Monday, November 9, 2009

Change of guard in my prep

I have put the brakes on MPLS. Before I get into too much of vpn concepts, I wanted to ensure that I got all of the IGP-EGP sorted out so that I can play around with all the configs & see how mpls works.

So here is the plan. Get all the concepts of BGP revised & practice the volume 1 labs today. To get the theory done am sure it will take at least 3 days. So Wednesday I will review where I stand & hopefully I have all the concepts in BGP finished. Then follow it up with RIP, OSPF, EIGRP So this week we will have all of the routing done. In the weekend will work on the redistribution. We have to get that right & also practice some prefix list / ACL & filtering routes. Got to be smart & fast in working out the lists so that we don't waste time.

Once I am done with this I will work out @least 5 labs just on the core routing part from the labs I have bought so that I feel good about myself. IS-IS is one area I got to dig a lil more & I will do that also in the next week, after I practice a few scenarios. That's the plan as of now lets see how it works out.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Getting to love the ISR G2

Well if you are a router lover like me then you would definitely love the new product line from Cisco. When they came out with the original ISR model 4 years ago they revolutionized the world. Now its just the deja-vu from cisco but in a bigger level.

You will love the oomph factor that the G2 bring in them. Cisco is all about collaboration & taking the networks to the next level. Well they have done it again. Tell you what I really want to finish my CCIE quickly & get my hands dirty configuring & deploying networks with the G2 :)
Well, cisco has still not done away with their original isr yet, but you know. Be it data or voice the wow factor is always built into the routers.

The 1841 become the 1941, the 2800 into 2900 & the 3800 into 3900. So what have they brought in new, well lots;

First is that there is only a single universal image you need to obtain, they have done away with the adventerprise, advsecurity, advipservises, entbase, entservices, ipbase images. The routers have a multicore processor which double the processing power of the routers, voice+video ready dsp & more.


Well I really cant put all the data in here I highly recommend you following these links to learn more;

You can go to the cisco ISR home page by clicking here.
To compare the different models of the ISR G2 click here

Friday, November 6, 2009

Lab Safe & We have you covered

Wow its all about $$$$. We need to spend 4000$ + in training to get the free lab, amazing.
Cisco brought the lab safe program telling if the students invest in their 360 training boot camp & score 80. On instructor recommendation we get the second shot free if we fail the first attempt.Now INE has come out telling that if you invest 4995$ with them they offer us the first attempt for free.

So here is the intent of the programs;

360 says if you come to them to train & learn you should be good enough for the exam. So they ask you to test on the mock lab. If you score 80% on any one of the 12 they have, they feel that you are good enough & you will pass the lab(because the mock lab standard is probably higher) If something goes wrong & the candidate fails the second shot will be covered.

Ine says if you invest with them you will not have to pay extra for the first attempt. Its within the 4995 we pay them.

This is how I read it. Both the programs have totally two different intentions. Both are not the same. So lets understand that first. The students have to pick what they think is their need.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Got my 360 stuff !!!

With the standard that the V4 exam has been posing I decided to take up a vendor workbook that is equally tough & bowls me out even at the practice level. After a lot of thought I decided to go with NMC. Well its well know that their materials are a class apart & they set high standards. Yes, they are a little on the expensive side but after I bought their material & saw what they gave me I think I got a really good deal

Well its got me excited. I am not gonna jump into the full scale labs yet. I will drill down on all individual topics learn them all inside out & then move to the labs.

A little review of the material. Its more like the real lab we would get, its got a 2 hour troubleshooting section + 6 hour configuration section. Nice !!! Whats better is that I get to access the most famous V3 labs !!! The mentor guide is a cool tool to use to help ourselves. I just went through a couple of labs & I was like wow !!!

Why its a good deal ?? Well to start off as I said the quality of the material is superb as ever. The lab format is similar to the actual lab. We get the V3 labs also along with this. We get the Troubleshooting labs also that's been provided as a separate package by different vendors . So you don't have to buy anything separately. The mentor guide is nice tool to check how the final configs will look like in the actual lab. So investing in other vendors would have cost me 400$ at a minimum(troubleshooting + full scale labs). So put a little more & you get a real high quality product. Its a good buy @ the end of the day. The sales team is great, they helped me in couple of thing & of course their response was good.

IMO, provided the standard of the V4 lab I would suggest going with NMC . If you have already bought some other vendor product & want a different perspective , again this should be your choice.

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