CCIE R&S Written Status Prep. 2010-01-18

At the end of this year I’ve finally started my studies for the CCIE battle. First I want to clear the written asap, so my objective is to clear it till the end of February. Right now I’m very motivated, and I’ve been able to study almost all the nights during the week days. Also this weekend I’ve spent almost 10 hours for studies purposes, which means that right now I’m on a good position to reach this first step.

During the last year I’ve purchased the CCIE 2.0 program from the INE, including the Written and the Troubleshooting CoD, but only now I was able to use the products.

My studies for the written exam, started by watching the R&S Written Bootcamp CoD presented by Anthony Sequeira from the INE team. In my opinion, he did a very good job since he was able to summarize in a very good way the very extensive blueprint.

After that I started to read the CCIE R&S Official Exam Certification Guide, and simultaneously I’m also watching the R&S Advanced Technologies 5-Day Class-on-Demand also from Anthony Sequeira. Although this CoD is not intended to prepare for the written, Anthony presents again a very concise overview about the major topics from the blueprint, and at the same time he does a lot of CLI demonstrations… I like very much of this approach since he gives us the theory and then we are able to see him implementing it in the lab scenario. This approach works very well for me, since it helps me understanding in a better way some concepts… and to be honest after working 8-10 hours, doing the families stuffs, it’s much more easier to watch some CoDs rather than read a book

So, my plan for now is to finish watching this CoD, as also to finish the Odom’s book. Then I will read it all over again, but this time I will take some notes with the information that I need to memorize!

Then I will go once again over the Written CoD, right before the written exam.

Create a loopback adapter in Windows Vista

A few days ago I needed to create a loopback interface in a machine running Windows Vista for testing purposes and unexpectedly I had spent more time that is supposed

Anyway, I’m just document it, for a future experience…

1. Control Panel  > Add Hardware > Click Next on the “Welcome to Add Hardware Wizard”
2. On the page that comes up we need to click on “Install the hardware that I manually select from a list” button
3. Click Next > Choose Network adapters
4. Click Next > Under Manufacturer choose Microsoft Under Network Adapter choose Microsoft Loopback Adapter
5. Click Next > Next  …
6. Then to assign a static IP Address to the Microsoft Loopback Adapter, go to Start > Control Panel > Manage Network Connections
7. You will see a network registered with a name like “Local Area Connection 2 Unidentified Network Microsoft Loopback Adapter”
8. Right click on it and select Properties
9. Click on TCP/IPv4 > click Properties … and it’s done!

How a VTP client can update the VTP database server

I was searching in the web about this possibility, when I found a very good article written by Wendell Odom. Here is the excerpt explaining a possible scenario that could lead to this issue:

«In a lab that’s separate from the production network, an engineer is configuring switches, with VTP configured, with the same domain name and password as the production network (maybe somebody started with a copy/paste?). Anyway, one of the production switches fails, so the engineer grabs one of the VTP client switches, since the engineer thought that adding a VTP client switch to the production network would be harmless. Well, the VTP and VLAN config are stored in the vlan.dat file in flash, not in NVRAM – so even if the engineer had done a erase startup-config before unplugging the switch, the switch still has its VTP info (which matches the production network) and its VLAN database – which may well have a larger revision number, because of all the experimentation in the lab. So, you plug in the old lab switch, the trunk comes up to the production network, and you overwrite the VLAN database on all the switches, practically instantly. Yikes. This could delete all the VLANs on the existing production switches, and essentially crash the entire campus network. There’s probably no better advertisement for not using VTP (aka using transparent mode) than this scary scenario.»

Summarizing, as best practice and before using any used switch, we should always issue the command “vtp mode transparent” just to make sure that the revision number will be reseted… BTW, recently I’ve noticed that Nexus 5K only supports vtp mode transparent

Plan for 2010

Well last day of 2009 is ending and a new year is about to start…  it’s time to make a plan for the arriving year!

From the personal point of view, the year of 2009 was a great year, it’s difficult to wish a better year, so I just hope that all may continue on the same wave!

About my career, I really need to do something with it if I want to evolve and take part on better projects and of course increase my family quality of living. The solution for that it’s now very clear in my mind: CCIE R&S.

From that perspective, 2010 will be a hard year because to reach that kind of goal, I will have to dedicate a lot of my personal time. Time management will take a very important role during 2010, since I will have to balance my time between family, job and CCIE studies, all the rest will have to suffer drastically cuts, which includes time to be with friends and sports. Sleep hours will also have to decrease… I think that’s the price that I’ll have to pay off!?!

