Miroslav Kosut, CCIE #37192

I spent 4 years reading Cisco Press books and practicing all the stuff that might have appeared on the lab exam. Being a maximalist and reading many RFCs was not the shortest path towards though - that's where INE.com came useful. They provided with the structured approach. I used all their Workbooks and Rack Rentals. Volume I over-prepares you as they cover every single relevant feature on the blueprint (and even more huh). Volume II develops good habits for you - like what to put on the diagram in each section, how to check full reachability, how to verify the results and go on the next task with confidence, etc. Volume II also includes troubleshooting labs which are the starting point towards building your troubleshooting skills... at the end of practising those you will understand why listing the running configuration is not the best troubleshooting tool and why the properly selected debug commands are the better choice. Volume III labs improve your configuration speed in fundamental configurations - in those labs you literally have to configure the VLANs and assign ports to is, configure routing protocols from scratch and quickly analyse the redistribution problem. Volume IV contains advanced troubleshooting where the tickets are not described as straightforward as in Volume II - you have to identify what could be an issue like by listening to a non/less-technical client than your colleague. The CCIE Lab Exam is not difficult in terms of CLI commands, rather it is very straightforward BUT you need to have strategy and natural speed developed where INE.com saves you years.