Full Scale Lab 1

NMC Lab 26
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Today I did my serious full scale lab. Its was lab 26 of NMC. I dint do the troubleshooting part of it though.

It took me 4.5 hours to finish up the whole lab.

The lab was pretty straight forward & easy. I was able to comfortably go through the lab. They did get me thinking at one stage. I did refer to the answer key then I go going.

L2:

Pretty Straightforward no twisting the tasks. Breezed through it without any problems. Total time taken was 30mins. It was pretty basic.

Routing:

Interesting yet simple portion of it. Configured everything as per requirement & got the whole IGP working.

BGP was also pretty simple except for a task that i was a little confused eventually a later part of the lab had the solution.

Redistribution was not much of a challenge but yes for a basic lab we can see how the routes are being share with each other.

IPv6:

My favorite section !! was interesting ! had only bgp & no IGP. I breezed through this section also. I got a link layer address assignment wrong apart from that it was a cake walk.

QOS & Multicast:

Nothing much here. Simple & straightforward got them working in no time.

OTHERS:

For a basic lab it was good. Gave me a good deal of confidence to start off the labs in full flow.


Learning:

Felt a bit lazy to draw diagrams today that gave me a bit of confusion.
Dint make a task table which had me look at the answer key.
I would rate myself 85% for the lab.


OVERALL:

Simple lab with simple tasks. Enjoyed the 4+ hours I spent working through them. Although a bit stiff while starting my confidence is up & I look forward to get going with the other labs.

Full Scale Labs

Last week I did my lab-1 of the famous workbook. I felt good & pretty much ready to go through & do the full scale labs. I was a little bit slow in starting off & going through the entire section of the lab. I was bit rusty drawing diagrams & getting others things in but it did get me started..

So I have about 30 sessions book & a tight schedule booked ahead of me. I am planning to kick off with the V4 version labs as they are more relevant in terms of time, length & most importantly the content. I planning to probably go thorough them twice & then get started with the older V3 labs. I am trying to go for the maximum here.

I am planning to go through the Troubleshooting section subsequently. I really don't have a time line or an attack plan for my troubleshooting yet. But , I really want to know how to configure & verify all the technology & then eventually the troubleshooting will become easy.

Lets see how it works out !!

Breezed through layer 2 & other sections

I breezed through the layer 2 section. Switching & frame relay is done. Only th catalyst side of qos is pending. HSRP/VRRP is also done. Those are one of my favorites. DHCP is also done

Today I will be finishing up with NTP & other few system management sections. Tomorrow I have planned to go through QOS & practice a few of the concepts mentioned above. GLBP is pending. IPv6 multicast is pending for a long time so I just thought I will finish up with that too over the week.

I will be starting out with full scale labs from Saturday onwards. Cant wait to get started :)

OEQ reach end of road

Finally after a year of terrorizing the ccie world cisco has finally made a move to remove the OEQ a.k.a Core knowledge section from the ccie lab exam. Having faced the ccie v3 lab I did find the OEQ pretty easy to handle. I cruised through them. But, having said that the sheer pressure it crated before I took up the exam was huge just because if I missed one question I had to fail the exam. The OEQ was more of a mental strain while preparing. Yes, those who are preparing for the lab should & will be able to answer it. But the very thought of losing the lab because we dint get one question right was the pain.

No need to worry moving forward.Well now it official on the ccie website

. It says & I quote

"Beginning on May 10, 2010, CCIE R&S and CCIE Voice Lab Exams, in all global locations, will no longer include the four, open-ended Core Knowledge questions"

We can further see it on DOC-6484

But honestly I wonder why cisco decided to remove this section. It was introduced to eliminate cheating. I think its because the troubleshooting section introduced will take care of that problem.

So its a happy ccie community & I am very happy too !!!