I’m baaaccckkkk! Now, on to the SP! I finished my CCVP about 2 months ago and I needed a little break, but I’m ready to go again.
I just happened to glance at my calendar today and realized that I need to get my butt in gear. I’ve scheduled the CCIE SP written exam for August 1 and I’m only about 30% of the way through MPLS Fundamentals!
I’ll be updating this site as I progress through each blueprint topic as well as posting a plan of attack.
Talk soon…
Ok, I’m feeling jet-lagged so I’ll just summarize here. Basically, Narbik’s bootcamp surpassed my expectations for a bootcamp. There was this great feeling I had the whole time of feeling ready and Narbik bringing us closer to the finish line. As most of you may already know, Narbik uses all whiteboard, and no powerpoint or overhead projection. THANK GOD! getting down in the trenches with us by drawing out all talking points just keeps you in tune and keeps the dialogue bidirectional.
So what else set Narbik apart? This bootcamp was fun. It was involved. He skipped over what we knew as the basics and got right down to the point on most topics. And when you thought you knew something… POW! You knocked you upside the head with fundamental scenarios that begged to differ. What I really liked, is we were’nt follwing every keystroke while he configured an entire topology, watch us lab the whole time or try to dazzle us with his knowledge of english composition nor drink champagne with the aristocracy pinky finger up. This dude was straight down to earthand I loved that we got at least half the time in lecture. I mean, seriously, why the hell would I pay to go lab in a hotel banquet hall? I can do that at home for free. I want to have an interactive exploration of our favorite subjects and thats precisely what I got. You don’t go there to feel smart. Join a bookclub if thats the case. You go there to be humbled and learn from it.Â
So what didn’t I like? Eh, the location got changed at the last minute when I had my hotel reservations already, but it was only 10 min farther, so thats just plain old bitching. But LA traffic blows. And 9am start time was later than I expected, but then again, more bitching.Â
Above all, it’s great to have a mentor in front of your face to answer and demonstrate you questions. Want to know the best part? I’ve made a habit of citing conflicting information from different sources, footnoting who it was said from. Then I put some of it to the test with Narbik. Well, lets just say he destroyed my footnotes and I enjoyed it. Btw, I don’t think Narbik sleeps… at all.
Here’s some dark humor for you guys. This week i’m attending Narbik’s bootcamp in Glendale, CA and today was BGP. Also here is Paul Negron, technical reviewer of the CCIE offical Exam Cert Guide 3rd edition( i believe there’s a bio inside the cover). After wisecracking the We love oranges mnemonic for BGP path selection, Paul created his own on the spot. In all fairness we were all joking with a very twisted theme today. Pretty hilarious day actually. Here’s the new mnemonic for BGP path selection:
Weight, Local Pref, Network(best origination), AS, Origin code, MED, External>Internal, RID which is shortened as:
We Love Negron’s Ass on Mondays Except If Rashed
Er.. I may have helped a little bit. Sick yet hilarious. Oh man, it was a goofy day. But much was learned. In short, Narbik is the man
This is what I received in my mailbox today, I thought to share it
with you guys. Below is the email from Narbik Kocharians.
For the longest time I have been thinking of either giving it up all
together or come up with something that will capture the entire
(CCIE) world, well I decided to really go after it and I mean full
ON, here are the changes that you may find in my future boot camps
starting in 2 months, here it goes:
The boot camp work book and the advanced work book will be combined
and sold as the new version 2.0.
The boot camp workbook will have the following:
I mean you have NOT seen better, listen guys I am NOT trying to sell you
the class, you have paid already, but I am telling you, even the lectures
have changed. YOU WAIT AND SEE.
My goal is to get 80 percent passing on the first try. That is a promise.
This is my first post and donot shy while sending me comments on my poor english. Till now I have written posts on layer 3 MPLS but did not get enough motivation to write on MPLS Internet. This is the first article of MPLS Internet working which is going to start as my first post on CCIE Candidate. Post is very basic and will not cover so technically except the basic flow of traffic.
