CCIE R/S: I'm the best engineer I have ever been.

Walking out of the lab exam I can confidently say: “I am the best engineer I have ever been.”

I had originally scheduled my exam for Feb 14 and I am so glad I moved my date to April 2^nd. I am much better engineer than I was Feb 14. I’ve put in nearly an additional 100 hours labbing, I have learned quite a bit more and solved some complex topologies.

During the exam I remember reminding myself to smile, to just take a moment and take it all in. Soaking in the fact that this day has finally come and I’m really here, I’m really doing this. I smiled a few times during the exam, I looked around, nobody else was smiling.

I stayed at the Hampton Inn. It was nice, clean and I enjoyed it. They have a shuttle that will run you anywhere within 3 miles. I used it to grab dinner the night before. It also was the shuttle that took me to Cisco building 5 the morning of.

I arrived at Cisco a few minutes past 8:15am and was one of the last people to arrive. There was around 16 of us of varying tracts. Our ID’s we checked, we placed our lunch orders, received name tags and were escorted as a group to the testing room. It was the last room down a long hallway. Once in the room, our ID’s were checked again and we were assigned seats. There was no babying anyone here. Turn off your phones put all your personal items on the shelving in the back and sit down. Within 1 or two minutes we were told to begin.

Troubleshooting

This first section is “Troubleshooting”. It is 2-hours long with an option to extend 30 minutes. (This 30-minutes gets subtracted from your configuration section) I didn’t feel like I had enough points at the end of my 2-hours so, I chose to extend the additional 30-minutes. What I will say is, it is an amazing feeling when you can get your output to match the expected output. You really feel like you’ve won.

Diagnostics

Next is ‘Diagnostics’. I found this section to be the hardest of all. Out of all the labbing, reading and rehearsing I didn’t not prepare for the diagnostics portion, I don’t know if anyone does.

Configuration

I got started the configuration portion before lunch. I didn’t get too far before the proctor announced lunch time. It was that moment, I remember hearing other’s stories about their CCIE lab experience and talking about “the golden moment”. The golden moment is when everything is pingable(I think), you should achieve this before lunch. Well, I was way off from achieving ‘the golden moment’, but I wasn’t sweating it.

Lunch

When it was lunch time we were lead into the next room where our lunch bags were lined up. I remember seeing most people scarfing down their food and I couldn’t understand why. I was thinking to myself while watching them inhale, ‘slow down, this is your break, for some of us this might be the best part of our day.’ It was Jason’s Deli and well, Jason’s isn’t bad. I tried to take my time and enjoy myself because after all I’ve spent way too much time preparing for this day, for it just to become a smear of a memory. I wanted to experience all it had to offer… I want to savor every cent’s worth of my $1600 sandwich. I remember asking myself while enjoying my ‘deli club’, ‘now that I’ve seen the test, how could I have prepared better?’ and well, I guess I don’t have an answer for that. I’ve already committed all my free time, my weekends and my evenings where am I going to get more time from? Maybe that’s the key, it’s not the amount of time but the quality of studying during that time.

The Highs

Here’s where I was successful, for my first attempt:

• I had a good pace. While I didn’t complete all the sections I never felt panicked.
• I really used my templates. I templated anything that went on more than 1 router/device. I’m comfortable templating things. This comes from doing lots of labs, over and over. I had found some pretty quick ways to get through some large configs leveraging templating.
• The main protocol implementation and deployments I am very comfortable with. I didn’t struggle to implement any protocols (for the sections I completed). This confidence and experience comes from doing lots of labs, and implementing protocols many different ways.

The Lows (Face Palm Moments )

There were 2 or 3 items that I had to do twice. This didn’t take an extremely long time but looking back that was time I’ll never get back.

You might be asking: How could you do items twice?

I would read the requirements and template items out in notepad changing the part that needed to be changed per device and pasted them in. Only to find you forgot to change something like a router-id along the way so all your devices have the same router-id. 🤦

Or one time I was pasting in configs from a template I created and realized I made a mistake. So, to clear-out the entire configs section so I can re-paste it all in, I did a ‘no router [protocol]‘ and removed the whole protocol, only to realize later this protocol was preconfigured on the router so I accidentally removed all the pre-configurations along with my changes. I was able to recover from this mistake, but it took a while to rebuild. 🤦

The Interface is Terrible

I have only 1 complaint about the CCIE R&S lab exam: The interface which has the tickets/tasks, topologies and files is terrible. Over the past year I’ve used a combination of INE and Cisco 360 lab materials. I’ve labbed my own topologies as well as Narbiks material using a variety of EVE-NG, GNS3 or whatever is provided form vendors. All of which have better interactivity with the devices and clearer diagrams to understand.

