All,
I finally passed my CCIE Voice in RTP yesterday. I have an R&S so I am still #22842. My two cents are below. Take them or leave them. Please limit direct questions and post them to the alias so everyone can benefit. Please do not ask me anything that would be in violation of the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). I am a Cisco Employee so that increases your chances of being reported J Observations It is not obvious which task depend on each so you have to think about how a lot of task may affect others. The Voice lab is very "wordy." IPexpert's practice labs are very clear and concise in their requirements. It is very easy to get lost in the words due to time pressure and how we read. My guess is if English is your first language you will skip words and if English is not, it will be harder to interpret than it is for native speakers. That is just a case. Yesterday, I read a task that said "should" and I thought it said "should not." If it was not for a later task that conflicted with "should not," I would have never noticed and would have lost the points (assuming I still did not lose the pointsJ ). So this lab I focused on attention to detail. I read slower and took more time so I was only finished with about 1hour and 15 minutes left. Some requirements may not be clear to you so making an assumption is the worst thing you can do. Seek clarity from the proctor. We all know it is hard to ask the question in the right way so they can answer but it is better than assuming. My strategy was to mark down the questions I have and then bring the proctor over to my desk and ask him every question in one sitting to save time. That worked. We had our debates about "clarifying" questions but this saved me a huge amount of time doing all of my questions at the same time. One of my questions was even answered further in the lab based on what another task asked. For the rest of the time I went back through my lab. The only thing I do not verify first time through is the dial plan. This is my first time making it to the end without leaving any points on the table so I had enough time to verify my dial plan. I figured there is no way every test call could work 100% without me testing anything but 911. I was right. I fixed a lot of silly mistakes. IPexpert Training Notes You need the 5-lab handbook and the 4 labs you get from the One Week Lab Experience. I have 3 more labs from the previous round of OWLE and those helped as well. I hope IPexpert finds a way to include those questions that require you to think outside the box or features that no one uses in the real world in their materials. The proctor told us during one lab there are several tracks per CCIE Lab. There is a 30% change between each lab in the same track. So let's say there are 4 voice tracks and 4 labs per track (just using round numbers). Even if you get Track 3 Lab 1 and then get Track 3 Lab2, you can still easily fail. That can be a big 30%. The point is every practice question is important so the more questions you have the better. I have had scenarios that I could not get working during past labs but there was never one scenario where I said, "I have no idea how to do this." IPexpert will give you all of the technical skills to pass but unfortunately that may not enough. With all of the words and all of the assumptions they expect you to make, there is no good way I can think of to prepare for that. Especially with integrated troubleshooting. You may think of things they do that make sure phones not get DHCP but there are things that will not break your configuration that you still have to spot and fix. After taking the lab many times, you start to understand what are some of these things to look for and you making check those things part of your routine. The new Troubleshooting course is essential. Seeing the debugs in the IPexpert practice labs is nowhere as good as having Vik walk you through it. I can now easily read h323, SIP, and mgcp traces thanks to that class. Other Notes I heard in the past people could skip sections like CUCCX, QoS, and/or Troubleshooting and still pass. I do not believe that is possible anymore if it ever was in the past. Assume the worst that every questions is worth 5 points. That means you can only miss 4 questions. There is always stuff that you think you configured right that you really did not so you cannot leave ANY points on the table. You have to leave thinking you got 90+ points to have a chance in passing. I am done ranting. Let me (and the list) know if you have any questions, Cory
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