Introduction
Serving internet in MPLSVPN cloud is really a frantic job. This is what I used to think but after reading lot of articles and paper I got full understanding. Of course, if you are aware of MPLS technology then it’s really a calm job. In the given scenario MPLS is running in service provider cloud and from now onwards service provider wants to serve internet with the help of MPLS. The focal point is route target in MPLSVPN cloud and you should have the basic understanding of working of route targets with import and export statements.
 Apologies for not uploaing scenario pic. May be some problem with the server.
Internet———R2-PE-INTERNET—–MP-iBGP——-R1-CUST-VRF———CE
Â
Working
Router R2-PE-INTERNET is connected with upstream service provider from where the internet bandwidth is allocated. R2-PE-INTERNET is only having a default route towards the R3 router.
Ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 2.2.2.2 [Default Route Towards The Internet Service Provider]
Before proceeding further on we need to understand the how the packet flow will work. It will be of two types :-
a)Â Â Â Â Â PE itself works as internet gateway.
b)Â Â Â Â Â PE is receiving the default route from another PE router and there after traffic will move towards the internet.
In this post I will keen towards the internet flow and its working configuration and simulation will provide in the upcoming posts.
Note:-On internet only IPV4 traffic will move. Internet doesn’t understand the vpnv4 traffic or label traffic.
Customer will send a request to the PE for shivlu.blogspot.com. The traffic sent by the customer will be ipv4 traffic; once it reached PE it will be entered in the vrf. So in vrf the traffic will look for the default route for internet. If the route will not present in the vrf, traffic will be dropped silently. So vrf must have a default route which should forward the traffic towards the internet gateway. Assume default route is in the CUST vrf routing table. Now the next question comes in mind what will be the next hop address of that default route? Definitely the next hop address should be the remote PE router from the router will learn the default route in vrf. I know its little sticky but don’t worry it will be cleared later. After reaching the remote PE traffic will look forward the ip address which will be available in global routing table and at last it will leave the service provider cloud. This is all about the traffic moving from CUST vrf to internet. Here we cannot stop because need to check how the traffic will come from internet and will receive by customer.
For reverse traffic forwarding; traffic will first arrive to service provider internet gateway router. After that global routing table will be checked for the destination address which is the CUST global ip pool. It means we need to advertise the CUST global internet pool in the service provider cloud. Now the question comes where it should be announced and how customer will receive ipv4 traffic because it is part of vrf? For achieving this service provider need to add a static route towards PE router which is directly attached to the CE.
Ip route <global route> <subnet mask> <outgoing interface address which is part of vrf> <next hop CE address>
Now the route is added in the global routing table and need to redistribute in IGP. There after route will be globally available on every router. So during the reverse path from internet traffic will come to know about the destination address via IGP and on reaching PE the ip traffic will forwarded in the vrf interface.
Now ping the global ip address 4.2.2.2 with source public ip from CE and you get the !!!!!.
regards
shivlu jain
First look at CCIE Command Memorizer.
Bought CCIE Command Memorizer today. My first impression of the product is very good. I already have IPEXPERT BLS as i mentioned in my previous post but this tool gives me different perspective that way i can learn. Even though i have to type the commands in full but i dont mind doing that. The whole thing is divided in parts. They cover most of the topics mentioned in the CCIE (R & S) blueprint. You cant type “ ? ” for help, which means that you need to know the command before you type it. I think this is a good feature but everyone has a different view on things. The reason why i think it is great is that instead of typing ? all the times and drill down until i find the right command with COMMAND MEMORIZER i need to actually know what i am typing which means i can save a lot of time during my lab exam as i know the commands by heart. Another benefit of not having help when attempting any scenario is that it will change my habit of typing ? everytime and instead go to the CISCO DOC CD to find the answer which means i am improving my navigation skills for the CISCO DOC which can be very handy when i am doing my lab. But again everyone has a different view.