Even with this being extremely frustrating this will not be the reason I fail (if I failed). I would’ve failed because I didn’t understand some of the requirements. Most of the items were clear but I had a hard time distilling down what was expected in the ‘end-state’.

I felt the difficulty level was below what I was expecting.

What's life all about?

After it was all over I find myself contemplating life. I was in the Uber ride heading to the airport and saw a nice bit of thick green grass in between an exit-ramp and overpass. There were varying patches of wild-flowers coloring the green backdrop. I wanted to get out a roll around like a dog scratching his back.

 I’m wondering why would anyone put as much time into something as I have, just to fail? I mean all the time I spent away from my family. All the event’s I had to declined… and for what? I mean what is networking? Networking is nothing more than pushing around theoretical ones and zeros. What’s the point?

Enough already! Did you pass or not?

People have been asking “did you pass or not?”, to which I’m replying, “does it matter?”. I’m not checking my results for 1-week. Instead I’m going to celebrate with my family and friends and live life. I don’t feel like I passed but at least for 1 week I’m going to walk around feeling like a champion.

You see, if I check my results and find-out I failed, my whole week of celebration I’ll have in the back of my head the stress of labbing more, reading more, watching more videos, missing my family and declining more events. So, I’m putting it off for 1-week so I can celebrate stress free. Then, after 1-week I’ll take a look and see if Cisco invites me back to take the test again 😉

I'm not looking, nope, nope, nope.

EVE-NG in the Cloud

EDIT: (Feb 28, 2021) THIS IS OUTDATED CONTENT

Please see this New Video Series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGs-v2ysJb5bUwWbXFypwr2BmPonTTOER

Please see this new blog post here: https://showipintbri.github.io/blog/eve-ng-in-gcp

Everything You Need to Know About OSPF

"Everything you'll ever need to know about OSPF" is a bold statement but is goes back to "Mastering the Foundations" something I've been saying for the past 25 days. If you can master these OSPF foundations the rest is icing on the cake.

PRO-TIP: Don't treat this as a long list of items to memorize but rather a checklist of topics to lab up.

Default Behavior

• Won't start unless OSPF can determine a router-id
• Router-id determined:
1. Configured router-id
2. Highest loopback IP address
3. Highest interface IP address
• Every router within an area must have the same OSPF database
• Filtering/Summaries happen at the ABR
• Default Priority = 1, highest priority becomes the DR (where applicable)
• A Priority of "0" means router will NOT participate in DR/BDR elections.

OSPF Network Types

Broadcast

• Default for Ethernet interfaces
• Elects DR/BDR
• Uses Multicast
• Allows more than 2 routers on a link
• Timers: Hello - 10, Dead  - 40

Non-Broadcast

• Elects a DR/BDR
• Uses Unicast (neighbor statements)
• Allows more the 2 routers on a link
• Timers: Hello - 30, Dead - 120

Point-to-Point

• Default for Serial and Tunnel interfaces
• Does NOT elect DR/BDR
• Uses Multicast
• Only 2 routers allowed on a link
• Timers: Hello - 10, Dead - 40

Point-to-MultiPoint

• Does NOT elect DR/BDR
• Uses Multicast
• Allows more than 2 routers on a link
• Installs /32 host routes per neighbor
• Timers: Hello - 30, Dead - 120

Point-to-MultiPoint Non-Broadcast

• Does NOT elect DR/BDR
• Uses Unicast (neighbor statements)
• Allows more than 2 routers on a link
• Installs /32 host routes per neighbor
• Timers: Hello - 30, Dead - 120

Loopback

• Default for Loopback interfaces
• When included in OSPF, uses a /32
• To advertise with mask other-than /32, manually set network type to "point-to-point"

LSA Types

LSA Type-1: Router LSA's

• Originated from each router
• Flooded within an area
• Tells the area about all the links participating in OSPF and are associated with that area

LSA Type-2: Network LSA's

• Originated by the DR
• Only DR can originate Type-2 LSA's (If there is no DR their aren't any Type-2's)
• This LSA tells all the routers in an area about all the routers on a shared medium like Ethernet

LSA Type-3: Summary LSA's

• Originated by an ABR
• Carry the destination network prefixes from one area into another

From nonbackbone > backbone

• Connected Routes
• Intra-Area Routes

From backbone > nonbackbone

• Connected Routes
• Intra-Area Routes
• Inter-Area Routes

LSA Type-4: ASBR-Summary LSA's

• Originated by an ABR
• Tells all the other areas about the ASBR
• Tells all the other areas "to get to this Router-ID(ASBR) go through Me(ABR)!"

