Wow! Chuck didn't make it? Now I'm really worried! :-) Shawn K.
-----Original Message----- From: The Long and Winding Road [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 4:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Off Topic - Missed it by that much - CCIE Lab report [7:58572] In the words of the esteemed Maxwell Smart, missed it by that much. Good test. Liked it a lot. Can't say much about the content, obviously. The 3550's were there. I think that those who have expressed reservations about this will find little to worry about. The Lab writers did a pretty good job of integrating the devices into the rack and the exam. I think I was more surprised by what I did NOT see than by what I did see. Wish I could say more. There were the usual off the wall requirements. I knew the names, or had heard of the technology, but had never practiced it. Here's where the doc CD came in handy. It was very easy to locate the information and do the required configuration. I did have one very odd problem I was unable to solve. My own practice, not to mention the doc CD configuration guide, told me that a particular configuration should have worked. But it didn't. I've mocked up the configuration here at home, and it took a total of 10 minutes to start from a router with no configuration and have it up and running correctly. But in the Lab it just would not work. I have an inquiry in to the CCIE Lab folks, asking them to check the rack. I believe there is a physical problem, although for the life of me I cannot come up with a plausible explanation as to why. I would get more specific, except this would be a direct violation of NDA. I will say that anyone who sits at rack 12 in San Jose - if you are absolutely certain your configuration is correct, tell the proctor. I hesitated to do so, and I paid the price. You'll know when you see it ;-) I did one stupid thing, and the more I think about it, I should have corrected it immediately when I discovered it. When I first created my notepad file with my alias commands, I stupidly did most of them as "alias configure" rather than "alias exec" Given that the lab is graded pretty much by scripts, I have this bad feeling that this mistake may have interfered with the operation of some of those scripts, meaning that I was not given credit for successfully completed tasks just because the script was unable to function properly. You are no longer given a point total in your report. When I counted up points in the late afternoon, I thought I had between 60 and 70. I had no reachability problems, save to one interface, and that interface had nothing depending upon it. I knew I didn't have enough points to pass, but I thought I was close. To judge from my score report, the final total was maybe 35-45 depending. As those of you who have been there know, the "dependings" will kill you every time. :-) I can say I had a lot of fun doing this test. That's probably part of the reason I failed - I'm having too much fun. I can also say I'm hot to trot. I can taste it. I'm yay close to passing, and I want back in as soon as I can get there. You can bet I'm checking CCO regularly for those open dates. Afterwards, I had the pleasure of hooking up with groupstudy regular Larry Letterman. Larry - thanks for the tour - it was impressive. I was reminded of exactly why I got into the tech business in the first place - the desire to do things like you are doing, important things, things that keep businesses competitive. You're doing a great job and I appreciate your taking some time to show me what you're working on. well, another time. Back on the road again. -- TANSTAAFL "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=58630&t=58630 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]