You can do the scenarios as many times you want. Once you are finished you can reset the whole page and do all over again. You dont even need internet connection, once you have activated the product you are good to go and you can use the product anywhere you want.
I tried the switching section and they have really good scenarios to work on. They start from basic and then complex scenarios.
Will update more once i have tried it a bit more.
Through all the reading and practice labs, these are some redistribution notes that I thought were very useful and helped me allot. So I’m sharing and maybe it’ll help someone understand or see things differently.
Notes on Redistribution
If you have further notes that are useful and wish to share, well then go ahead an leave me your thoughts 
My study plan coming soon… Workbooks used and methods :0
I read Luis Garcia’s excellent post about fitness and study, and mostly agree. I am not as conscientious about my fitness as Luis, but here are my thoughts on how I plan and execute on study. You should make choices that suit your life, but if someone wants my to hear my suggestions, here they are.
Read more »
after some interesting comments from my last post its about time I share my views on something that’s been bothering me for some time now. The common misconception that studying for the CCIE has to be detriment to your health. How many people have put on 10, 20, or more pounds since their study kicked off. I myself, who loves sports has been a victim of this pursuit, and thats just not acceptable. It’s simply not worth it to sacrifice an important aspect of our lives for something that brings pride in our selves, respect from co-workers, a pay raise, or whatever reason that we’ve given ourselves to march down this road.
For example, I have been a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) for years since I was active duty military at Ft. Bragg, NC. At a base full of Airborne qualified paratroopers, there’s plenty of MMA gyms to go around. I Started my interest at a Brazilian Jui-jitsu (BJJ) school right off base. Thats where you get hooked. Since then, I had devoted time to Muay Thai, BJJ, and wrestling as my favorite hobby. Even on a recent deployment to Iraq, I managed to find a group of soldiers and civilians who despite their jobs, spent any free time they had to training. So here I am now, over 1 year out of my element, studying for the CCIE, dreaming of the day that I will pass and can train once again. So the only thing I can do, is weight train as often as I can in the gym, but even so, I’ve been slipping hard.
Why you can’t give up
Lets be honest, chances are you may have to temporarily give up your favorite sport to pursue the CCIE, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop exercising entirely. Lets look at the first reason why you absolutely need to continue exercising.
Stress is a roadblock to study, whether you realise it or not. Exercise has been proven to reduce stress and thats conducive to study. Not to mention your chances of depression are lowered drastically.
 Aerobic (and anaerobic) facilitate a positive mood and better self-esteem. Those sound like good motivators for study to me. You read up on some benefits as published by the Surgeon General’s report here. And About.com has a quick generic overview of how exercise improves mental health.
How I survive
Look bottom line is, study is absolutely no excuse for not getting your workout on. But its our time management that kicks us in the ass. So what I try to do is go to the gym a minimum of 3 times a week, and on other days, try to spare 20 min or more to some simple aerobic exercise such as running (taking my dog along for a run through the german forest can be refreshing). The key is to develop an weight training program thats extremely flexible. that Mon this, Tues that crap won’t cut it. You need to base training days on generic days (Day 1, Day 2 etc.) which can rotate to any day of the week, so any skipped workout keeps you on the same schedule.  So if I have a 3 day schedule, it would be “Push” on day 1, “Pull” on day 2, and “Push” again on day 3. The whole push pull thing suggests things like Bench press, squats for push, Pullups and say, deadlifts for Pull. there’s core exercises (abs and lower back) included in each day. So i’m never skipping a bodypart.
Yes, its sort of total body each time, because its a very condensed schedule. But the real trick its to cut the workout to about 40 min or less. Most of us can’t spare 2 hours a day to working out. Can you imagine? What if you get home from work at 6pm after traffic , spend 2 hours working out, get home at 8:30. Assuming you went to sleep at 11pm, you only have 2 1/2 hours of study! You have to budget warm up time of 5-10 min in your workouts too though. We’re all different, but that is whats been working for me so far. A sample day might have me get off work at 5pm, rush to the gym, be changed warmed up by 5:30 (My job is close to a gym, you may be different), drum up a few Olympic lifts, 2 - 3 sets of various exercises, get in 5 min or more of planks for the core then hustle home for a quick shower and start labbing.