LSA Type-5: External LSA's

• Originated by an ASBR
• Flooded through out the OSPF domain, except into stubby areas
• Contains the Network prefix and subnet-mask for the external network

LSA Type-7: NSSA External LSA's

• Originated by ASBR
• Exist only in a Not-So-Stubby Area (NSSA)
• Are NOT flooded outside the area they were originated

Area Types

Backbone Area

• Area 0
• Act's as the HUB for all other areas
• Accepts all LSA Types

Normal Area

• All non-stub areas
• Allows LSA's Type: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & External Default

Stub Area

• Allows LSA Types: 1, 2, 3 & Summary Default Route ( No External Type-5's )

Totally Stubby Area

• Allows LSA Types: 1, 2 & Summary Default Route

Not-So-Stubby Area (NSSA)

• Allows LSA Types: 1, 2, 3, 7 ( No External Type-5's )
• NSSA's allow redistributing into an area but still maintain it's 'stub area' properties (not allowing External Type-5's)
• Redistributed routes are converted to Type-7 LSA's and advertised throughout the area by the ASBR
• The ABR converts Type-7 LSA's into Type-5's before advertising them into the backbone area.
• LSA Type-7's are only flooded within the area they originate

Totally Not-So-Stubby Area (NSSA)

• Allows LSA Types: 1, 2, 7 & Summary Default Route ( No External Type-5's )
• NO LSA Type-3's

Route Types

• O = Intra-area Route
• O IA = Inter-area Route (Generated by Type-3 LSA's)
• E1 = External Metric Type-1 (Generated by Type-5 LSA's)
• E2 = External Metric Type-2 (Generated by Type-5 LSA's)
• N1 = NSSA Metric Type-1
• N2 = NSSA Metric Type-2

CCIE Bootcamps: INE or Micronics

tl;dr:

No "bootcamp" will prepare you for any exam. You have to prepare yourself. A bootcamp is there to run you through the paces to make sure you aren't lying to yourself. The experience is what you make of it. I used it as fuel to keep pace for as long as I can.

So, you're thinking about taking a CCIE boot camp and you've looked at a few training vendors but you aren't sure which one to choose and with the price of a boot camp roughly between $4000 - $6000, you want to make sure you choose correctly.

I'm fortunate enough to have been to an INE boot camp in North Carolina August 2017 and a Micronics Training boot camp March 2018 in Herndon, Virginia.

The INE boot camp was a 5 day CCIE Fundamentals boot camp led by Rohit Pardasani and the Micronics bootcamp was an 8 day "No Excuses" CCIE boot camp focusing on the CCIE Lab Exam led by Narbik Kocharins.

• INE - https://ine.com/collections/ccie-routing-switching-bootcamps/products/ccie-routing-switching-written-exam-bootcamp
• Micronics - https://micronicstraining.com/event/end-to-end-no-excuses/

Prior to my first boot camp I purchased the Cisco Press CCIE Official Certificate Guide (authored by Narbik Kocharians of Micronics Training and others). I had spent a few hours a week reading and thumbing through the book. I was never good at studying in this manner. I currently held a CCNP R&S and wasn't sure what I didn't know or what I needed to know to take the next step in my certification journey. The opportunity arose for me to attend a boot camp and I thought it would be better for me the learn that way, not being distracted by day-to-day life and be hands on.

INE

This was the first boot camp style training I had been to, I wasn't sure what to expect but I had an open mind and was eager to make the best of my experience. This boot camp was held in INE's offices at RTP(Research Triangle Park) North Carolina. I stayed at the adjacent hotel so I could walk back and fourth to the venue. The class was led by Rohit Pardasani a 4xCCIE. I used this event to kick-start my studying. This class is a preparation for the CCIE written exam. This was a podium style instructor lead class, although there wasn't an actual podium. There was a raised table with enough room for the instructors laptop and peripherals. To the the left and right of the table were projector screens each broadcasted the instructors desktop. Rohit used a number of digital teaching aids, while giving a lecture or going over topologies. He frequently used a Wacom Tablet allowing him to digitally draw on his screen. Rohit did not use any of the pre-canned INE slide presentations.(IIRC) We each got our own login to INE virtual training environment, this consisted of the virtual routers and switches used throughout the week. I believe the routers were Cisco CSR1000v's, hosted on a Vmware backend. We never interfaced with a backed, we only telnet/SSH into each device and work through our labs. For being a "foundations" class and a preparation for the written it was ~70% hands-on in the Cisco cli.

• The schedule: between 8 - 10 hours days
• The style: Instructor led lecture with hands-on labs
• The size: the class I attended had around ~15 attendees.
• Who should attend: anyone looking to kick-start their CCIE studies.
• Was I ready for the CCIE Written afterward: NO
• Was this helpful towards achieving my goals: Yes.

I really learned alot. I learned many advanced topics that weren't introduced in CCNP materials. I discovered my deficiencies and it drove me to really dive in deep.

You should be proficient in routing and switching before taking this class.