The first step will be to clear the written test. This will allow me to schedule my lab exam because I think that I’m the kind of person that works better if I’ve a defined date in my view, I hope that will help me to concentrate on my goal day by day. I will try to schedule it for the last week of October 2010. The reason that I’d like to go for the lab exam in this particular week has a mathematical explanation… It started with the assumption that I will need 600 hours of study. Then, I planned my normal week in order to have 20h per week just for study:

• 3h per night (22:00 – 01:00) for 4 days of workday –> 4×3h=12h
• 8h at the weekend
• Total: 20h per week

This means that I will need 30 weeks to reach the 600h. So, considering that I’ll start the lab preparation in March I will reach the 600h at the end of September. However, there are several variables that can influence this math, so I decided to add a “deviation” factor, which I decide to be approximately 15%, which means adding around one month.

Even knowing that Cisco is putting some efforts to reduce the number of CCIEs, particular  the R&S, I know that if I’d be able to follow my plan I’ll have a good chance to get it… my biggest enemy will be my job, since normally I have to work more than the expected 8h/day but that’s something that I need to change next year if I want to get my number

Wish a very happy new year to everyone!

Santa is back again!

Time has pass in a blink of eyes… Christmas has arrived once again I’ve to confess that I love this time of year, not because I’m a Christian, since nowadays I’m more close to be an atheist than ever, because if we think, we have done terrible things in the name of religion, and I’m not thinking in any in particular but in all in general, if you study history and/or be aware of reality all over the world you will understand what I mean, but my idea is not to start a discussion about religion, but to talk about Christmas… Like I was saying, I love this time of the year, the idea behind of the Santa Claus pagan symbol, the lights, people in general become more friendly and more generous. It’s also a time that all of our family, even those that live far away take some time to spend with each other. I think that if Christmas did not exist we would never see each other for an entire year or maybe years, so apart of all the commercial side that this time of year also means, that are plenty of positive effects that Christmas make possible.

Apart of being with the family, it’s also time to stop from the rush of routine, and analyze the ending year and then do plans for the next coming year. For me the year of 2009 was a great year, first and the most important, I become a father, everything went just fine and I’m lucky enough to have a great healthy boy, full of energy! From the personal point of view, I’ve a great wife and son, as the rest of the family, there was not any relevant health problem with any of them, including my parents that considering their age, are my biggest concern these days, so now I just want that in 2010 could be the same!

From the job perspective, it was also a good year nevertheless I’ve to admit that was a hard and stressful year! I change my role in my company, a new manager, a new team, although it was the same company, all was different. The truth is that I had the opportunity to take part in some important projects; I’ve learned a lot and gained a lot of experience. The downside is that, I had to spend a lot of my personal time in order to prepare me for those projects, since I don’t have the kind of knowledge to do them in a blink of eyes; I’m not in that kind of level… yet It was a year full of new things, all happening at the same time, and in the middle I decided that I would completely cut off the study time for the CCIE to spend it on the preparation for those projects.

For sure that next year will be the year where I will be really committed with the CCIE studies, for sure that my biggest challenge for 2010 will be balancing my CCIE studies with work and family!! But for now I will just enjoy the Christmas evening with my family!

Merry Christmas to all!

My rack – update1

All right! My 2611XM and AS2511RJ arrived during last week… From the harware point of view I’ve all that I’ve planned to get. I’ve uploaded some pics of it, but it still doesn’t have any cabling! So for the next couple of months this will be the rack that I will be using for my studies. Now I just need to gather all the necessary cables, I’ve plenty of RJ-45 straight cables, and I already bought the DCE-DTE cables. During this weekend I made the last rollover cables that I need but now I need to make almost 15 crossover cables! Let’s the fun begin!!

Building my home rack

A very important matter for the CCIE preparation, as everyone knows is practice, practice, practice… Several options are possible, remote rack rental, dynamips, and of course building our own rack! Unfortunately and with version 4 of the lab blueprint, Cisco really increased the amount of money that needs to be spent on that!

I’m not a real fan of remote rack because I would become a prisoner of a tight schedule, the availability of the racks, but the major problem with it, is the difference between the time zones where most racks are installed and Portugal’s time zone. With this option I wouldn’t be able to practice every time I could, and between job and family there isn’t no much free time to be spent on studying so it must be wisely used.

