I do think my speed is getting considerably better. That was my biggest issue at the bootcamp--running out of time.

I'm going to try to do a lab every Saturday until my real date comes up. I hope that's a sufficient amount of studying at this point. With a 2 month old baby and graduate school, it's though enough to get this much in as it is.

Bootcamp scheduled

Once I passed the written, I decided I was probably going to attend a CCIE bootcamp. I got a heck of a lot of studying done so far this year and it's tough to keep dedicated with a 6 week old son and graduate school going on at the same time. I just so happened to get a marketing email from IPexpert this week and decided to follow up on it. The date, location, and price was right, so I went ahead and signed up. Apparently I get to actually take the class twice for the price of one, so I'm going the first time the end of September. Now I just have to work hard the next two weeks on my home rack before class starts to make sure I'm adequately prepared.


Unfortunately, studying didn't happen tonight.



On the left is my car which got hit while parked. My wife was standing on the passenger side and literally had to dive out of the way to avoid serious injury. Thankfully, everyone's fine.

Lab Date Scheduled

The backlog was a little longer than I expected, so a lab date of January does not look possible. I have instead scheduled my lab date for February 22nd. Which basically means I have until January 22nd to commit to that date or push it back further.

I'm currently in talks with a few bootcamp providers to decide what to take. I'm leaning toward IPexpert's 5 day bootcamp in December, but I haven't committed to anything yet.

No rack time yet this week :(