CCIE Journey RTP

Well, here is the story as it stands today.

I attempted the LAB in July 2010 and had a lot of technical difficulties (the infrastructure itself) and Cisco provided me with a free retake (by the way this was a mobile lab). Please note that if you have any issues or concerns you must work with the Proctor immediately and in most cases these issues are easily resolved. Since March 2010 I have been doing a lot of labs totalling well over 400 hours and after the July fiasco I decided to dig even deeper into the technologies and felt that I was well prepared.

Primary Study Tools
• IPX Blended Learning Solution
• Proctor labs (Rack Time)
• Recommended books in the blueprint
• Cisco Doc-CD
• IPX Online Study Group
Secondary Study Tools
• INE WB2 and WB3
• Graded Labs (Rack Time)
• Dynamips

Anyways, on to the retake and my official first attempt of the CCIE route and switch lab exam. The morning of the LAB started out very much like to trip down to RTP that consisted of a couple of issues ( Trip to RTP ). The person that does the complementary breakfast and shuttle service at the hotel decided not to show up to work and the hotel had no alternatives. (That’s right no ride to Cisco). While trying to resolve the issue another candidate showed up that drove down from Georgia and was kind enough to offer me a ride. (Life happens, I did not let this affect my ability to give a 100% during the lab) We arrived at the Cisco facility on time and the exam began. I can’t say anything about the exam due to NDA but I felt that I did well but I knew at the end of the day that the results could go either way.

I understand all the technologies and have no issues configuring any of them in the lab or in the real world; the issue is being able to do it in the timeframe allowed. That being said my CCIE journey continues and I will be scheduling my second attempt sometime in the very near future. I will be coming up with a strategy to help me with my speed as well as leverage my existing studying tools to dig even deeper into some of the technologies. Stay tuned, if anyone has any additional tips please add it to the comment section or email me through OSL.


Of Note: I have read that the average attempt of a candidate passing the CCIE R&S lab is 3 and the average cost to the candidate is around $10,000.


BTW: The hotel tried to right the wrong and upgraded my room to a suite