Matt Ashton, CCIE #28545

Hi, I attended the two week Routing and Switching Bootcamp in Chicago in Feb'11, with Brian McGahan the first week and Petr Lupukov the second week. The first week was a nice steady pace with brian going into concise detail and explanation with all the core technologies. It was a good mix of lecture and practical. The second week was with Petr Lupukov and was like being hit with a hammer - it turned out we were his guinea pigs for three new mock labs that he had been working on so we were the first ones to try them out. The 3 mock labs covered a great deal of material and in great depth as well. The questions were broken down into sub sections where essentially it was like 3-5 config solutions in one question (just like in the real lab)...the mock labs were great preparation in particular the way in which they covered so many technology areas and in such depth. Suffice to say it was hard to get a pass in these mock labs...I guess it all depends where your level is before you start the bootcamp. I was however not deterred and saw my average/low scores as it was a good way to see where i needed to study more.... ....I keep studying hard and took the lab in brussels about 6 weeks after the bootcamp and managed to pass it...I knew I had 8 out of 10 for the troubleshooting and I was confident about the config section when I finished with about 2 hrs left...I re-checked every question and config and by the time I had finshed that - I had about 10 minutes left!!! ...INE's materials are great in terms of the technology covergage and detail that they go into....if you can pass ALL the INE mock labs with flying colours then you can pass the CCIE Lab.... ....Thanks to Petr and Brian and good luck to all you fellow study guy's - DON'T give up.....looks like it's gonna be CCIE Security next for me - gotta get that edge on the competition ;-) Matt