One day during the bootcamp we were going over OSPF and I was getting lost in the network types, Area Types and LSA's. I went back to the hotel and watched Narbiks OSPF video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM3OI_ZyRuQ) twice back to back. I felt it was really helpful and planted the seed in my head for signing up to his bootcamp when the time comes. The next day I felt much more aware of OSPF and felt I understood the lessons better.

After the bootcamp ended I started the INE Advanced Technologies Workbook and as of this writing I am nearly finished all the topics. It has been really helpful to follow-up the bootcamp with 6 months of self-study.

...6 Months Later...

Micronics Training

The "No Excuses" 8 day boot camp was held at Cisco's corporate building in Herndon, VA, although this training was not produced by Cisco it was held at their facility in one of there meeting rooms. I stayed at the hotel down the street and if not for the freezing weather I would have walked back and forth each day. The class was led by Narbik Kocharians a 3xCCIE, and owner of Micronics Training. Throughout class we leveraged 3 training environments. There was a real-hardware environment we leveraged for some labs. There was a virtual environment hosted on an EVE-NG/UNETLABS platform we used for directed activities and Narbik's own labs. We also, as part of our bootcamp package, received 100-hours and 10 labs on Cisco 360 (https://expert-level-training.cisco.com/), which included some graded/timed assessments.

• The schedule: it varied and was based on the classes pace
• Day 1 - 13 hours
• Day 2 - 14 hours
• Day 3 - 17 hours
• Day 4 - 19 hours 
• Days 5 through 8 were a blur and I don't recall how many hours we put in.
• The style: Narbik leads the class in instructions using wall-to-wall white boards. He does NOT use projectors and doesn't spend anytime at the CLI. (This is stated on his website as well)
• The size: there were 22 students on day 1 and I believe there were 19 remain at the end.
• Who should attend: any one preparing for their CCIE Lab Exam who has already put in the requisite hours to be proficient in most of technologies. This class should be used to find out where your weak points are and learn the pace necessary to pass the CCIE Lab exam. You should be within 1 month of your exam.
• Was I ready to take the CCIE Lab Exam afterward: NO.
• Was this helpful towards achieving my goals: Yes.

Throughout the week as Narbik would go over the material I was happy to see I wasn't surprised by any technology or configuration. I felt I was well prepared, far beyond where I was 6 months prior. If not for my previous bootcamp and my 6-months self-study I would not have made it past Day 1. At the end of Day 1 we had a graded assessment lab on Cisco 360. It was an eye opener to see the pace of the lab and the depth of technologies used... the Day 1 lab was the easy one, and it only got harder. By the end of the bootcamp we were doing full-scale ~30 devices Cisco 360 graded lab assessments, in just a few hours(4 - 6 hours). I really enjoyed pushing myself to the limit and completely immersing myself in the technologies and labs, that's the environment bootcamps give. Narbik whiteboards everything and I enjoyed that approach. Infact I whiteboard nearly everything at work so, I'm a fan of the style but, I would have benefited, if he used a projector to give a demonstration of a configs we were working with. That's only my opinion because that's how I'm comfortable learning. Narbik try's to push everyone to think outside the box. He likes to give a task and take away all the obvious and basic options. Overall Narbik was great... we laughed, we learned and we laughed some more. It was a fantastic experience and I highly recommend it to all who are ready.

Cisco 360: I don't have much of an opinion on this having only used it during Narbiks class, but I definitely will be purchasing a few more graded full-scale exams prior to my being ready for the Lab Exam. 

The Cisco 360 labs had an added value for me: When you're labbing at home you aren't pushing your self as hard as you would when your in a room with 20 other people all trying to get the highest score in a timed event. That really helped me to build a strategy around taking the CCIE Lab Exam. It showed me how detrimental it can be to get stuck on a single item and waste your time on it. Read the entire sub-section before you start. Have a strategy and be prepared to move on if you get stuck.

If you have not prepared yourself, you will not keep up.

What I've Learned:

No "bootcamp" will prepare you for any exam. You have to prepare yourself. A bootcamp is there to run you through the paces to make sure you aren't lying to yourself. The experience is what you make of it. I used it as fuel to keep pace for as long as I can.

Each boot camp I attended I felt "here are my people". People who are serious about achieving CCIE, are passionate about what they are doing and we can recognize each other. It's a great experience going to a bootcamp and I hope to make it back around again before it's my turn to take the lab exam.

The title of this blogpost is "CCIE Bootcamps: INE or Micronics" and sadly it's misleading. It should read "CCIE Bootcamps: INE and Micronics" because that's what I really think. I think there is real value to seeing similar topic talked about and demonstrated from different points of view with different explanations.

If you had to choose only one you should ask yourself are you at the beginning of your studies or near the end?