Congratulations, Jason. DQ
From: Jason Murray <murr...@usa.com<mailto:murr...@usa.com>> Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 9:13 AM To: Online Study <ccie_voice@onlinestudylist.com<mailto:ccie_voice@onlinestudylist.com>> Subject: [OSL | CCIE_Voice] CCIE Passed! Hello everyone just wanted to send a note out that I have passed my CCIE last week #36408!! First and foremost I want to thank God for the ability to retain as much information as I had to take in. Definitely a lot of prayers were answered last week. Next I have to thank my family for sure for putting up with me for the last year (esp these last 4 months of not having my full attention almost daily). They have sacrificed with me. It will be nice not getting up pretty much every morning including Saturdays and turning on my home lab. Will enjoy some peace and quiet of not having the hum of servers and routers running in my office. I wanted to say thanks to Vik and the ipexpert crew. I used their BLS product for about a year now. I had my own equipment so it was easy for me to turn it on almost everyday and run through the walkthroughs and everything until I had it down. Then a month out I went to the One Week Lab Experience which I think put it all together and finalized my studies. I would like to have said I passed my first time, as I did come very close I didn't but the next 30 days I worked with Vik to help understand where I was needing improvements and the next time I went in I passed. Vik went above and beyond in helping me understand it. He truly loves what he does and enjoys helping people. If he didn't he would have put up with all my emails. I know he's especially glad I passed so he doesn't have to be bothered by me anymore lol :). Also I did use another product some (Cisco 360) which helped to see the grading process using their graded assessments. But as far as actual study material I used ipexpert exclusively. So to help those out on this same journey as I was I thought I would put my strategy out there so it may help someone else. My strategy was using the device based approach (search google and you will find a nice video on this) where I made a table and read through the entire guide and put each question under the device it corresponded to. Once that was complete I started with SiteC and did that router config along with CUE. Then moved to SB, complete, then check CUE and finish. Then to SA RTR finish that, check CUE if needed. Then finish the 3750 config. On the routers if I happened to be doing QOS or RSVP or something I would configure on the router I was on and then I would hop over to the router it was going to and finish that particular config on it. Then come back and finish up on the router I was on. Oh and the first time I hit the NTP config I would hop over to CUCM and configure it and then ssh into it and run a utils dbreplication repair all since NTP does have a tendency to mess up replication on CUCM. One thing on the routers as well is I skipped over SRST to hit that up later. Once all the routers and switch was complete I started with CUCM. Created RGs, CSSs, AAR (if needed), MRGLs then moved to the System menu and walked down that menu, Server IPs, Server group, Date/Time, Region, Location, DHCP, SRST, Enterprise Parameters, Service Parameters, then created the Device pools. Once that was complete I auto registered my phones. Then once they were configured I would start going through all the questions with CUCM and knock those out. In practice and the exam I skip over anything that has to with call routing and making calls till after lunch. Before then I would just keep continuing on and if I was done with CUCM and still hadn't taken lunch I would move on to CUC, then Presence, then CCX once I went to lunch I'd come back and finish up whatever I was doing and then hit call routing. Vik has an excellent strategy which I learned in the OWLE that I used in practice and on the lab. Once call routing was done I'd go back and hit whatever I didn't do. Once all the applications where complete then I went back and configured everything I needed on the routers that had SRST. Did my testing and everything there while in SRST once I came back out from SRST I never came back to it because it was already configured and tested. As you notice through that in the device base approach I did no testing until I got to SRST. So you need to be really good at your technologies and know what you are doing just not memorizing stuff. That's where the Vol1 and Vol2 practice came in from the BLS. I had this down and in the last three months before my exam I practiced this strategy with each of those labs as well as the labs from OWLE once I went there. Anyway once all the config was complete I then went back with the first question and completely tested everything (except srst since it was already tested) Fix what you need and move on. For me with this strategy I had like three hours to test so I went through the question with a fine tooth comb and if there was any doubt I asked the proctor. For me even though I was done and I a real good feeling I had passed I continued to sit in my chair and read through the lab guide just to make sure I didn't miss anything until the proctor called time. So that is that strategy I used in the lab and what I had practiced for 3 months prior to taking the lab. Figure out where you are taking it and time yourself. Know when the lunch is so you can stop yourself, when practicing, at that same time and take a break. Pretend like its the real lab every time you practice until you have your strategy down. Just because you know how to configure something in this lab time is the key so you need to know how to configure it, when to configure, and how to do it quickly. So I thought I would share what I did to prepare which has been over a year of preparation with almost everyday doing something to do with the lab. Whether that be actual labbing or just reading an SRND or searching the web, looking at debugs, trace files etc. I knew walking in that second time I was gonna pass that thing because I had already passed it before going in from all the preparation. And I had it in my minds eye that it was already done and passed. Good luck everyone, it definitely is a good feeling to have that done and complete and have my free time back. Jason
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