Its not perfect, in fact, I work out much less and have don’t see the results I did when I wasn’t studying. But thats not the point. I’m trying to maintain a minimum level of fitness during my studies so I haven’t sacrified much and can pick back up when I’m done. I’d love to hear how everyone else manages to keep their fitness sanity.
In such a big blog community, its so hard these days to contribute something of value, something that we candidates appreciate besides redundant tutorials and lab outputs. But its this wealth of information that has driven the pass rate of the lab up, IMO, not really cheaters. I’ve benefited so much from modern approach to self motivated training that wasn’t available to the older numbered CCIE’s. I’ve been really happy to enjoy the fruits of other candidate’s sweat, and I hope everyone will continue to publish their journey. It’s funny how we have no idea if our way of studying is helpful at all, until pass or fail (or fail many times). I guess thats how we all benefit, to see real time, whats working and whats not.
I’ve followed up on tons of blog posts and suggestions, but I’ve become kind of partial to certain resources. Check them out:
Internetworkexpert Online Community ( www.ieoc.com)
This is easily number one in my eyes. I have loved this forum since it was introduced. I can’t quite figure what it is about www.groupstudy.com that I don’t like, but I guess thats the illogical side of me. But I’ve been visiting other forums, such as IPexpert’s http://onlinestudylist.com/ , but it just wasn’t the same. Much less activity, and less interaction from the instructors. I have no idea how they do it, but IE responds frequently and still develops material and conduct bootcamps. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m a member, but if I email any instructor at IE, they email me back pretty quickly with an answer to my question. I’m almost positive I get on IE’s nerves at IEOC, but its damn worth it. Most of the time you’ll get responses from other candidates, or those who have their number already, and no one feeds you wrong info (of if they do, someone will call them out immediately) 
Cisco Documenation (the DocCD)
Need I say more? Actually, before I only referenced it here and there when I thought I needed to. But wow, I was so blind. Those expensive Cisco press books are a waste. The DocCD is in plain english, easy to understand their introductions to technologies, and important notes are bordered with horizontal rules so you won’t just browse over it. Now that I’ve been reading the DocCD page by page, there have been numerous things that I didn’t know before, and its become my single most reliable source of information when I feel like reading.
IP Expert’s Videos on Demand
When I got my hard drive from IP Expert, I was anxious to start watching the videos. And boy was I grateful! Straight to the point, simplied language that helps you understand instead of just make you feel smart, but wasn’t insulting either. IE’s class on demands are great for more material, but the IP expert videos are spectacular first pass materials.  Of course, what I haven’t mentioned yet is that the videos that i have from IP Expert are all done by Scott Morris, who is an instructor at IE now.
Personal Notes
Nothing beats your own notes, as long as your own paraphrasing doesn’t screw you. Thats why I footnote everything. Whats really helped is having one word document with bullet points of configurations or areas that have given me trouble. Sort of a cheat sheet.
RFC’s
Ok, I can’t read through all of an RFC most of the time, but they’re best for setting the record straight when you have conflicting notes (besides the DocCD). I’ve had to reference RFC 2328 (OSPF) more times then I can count. You wouldn’t believe how many people will post wrong stuff about OSPF. Don’t forget to browse the April Fool’s RFC’s
Blogs
Your reading this one aren’t you? The after lab posts are the greatest, doesn’t matter if it’s pass or fail.
Virtual Links
Nested Virtual Links
OSPF without Area O
Link Metrics
First of all thanks to Ethan for providing me an opportunity to blog here. Now a bit about me, My name is Vivek Mahajan and i live in a small but beautiful country called New Zealand where i work for a payments provider company as ICT Specialist. I am also on the path to earn my CCIE (R & S). I started my journey for CCIE early last year and I was in the dilemma whether I should go straight for my CCIE or should I recertify myself again by doing the CCNx. So in the end I decided that I will recertify myself so I passed my CCNA and CCNP. Then I started my preparation for CCIE in August last year. I passed my CCIE written in january this year. I have booked my lab for June 29th.
