Saravanan Subramanian, CCIE #35455

After sooooo much of effort, lots of rack, gns, ASET labs and self study etc., I finally cleared my CCIE R&S in very first attempt yesterday in Bangalore. I am so exhausted and very tired now, but feeling very happy nothing in my life can beat this happiness.I have to thank Brian McGahan he is my inspiration to start this journey 10 months before. Thanks to all INE WB's they are damn good. Shortly, my way of preparation was majorly with Vol 1, Vol 2 and Vol 4 along with my own GNS labs. During the final stage of preparation I did lot of vol2, vol3, vol4 and mini GNS labs with mix and match technologies which were really great boost for me to get the confidence for the exam. When I look back 2 months before after I did my first mock lab and 2nd mock lab I knew I was close enough for the exam and results were ok not good. The last 2 months aggressive preparation with vol 2, vol 4 and gns helped me to nail it. TS was very very hard, initial 1 hr I can barely solve 2-3 tickets. I thought I almost lost it and felt very low, there are some tickets which I was very sure my answer is correct but verification was not showing correct results. Final 30 mins I almost solved 5-6 tickets and some of them I couldn't verify properly but still I tried to resolve all the tickets with all my energy and confidence. Becoz of TS I was not in the right spirit when I start the main lab, but I manged to get the confidence back and did completed the lab an hour before. It was a piece of cake, compare to vol2. Except for few tasks most of them were straight forward, but you will easily get confused if you did not pay attention properly. Finally it is exam that is very tough and challenging, but still achievable if you honestly prepare for yourself. All the best!!