CCIE Candidate

Hi *, I’m Keith, Keith Tokash, although I’ve always been partial to “Genghis” (my wife refuses to oblige me).  Just wanted to add an introduction so no one wonders why Ethan is taking a bootcamp after he passed the exam.  I’m about a year into prepping for the R&S lab and would like to contribute [...]

Allow me to offer a heartfelt “thank you” for your congratulatory blog comments and unicasts over the last several hours. I have received dozens of messages from readers around the globe. To hear accolades from fellow candidates and titleholders is especially sweet. We have a unique bond, having shared in the sacrifice [...]

I suppose the post title is a dead give away, but I’ll go ahead and give you the news:  Ethan passed the lab exam is now CCIE #20655.  By now, you’ve also realized that this isn’t Ethan posting, either.  Why?  Simple: he doesn’t have the strange habit of talking about himself in the third person.  [...]

I’m about done looking at labs, workbooks, the Doc CD, my notes, CLIs, PDFs, blogs, books, and three-ring binders. For now, at least. I need to do a quick look back at Catalyst QoS which I haven’t done much of for a while. That’s plane reading. Other than that, I’m as [...]

Just popping my head out of the hole for a minute before heading back down.  Since last Friday, I’ve completed IEWB Vol.2 labs 6, 7, and 8 + IEWB Vol.3 labs 8, 9, and 10 + IE mock lab #5.  I am DREAMING about lab scenarios at this point.  I am taking 15 - 30 [...]

I took yesterday off of work so that I could get a full-scale practice lab in before my mock today. I did IEWB vol.2 lab #6, and it went okay. Today, I did IE mock lab #5 (difficulty 8). I easily finished it within the time limit, which is a huge step [...]

No detailed tech breakdowns on this half-lab. The lab contained a complex OSPF topology, but the rest of the lab was easy. Or at least, it was easy for me. Maybe that means I’m getting IE’s approach a little better now.
I am learning to trust myself when troubleshooting a problem. Different [...]

Brian Dennis contacted me about a post I’d written complaining about the typos in IEWB volume 3. He figured out the source of the differences between the lab tasks and answer key tasks, and told me that the updated PDFs should be available to members really soon. I haven’t checked, but it might be [...]

I just finished off lab 6 in the InternetworkExpert.com volume 3 series. One odd problem was the creation of 2 physically separate OSPF backbone area. IE gave some rules stating that the backbone areas could not be joined via a virtual link on a couple of routers or a tunnel on yet [...]

The lab exam might have a troubleshooting section. NMC DOiT labs did not cover troubleshooting, so I never developed a habit for quickly identifying issues. The IEWB Vol.3 series features troubleshooting sections. I’m trying to nail down a simple script that I can run against the rack to find common problems quickly. [...]

This lab has been a bit of fun, with a lot of odd little challenges thrown in there to keep it interesting. I am having problems with my rack not always functioning properly with the solutions provided though, a bit of a bummer. All good stuff, nonetheless.

The frame cloud was to be 3 [...]

There’s a new “Ask The Expert” thread about Preparing for the CCIE SP Exam on the Cisco NetPro boards.  Not to distract anyone who’s working on the R&S exam, but no doubt there are those of you thinking of doubling-up on your CCIE certs once you get R&S behind you.  I might be crazy [...]

I completed InternetworkExpert.com version 4.1 volume 3 labs 3 + 4 on Saturday. The IEWB volume 3 labs are supposed to make you faster at core tasks. These labs are what I consider “half-labs”. They cover PPP, frame, ethernet switching, RIP, OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, and redistribution. So far, so good. [...]

I asked a couple of CCIE-related questions that Maurilio Gorito answered on this Cisco NetPro forum thread.
Q: Maurilio, is IPv6 BGP covered in the routing and switching lab exam? IPv6 BGP is not mentioned on the lab blueprint, whereas OSPFv3 and RIPng are. However, some of the CCIE prep vendors cover IPv6 BGP in their [...]

It seems I had no end of interruptions this week.  Just…stuff.  All kinds of stuff getting in the way of studying.  Nevertheless, I was determined to finish IEWB Vol.3 lab 2 tonight to stay on schedule, and so here I am at 1:30am, all done, plus set up for Lab 3 to commence, uh, whenever [...]