Becoming a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) is a far cry from the “read a book, take an exam” process of some other industry certifications. After a relatively easy written exam, you will be required to prove your expertise in a hands-on, notoriously difficult lab exam. Even though you must be intimately familiar with the Cisco configuration commands, the most difficult challenges of the lab are not Cisco IOS Software-specific; instead, they test the depths of your understanding of switches, routers, and routing protocols. It is for this knowledge that CCIEs are recognized and sought out as proven internetworking experts.
The structured creation of a network involves four phases, and those same four phases are also useful for creating a structured preparation program for the CCIE lab:
Plan—. Take a cold, hard look at your present experience level and your shortcomings. Evaluate the daily time you have available for study. Evaluate the resources at your disposal, including lab equipment; funds and time available for training; books; and acquaintances that can serve as coaches, tutors, and subject matter experts. Evaluate your personal strengths and weaknesses: Are you a good test taker? Do you work well under pressure? How do you react to setbacks and disappointments? Do you have good study habits? Do you learn best from reading or from verbal instruction? Using the raw data from your evaluations, write a list of your assets and liabilities. Develop a plan to fully capitalize on your assets and eliminate as many liabilities as possible.
Design—. Design a personalized preparation program that meets your needs while fitting your schedule and resources. Talk to as many CCIEs as possible; ask them about their own preparation programs. Find out what worked and what didn’t work for them. Your program should take you from your present experience level right up to the CCIE lab, with definite deadlines and milestones. Build the project from a series of miniprojects, each with a well-defined goal. Be realistic when you design your schedule, taking into consideration the predictability (or lack of) of both your job and your personal life. The level of support you can expect from your employer and your family is an important factor in deciding whether your preparation schedule should be intensive or more relaxed. Exceeding the tolerance of those close to you will hurt your schedule far more than help it.
Implement—. Many projects fail because the implementation begins before the design is complete. Your preparation program should be a written document clearly defining all steps of the project from kickoff to completion. After you begin your preparation program, stick to it. Don’t give up, don’t be discouraged, and don’t be lazy. Check off your goals and milestones as you meet them.
Optimize—. Your preparation program should be a living document. As you progress, some subjects will be more difficult than expected, and some subjects will be easier than expected. Always move forward but be flexible enough to add any extra tasks necessary for you to master each topic.
Only you can design a preparation program that best suits you. The advice in the following sections is not meant to be followed unswervingly, but is meant to give you some ideas for creating your study program. These tips come from my personal experience as both a CCIE and as a Cisco Systems Instructor, and from the experiences of associates who have successfully passed the CCIE lab.
If you are a beginner, or your networking experience is limited, your first step is to get a solid grip on the basics of both networking and Cisco routers. This effort will involve both classroom training and self-study. I recommend Cisco.com; look at the wealth of information about career certifications in the “Learning and Events” section.
Through its Authorized Learning Partners, Cisco Systems offers many hands-on training classes. You should attend as many of these classes as your time and resources allow, but of particular importance are the following:
Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices (ICND)
Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI)
Building Cisco Remote Access Networks (BCRAN)
Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN)
Cisco Internetwork Troubleshooting (CIT)
Take full advantage of every class you attend. Ask questions of the instructor and discuss the class topics with your fellow students. Most importantly, take advantage of the access you have to the lab equipment. Don’t just work the labs; be sure you fully understand the whys and hows of the lab exercises. When you finish a lab, don’t just stop. Play with the equipment. See what configuration and troubleshooting options are available and try them. If you have time, try building the lab configuration several times to gain proficiency.
The classroom work will help you identify gaps in your networking knowledge. Read as much as you can to fill in the gaps in your knowledge of basic networking protocols and technology. Many good tutorials are available on the Internet from both commercial vendors and private individuals. Whenever you begin studying a particular subject, be sure to perform a Web search for the topic.
When the first edition of this book was written, the CCIE was the only certification Cisco Systems offered. Now, there are a number of levels of certification and even a number of specialties within the CCIE program. Taking advantage of these levels is encouraged (although none of them are required prerequisites), as it gives you milestones along your road to the CCIE and also awards you with meaningful certifications along the way.
The first goal to work toward is the Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA). This certification proves that you have mastered the basics of networking and network protocols, can install and operate small LAN, WAN, and access networks, and understand essential Cisco hardware and IOS Software.
Your next goal is the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP). This advanced certification indicates a mastery of the technologies necessary for running and troubleshooting larger enterprise networks. With the CCNP in hand, you are ready to move to the expert level and prove it with your CCIE.
Almost all CCIEs will tell you that hands-on experience is an invaluable part of preparing for the lab exam. Never pass up an opportunity to configure or troubleshoot a router. If you do not work with routers and switches on your present job, get friendly with the network engineers and technicians in your organization. Explain your goals to them and offer to assist them whenever possible.
If you have access to lab facilities, take full advantage of them. There is no replacement for the experience you can gain from working in a lab, where you can configure whatever you want to configure and introduce whatever problems you want to introduce, without risk of disrupting a production network.
Several online companies provide remote access to practice labs for a fee. The usage fees can vary widely, usually dependent on the rack of equipment available to you.
Another option is to build your own lab. Although this option is expensive, the salary you can command as a CCIE might make the investment worthwhile. Many sources sell used Cisco equipment at fairly reasonable prices. Subscribe to the Cisco newsgroup on the Internet, at http://comp.dcom.sys.cisco, or a study group such as groupstudy.com; people frequently post used routers for sale, and you can find some good deals. Most of my own lab routers, used for developing the examples in this book, were purchased on eBay. Although even two routers are useful, you should try to obtain at least four, one of which should have four or more serial interfaces so that you can configure it as a Frame Relay switch. Remember that you don’t need top-of-the-line equipment; obsolete routers are especially good buys because no one wants them in a production network.
