Wow…It has been a very long, long journey… I started studying for the CCIE® some time after getting my CCNA/CCNP/CCIP combo more than two years ago on the v3 days. I followed the blueprint and I realized that it wasn’t detailed enough, so I went with the extended version of it. Initially with the unofficial (Thanks Anthony), which latter turned out to be quite similar to the official they posted afterwards. I keep track until these days of my progress on the different topics/sections.


So I started reading a bunch of books while doing some mini labs I would create to prove the concepts. At that time I only had one old PC which could barely run 3-4 routers simultaneously on GNS3. I noted that some of the new things I was learning were rapidly vanishing from my mind, so I decided to take notes regularly, save config examples, etc. and then this blog was born, which would force me to write notes as clear as possible that I could review afterwards. Unfortunately writing posts with a decent format consumes a lot of time so I couldn’t really post everything, but I will now try to blog more regularly to share some of my findings along the way..

After some time I managed to get a mix of 2600’s and 2800’s and a single 2950 that would let me build larger topologies. Narbik came up with this amazing Troubleshooting Challenge which got me a couple of workbooks to work with. I was feeling well from the theory perspective, but I really had no much idea what the CCIE lab was all about before starting to work on the workbooks. I remember the first time I sent my answers of the Troubleshooting Challenge to Dan I included changes on the BB routers; I had no idea you couldn’t touch them back then!!.

I would follow several blogs. To name a few, I strongly recommend reading Petr posts to any candidate (I would even say some of them are a MUST, OSPF Route Filtering Demystified per instance), doing Dan’s TS Tickets, and so on..

Last year I got a job offer I couldn’t resist from a company which would provide me access to full racks, so I had no more excuses… time to schedule the lab!... I had the feeling I had a good understanding of the technologies on the blueprint and that I just needed to get used to do a lab for 8 straight hours. I looked for alternatives for graded labs. I think only 360 (NMC) and INE offer them, being the latter option much cheaper, so I scheduled five Mock Labs with them on which I scored in the range of 60-70. At the same time IPexpert offered me their Vol III and rack rental time in exchange of that banner you see on the left. After all that I felt ready… but then I couldn’t pass the config part of the exam (only passed the troubleshooting section) back in march.

I scheduled again for july. Narbik provided me his updated 4.0 Workbook which I used to practice on those areas I felt I wasn’t confident enough and to keep discovering that there is always something you don’t know …

….And a couple of days ago I finally got my Number !!!