What i have done so far for my prepartions and the materials i have used, The books list is not that extensive but for some reasons my bookshelf has started to fill up.
List of Books:-
Materials bought from vendors
IPEXPERT Self Study Blending Learning Solution.
Bootcamp Attended
Attended Narbik’s Bootcamp in December 2008. Planning to Retake it again before the lab attempt as it is free for students who have already attended and paid for the first one.
Workbooks used
Workbooks from Narbik
Workbooks and labs from IPEXPERT.
I think that sums up what i have been using for my studies so far. once again a big thanks to ETHAN for providing this opportunity and i will try to contribute as others have on the site.
Many of you may already be aware of the WISB tool freely available at networkers-online.com. In the words of the author, the tool “is a small program that can be used to automate the configuration of network devices. This can be useful for configuring multiple devices without the need for interactive logging to the device. Currently only Cisco Routers and Switches are supported over telnet. More to come soon.”
Take a look, as WISB can help speed up configuration and information gathering in CCIE practice lab environments. Let the author know what you think.
This is day 5 of Narbik’s bootcamp in Warsaw.
The class begins with a brief lecture on QOS to finish the lecture of Thursday.
Then we proceeded to Multicast. Narbiks style again was not to give you a mere
interpretation of the DOCCD but to put everything in a meaninfull context and to
create relationships between different areas in the technology.
The last part of Narbik’s lecture was about Lab Stratergy. He told us that the
important thing is that once you begin doing a workbook you have to finish it.
He also praised the 8 hours Lab workbooks from InternetworkExpert and IPExpert and
told us to do at least some of these labs.
We received a vast collection of material to work on;
01) The soup to nuts e-workbook (This is only for pre-bootcamp preparation)
02) The advanced ccie workbook consisting of five volumes
03) The Bootcamp workbook consisting of two volumes (498 pages)
04) Two mock labs
05) 17 PDFs with new material!
Narbik tells us to take the time to finish each volume and to make note of each
item we found difficult to accomplish. Then when we are finished doing all the
workbooks and PDFs we have to go back to our notes and redo the ones we found
difficult. Narbiks also tells us how to use the DOCCD as a reference.
One student noted that Narbik is teaching us how to become better engineers and
as a result of that to pass the CCIE Lab Exam.
The class ended at about 14:00 and than students began praising Narbik telling him
that this is the best class ever they attended. These dudes are not easily impressed
for they know a lot and several of them have at least one master degree in some
technical area.
For the skeptical reader. This was a retake of the bootcamp.
My first time was in Pasadena. I was not well prepared then and I had a
terrible jet-lag which lasted the whole week for I didn’t had time to
catch-up for the classes lasted 10 to 12 hours. This time I had no time
difference and I was well prepared. I paid for the bootcamp.
I blogged this five day bootcamp because I wanted to give the reader a
honest impression of Narbik’s bootcamp.
-=end=-
Short post as the title says to introduce my self, as most everyone who posts here I’m also on the path to earning my CCIE#. I just want to thanks Ethan for allowing me to post here, this is an awesome little community of very well informed and intelligent people. I have/had my own blog address but decided to move here, well because the more people collaborate together the better it ultimately is for everyone. We all share our thoughts and experiences together and all learn and gather from them. I will be posting much of my study experience and or any real world experience that may help in the path to that number. My lab date is scheduled for June 4th 2009, this will be my first attempt at it and hopefully the last for R&S at least, others to come after :). Let me say thanks to anyone who wishes well for anyone of us here and advices on the best path to take. Again I hope I’m welcomed to this site as others have been and hope to contribute as others have.
Thanks and cya soon