Dynamips is indeed a great tool, I’ve already tried on a Quad Core server with 16 Gb of RAM running Windows server 2003, and it really rocks! I was able to start all the devices with “start /all” command without any problem, and in about 3 minutes I had all the devices up and running… and always with great performances, really awesome! Of course the server was not mine, and right now it’s doing what it’s supposed to do… but it was really cool to see that kind of performance!

Since I don’t have a machine where I’d be able to run efficiently, I’ll only used it in some particular cases, maybe to test some simple scenarios or some particular features like mpls, zone based firewall, etc.

I had already some devices in my rack, and although I’m don’t have the needed budget to build the appropriate home rack, considering that I’ve also recently purchased the CCIE 2.0 program from INE, I’ve decided to build my own rack! The idea is to spend the minimum to get the maximum! Which means won’t have any 1841, 3550, or 3560… Sounds awful, but I’m think it’s possible to build a decent home rack that at least, could allow me to prepare for the core knowledge of the blueprint!

IMHO, a preparation for an exam like the CCIE R&S without touching on real routers and switches does not make sense, does not sound good to me… Or maybe I just a geek and I’m getting some excuses to have my own rack!

Right now, my rack home is based on the following:

• 2x Cisco 2501

• 1x Cisco 2522

• 3x Catalyst 2924-XL

• 1x Catalyst 3524-XL-EN

• 2x Cisco 2610XM

Right now I’m waiting for a AS2511-RJ, and 4x Cisco 2611XM, and when they arrived I will upload some pictures from the complete cabled rack!

Of course, I will continue checking ebay looking for a good bargain, at least for 2x 3550

Plan for September of 2009

Right now I’m on vacations but considering that my son has only 3 months, me and my wife decided to not go abroad this year, since it’s advisable to stay home during the most hot period of the day. So I’ve spend some time at home doing “nothing”. Considering that I have to pass 2 exams till the end of September, I’ve taken some time to study here and there…

The plan for September consists on:

1. Pass SNAF till 09-03-2009;
2. Pass SNRS till 09-30-2009.

This would allow me to start October’s fully concentrated on the CCIE studies, although that considering the blueprint of the SNRS exam, while I study for it I will get a good picture for some features that I will to master for the CCIE exam

Back to my routine!

One month later after spent all June abroad working in a project, I’m thinking that after all I love my routine, my country, my life! It’s strange that sometimes we only give the right value to those little things when we can’t have them. I have to stay that was not a easy time!!!

During this project I had an opportunity to stay working there for some time, minimum 1 year. The good side was the amount of money that I’d get paid if I’d accept the offer… but considering that this is not the best time for me and my family, I had to pass it… The primary reason behind my decision is that the country that we are talking about is not the best and safe place in the world to raise a child, and I also had to consider that my wife has a good job so I’d be a total selfish person if I decided to accept it! After a month I’m truly convinced that I’ve taken the right decision, and I’m feeling great for that! Which means that I’m back to my routine… family, friends, hobbies, places… and that’s feel great!!!

About CCIE… ouch! During this month I did not read a single line for the CCIE, since I was totally focus on my son and in some matters that needed to be solved.

Next month (August) I will take some time off, however I will need to pass in 2 cisco exams from a professional level due to job impositions. The good news is that after September I will be FINALY 100% focus in the CCIE studies!

Now it’s for real!

With the beginning of this year I’ve decided to go for the CCIE R&S but with my new job role and my son that have just born on May 5th I’ve not been able to focus on CCIE preparation, even worst I’ve been studying nothing… but I think I was expecting that could happen with so many changes occurring in my life, I’m trying to normalize asap.

Well but in life we need to establish our priorities and I know mine pretty well… Although CCIE is not in the top of my priorities right now, that does not mean I’ve forgotten it, it’s still is a big personal “project” of mine

So, to prove that (to myself) and in order to put me in the right track, I’ve finally decided for a vendor to help me in my pursuit: INE!

They were giving a good discount during the long USA weekend (Memorial Day) so I’ve decided to purchased their CCIE 2.0 Self-Paced Program (Electronic) as also their CCIE Routing & Switching Written Exam Bootcamp!

Although I’m leaving for another month for a new project abroad I will try to watch both CoD’s while I’m there. In this kind of projects the workload is really hard so probably I won’t be able to do more than that!

Strange it that since this purchase I’m feeling a little anxious to start using the products since I’m still waiting for them to become available in my member account! Probably is the responsability of the amount of investment that I made…