Beyond the basics, and in parallel with your acquisition of practical hands-on experience, you must begin building a deep understanding of the networking protocols. At a minimum, you should read the RFCs recommended in this book. Ideally, read as many relevant RFCs as you can. The best site is http://www.ietf.org.
Of course, not all networking protocols are described in RFCs. Look for advanced books, white papers, and tutorials on the non-IP protocols, that might be included on the exam. You should also study Ethernet and WAN protocols, such as T-1, ISDN, Frame Relay, and ATM. You can find a wealth of publicly available information at Cisco.com. And of course, Cisco Press offers a number of books besides this one and its companion volume that are specifically focused on CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE. Go to Ciscopress.com to find the books appropriate for your needs.
A useful study tool, incorporating both theory and practical knowledge, is the Cisco newsgroup at http://comp.dcom.sys.cisco. Copy particularly challenging questions and problems posted to the newsgroup and find your own answer. Then, watch for the answers posted from CCIEs and Cisco engineers and see whether you are right. If not, determine why. Post questions to the Cisco newsgroup, too. Most regular participants are friendly and willing to share their expertise.
Several online study groups focus specifically on preparing for the CCNP and CCIE exams. One of the oldest and most well-known of these is groupstudy.com. Joining such a group is an excellent way of locating resources, sharing experiences, joining discussions, and getting answers to thorny questions. I highly recommend joining an online study group.
Finally, if you have associates with the same goals, form your own study group. I know of CCIE study groups within several companies that have been very effective and have produced many CCIEs.
With a now-solid background combining practical and theoretical knowledge, your final six months of preparation should involve reading the Cisco IOS Configuration Guides from cover to cover. As you read each chapter of this book, review the associated chapter in the Cisco IOS Command Reference to ensure that you are familiar with the full configuration capabilities of the IOS for that protocol. Then, use your lab to configure the protocol covered in the chapter in as many ways as you can. Play “what if” games, trying to make the protocol work in unusual situations. You will find that the best learning experiences result not when a configuration works as expected, but when it doesn’t.
Keep a notebook of your configurations and your thoughts on how they worked or didn’t work. Be sure to explore and record all troubleshooting tools, such as debug and show commands, relevant to the protocol.
Your goal at the end of each chapter of the Configuration Guide is to be able to configure at least the essential elements of the protocol from memory. When you are taking the CCIE lab, it is important to be able to configure the “easy stuff” with little thought so that you can be thinking ahead to the difficult configuration problems. You should also be familiar with how the protocol behaves, how the protocol interacts with other protocols, what configuration options exist, and how to troubleshoot the protocol. When you meet these goals for one chapter, move to the next.
Early in this final six months, you should take the written portion of the CCIE exam. Don’t be fooled by this exam—it is intended primarily to weed out people who are completely unprepared so that they are only out the price of the written test instead of the much higher price of the lab exam. If you followed a good study program, you will not find the written exam to be particularly difficult.
Several companies offer CCIE preparation courses and “CCIE boot camps,” which give you experience doing lab work under conditions similar to the CCIE lab exam. Do not mistake these classes as a substitute for diligent study and practice. If you choose to attend one of these classes, you should first be fully prepared to take the CCIE exam. The greatest benefit you will gain from the commercial preparation labs is a feel for being “under the gun,” working difficult problems within tight time constraints.
The CCIE lab exam tests not only your practical and theoretical knowledge, but also your ability to use that knowledge under pressure. You are in for an intense day, so do not add unnecessarily to that pressure:
Be aware that most people fail the CCIE exam on their first try. Have a contingency plan for taking the exam a second time. This strategy can help you stay calm during your first try and might make your contingency plan unnecessary.
Arrange your travel plans so that you arrive in plenty of time the day before the exam. Arrange to leave the day after the exam, not the same evening. You don’t want to think about your travel schedule during the exam.
Locate the test facilities the evening before the exam. You don’t want to show up for the exam flustered because you got lost.
Do no more than a light review on the evening before the exam. If you try to “cram,” you will make yourself nervous and sleepless.
Eat a good dinner, with no alcohol, and get a good night’s sleep.
On the day of the exam, eat a good breakfast. It is an established fact that eating correctly will help you perform better.
Dress comfortably. There are no points for appearance.
Before the exam, you will be required to submit an online nondisclosure form stating that you will not divulge the details of the lab. The exam is eight hours long with a break for lunch. Although other CCIE candidates will be working on their own labs in the room, you will be working alone. In all likelihood, the other candidates’ assignments will be different from yours. You will be assigned a network topology and a set of questions and configuration requirements that must be fulfilled within the eight-hour lab.
If you do not understand a particular requirement during any part of the exam, do not hesitate to ask your lab proctor. The proctor is there not only to test you but also to help you. Most important, relax and stay focused.
The lab is graded after hours, and the results are usually sent the next business day after the exam. You will receive an e-mail telling you that your results are available, and you can access your online candidate profile to see the result. If you have passed, you will see your CCIE number; if not, you will see a score report.
When you have won your CCIE, you will have accomplished something to be proud of. If this book or the advice in this appendix has helped you reach your goal, please e-mail me so that I can share your pride.