Workload

Still unable to do any studying due to various reasons. One of which is due to travelling around Europe. The travelling looks like its set to continue till mid next year. When I am in London, family committments chores are an obstacle to getting the time to study.

Currently trying to rearrange family life (no not divorce !) to allow me the time to study.
Also going to push my manager to deliver the test lab.

Not easy!

Ramadhan

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. Due to the month of Ramadhan I've not managed to do any studying. I've also been carrying out site migrations in Rome, Modena, Milan and Paris. So really have had no time to study.

My lab has not yet materialised either, my boss has promised I will get it soon though. So in the meantime I've made space for a rack in the basement server room in anticipation!

Going to look in to Amazon cloud this week to lease a virtual machine to setup GNS3.

Ethernet Frame Format

Studying is moving slower than I'd like. Work and family committments are hard to balance with studying. Currently only managing roughly 2 hours a day. I need to address this urgently in order move forward.

I thought it would be a good idea to include something from my studying notes with each post I make. So today it is the Ethernet Frame Structure.

Studying Begins

Finally started studying! reviewed my CCNA notes and then started reading chapter one from the cert guide. Basics really, but I want to read every page so I don't miss anything important.

I've decided to type any notes I make straight in to a word file. The idea is to index the notes according to the exam blueprint topics once I've finished the notes. Also to maybe convert them to webpages and make the topics searchable etc for easy reviewing.

My fellow collegue, a Network engineer handed in his notice today. He completed his CCNP and has found a better paid and more engaging role elsewhere. Sad to see him go but hey it means I can now get more involved in any work thats available :)

Lab Kit List

Have not done any studying yet to be honest, workload at work has dramatically increased due to a datacentre move that I'm involved in. But that should be over in a week or two.

Lab kit looks like it's making progress. I've acquired a couple of PIX firewalls and an old 2600 series router. Not much but it's a start. However I've been offered help by my employer who is willing to get me whatever they can. So they require a kit list.

This is what I'm thinking of asking for:

• 4x 3560 switches (24 port Fast Ethernet, 2 Gig )
• 3x 1841 series routers
• 1x 3825 series router with EtherSwitch Module
• 6x 2800 series routers (2 serial 2 ethernet ports)
• 1x 2522 router (for use as frame relay switch)

Books Delivered

All the books from the reading list were delivered last Saturday, in a box partly open and some of the books had rainwater damage :( Not happy! but decided to keep them as they were ok to read.

The certification guide is version 4. This is the central book, flicked through it all and it appears to be not that difficult ( he says!). I think I'l leave out the IGP's from this book and in their place read the Routing TCP/IP vol1. Similarly I'l leave out the BGP section from the cert guide and read the Routing TCP/IP vol2 instead.

Some good news, I may have a Catalyst 6509 to play with in a few weeks!

Day 1. First Step to CCIE

Hello World!
This is my first ever blog. I thought it would be good to use it to share my experiences with you all on my journey towards obtaining a Cisco CCIE certification. For those of you who who don't know what that is...it's basically an elite Computer Networks qualification in short, regarded by many as very..lets say..hard. I agree it is hard, but it can be done if you can muster enough committment and dedication towards this goal.

So, this week I joined the CLN on the cisco website and yesterday I put in order on Amazon for the following books:

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"Routing TCP/IP (CCIE Professional Development): Volume 2"Jeff Doyle; Hardcover; £30.62 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"Cisco LAN Switching (CCIE Professional Development)"Kennedy Clark; Hardcover; £37.72 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"Internet Routing Architectures (Cisco Press core series)"Sam Halabi; Hardcover; £25.00 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"Troubleshooting IP Routing Protocols (CCIE Professional Development)"Zaheer Aziz CCIE; Hardcover; £26.66 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"MPLS Fundamentals: A Comprehensive Introduction to MPLS Theory and Practice"Luc De Ghein; Paperback; £25.04 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"Routing TCP/IP: v. 1 (CCIE Professional Development Routing TCP/IP)"Jeff Doyle; Hardcover; £32.74 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"Cisco BGP-4 Command and Configuration Handbook (Ccie)"William R. Parkhurst Ph.D. CCIE®; Paperback; £37.83 Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
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"CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide"Wendell Odom; Hardcover; £37.73