CCIE Candidate

I’ve had a really hard time squeezing in study time as the holiday season approaches, oh wait, it’s here!  I did, however, manage to complete an Internetwork Expert mock lab.  Well, the term “complete” is somewhat up for debate as I did not complete 100 percent of the lab.  I ended up not even being [...]

So it seems, there are plenty of candidates who want to know “how do you actually tackle your labs?” . These inquisitors don’t want to hear vague ‘like this’ responses. You guys want to hear the raw truth. So I’ll share my approach, to be poked and prodded, in the spirit of sharing. I have [...]

 
I was going over some mini-labs that a Cisco Rep at work developed for us here at work, and it was a great review of some key multicast concepts. So, I decided to actually organize my cocktail napkin notes into something readable. Problem is, some of my scribbles didn’t make sense, so you know what [...]

Okay, I think I’m officially finished with my IPv6 review.  I finally understand the different tunnel types…what each requires and where each one fits in an IPv6 implementation.  (I did manage to resist the urge to jump ahead to a mock lab)
All tunnel types are utilized to provide IPv6 connectivity over an IPv4 network.  I [...]

I use google calender to track my progress and make sure I’m not slacking. I’m still way behind my schedule goals, but here’s a screen shot of where I’m at right now. I’m redoing some labs and trying to compliment that with the new Vol 1 v5 labs from IE to try to nail down [...]

In the field, here’s a little trick you can use to get someone up and running right away using a fiber NIC.
We have a lot of people using fiber NICs, and a broken fiber strand (even if its building infrastructure wiring) is no excuse to wait until Monday. If one strand is broken, you can use [...]

Because I’m feeling random (and I’m reloading routers)…
Check your OSPF tasks before configuring Frame Relay. The ospf network type could really shed some light on how many frame map statements you should use.
 1) If you see…
Serial0/0 (up): ip 0.0.0.0 dlci 103(0×67,0×1870)
              broadcast,
              CISCO, status defined, active
 
It’s an error with Autoinstall over Frame-Relay . Since the router [...]

I feel like I’ve been reading / studying about multicast for what seems like years now.  Now that I think about it, it has been years.  Multicast started showing up in the BCMSN books (3 years ago for me) and seemed to be a common theme throughout the remainder of the CCNP level tests.  Well, never have [...]

I started responding to Nkl Hd ’s question, but realized it may be a little bit long-winded for a response.
Consider this example:
SW1-int g0/7 –> SW2-int F0/7
SW1-int g0/8 –> SW2-int F0/8
Root SW - SW1 for vlan 199
SW1(config)#spanning-tree vlan 199 root primary
SW1 - All ports in VLAN designated and forwarding because switch is root
##################################
SW1#sho spanning-tree int g0/7
Vlan                    [...]

CNN streaming across multiple domains. Odd uses for uRPF, and even stranger network designs. Over zealous redistribution and infinite bandwidth to do it with. It’s The wonderful world of military networks, and The need for more CCIEs to deliver reliable information to our soldiers is so crucial, but there’s so few. There’s more than one [...]

I was reading a page yesterday with “How I Passed the CCIE lab” testimonies. They seem to go two ways. They’re either, “It was much easier than I feared”, which is very encouraging. Or it’s, “It almost killed me all three times I took it.”, which instills as much confidence as when someone says, “This [...]

So I just got smacked in the face right before I was about to move past switching to the next technology.  I have 56 days until the big date in San Jose and I learned something “new”.  It’s something that I have known in the not-so distant past, but I was unable to recall out of my long-term memory.  Of [...]

In case you’re not aware, Eman Conde has been publishing the CCIE Flyer online magazine for a few months now.  The flyer was an e-mail publication previously.  Eman’s putting together content with career advice, happenings of interest to the CCIE community, and contributions from some of us “in the trenches”.  The site is worth a [...]

I’ve spent the last two days finishing up Narbik’s Bootcamp workbook for switching.  I jumped ahead in my studies a bit and went over the queuing on the 3560 switches. 
This happened to coincide nicely with a QOS configuration at work on some 4507 & 3750 switches.  The 4507 is a tad bit different, but fundamentally the [...]