Daniel Cleary, CCIE #47503
CCIE
It was a long journey of ups and downs, passing the CCIE was no longer something I needed for my job though a personal goal. While I was studying my CCNA my instructor was preparing for my CCIE and told us the effort required. I set myself a long term goal to pass my CCIE. I prepared for my CCIE using INE materials, learning and labbing as frequently as possible. In my first attempt I sat R&S v4, I was nowhere near ready. I remember having a deep breath after the troubleshooting section time completed. I managed to complete 6 tickets and I was exhausted. I knew I had failed as I needed to complete at least 7 tickets. I felt defeated, I have never really failed anything in my life, from University to CCNA & CCNP exams I passed them all on my first attempt. Now I had a big F sitting over my head. I decided to go through the configuration section, attempting the difficult topics. Learning and trying to remember as much as possible. I had a 6 month, again I used INE material and labs to help with improving my skills and speed. RSv5 was released and I think I was one of the first to attempt it. Unfortunately, my second attempt at the lab was a fail again. I don't think I missed by much. I passed the Troubleshooting and Diagnostics section, though failed on Configuration. Surprisingly, I had failed I what I considered to be my strengths. I got very low scores on Layer 2 & Security, I must have made some silly mistakes. My next attempt was a vast improvement on my first. I went into the lab with confidence. I smashed the Troubleshooting section in 60 minutes, Diagnostics was surprisingly the same questions and I completed the configuration section with 1 hour to spare. The major improvement I made with configuration section was to learn the core skills using notepad. I practiced so much that I could configure Spanning Tree, OSPF, EIGRP and BGP using notepad. In the lab notepad and copy /past was my best friend. I still use INE to learn or refresh on technologies and plan on attending a DC bootcamp soon. It will be an exciting experience to travel to America and spend 10 days on Nexus infrastructure. Dan Cleary CCIE #47503