Keith Humphreys, CCIE #40869
CCIE
Finally after 7 odd years of trying to get going, getting going only to stop and getting hardcore in to studying I passed the CCIE SP exam in Brussels. Since the new year I spent all my free time outside of work reading, watching videos and labbing. I started by using the excellent AAP to go through Brian McGahan's ATC course, which I went through twice. I then spent months on the SP workbook, reviewing the technologies against Cisco documentation and RFCs. If you can complete the mock labs in INEs material then you should be set for the actual exam. I was also fortunate to be able to attend the INE SP bootcamp in London earlier in the year which gave me the confidence to feel I was ready to pass the exam. I spent the last 3 weeks before my exam on annual leave, using dual rack rentals from INE with 24 routers (4xXR) and 4 switches to build huge topologies. Overall I would not be writing this without the excellent products INE provide, there is simply no competition to their quality. Thanks go to my awesome wife and family for putting up with me, the Brians (particularly Brian McGahan, a fount of knowledge) for supporting my studies and the guys on IEOC, some of the smartest people I know. Here's to another track with my second family at INE and IEOC!