that's the spirit :) Bojan Zivancevic Network Engineer
From: Nicolas MICHEL [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 17 February 2011 16:01 To: Bojan Zivancevic Cc: marc abel; Marko Milivojevic; OSL Routing and Switching Subject: Re: [OSL | CCIE_RS] Congratulations to Bojan Zivancevic - CCIE #28189 (R&S) WoW man this feedback is so valuable ..... I ll read it again before my lab exam (I was about to say attempt :D ) See you dude and I hope I'll pass like you did :) 2011/2/17 Bojan Zivancevic <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Thanks guys for the kind words. :) Marc and Marko ;) you are just too kind. Now there is a danger of me becoming conceited. :) Marko, everybody knows who's the instructor and who's a student, so... :) Marc, this is the best compliment I have ever received from somebody who does not know me at all. Thanks a bunch. Yes it feels great to did it the first time. I must admit. :) I devised a nickname for me and my friends from the bootcamp - it is "CCIE unnumbered". It gave us a feeling of being almost there! :) Now that I am CCIE Numbered it feels even better. :) So think thoughts of success, and go confidently to the exam. Anyway, I was not a frequent poster here, but a frequent reader. I feel obliged to pay my debt to this group because it was helpful during my study. First, I would like to thank Tyson and Marko for prompt and detailed responses and for all their help. Second, thank you all for trying to help. I appologize for the LONG email, but I am trying to point out the important things and help people see the small things which are needed to pass this exam. Knowledge is a must - but this is on my opinion only 80% of what is required for passing. Other things are various skills you gotta have, skills which are hard to define and describe in words. So, I will try to sum up the most important things that made me pass on the first attempt. The things that in my opinion are really making a difference. But everybody has their own way, so see what fits for you. First two things are for those of you who still have few months ahead before the lab: - learn how to use the notepad for configs (Marko is a good example, just watch one of his lectures and you will see); it is a pain in the butt at first, but eventually it makes your life much easier - it boost your confidence tremendously, it speeds up configuring in a great amount, and it makes finding your own faults easier. For instance, configuring full mesh bgp between four speakers, with several neighbor commands, is done in several minutes. Also when you are in the exam, write everything you do in notepad and mark device numbers. You will easily spot the error you made if you do this. For instance, on the very exam, I made an error with etherchannel and when things started to flap and go mad :) I quickly looked at my notepad and spotted the error in a matter of seconds. On the exam I did some 80-90% of everything in the notepad. Just some insane services and stuff I really don't remember the syntax... - make your own notes as you study; this is huge, on my opinion... I made my own (electronic) notes for every blueprint topic, and kept updating that during the whole study period. Before the exam I managed to put up some 500 pages of pdf document (a book really!) with explanations and real examples, in color. So, I never had that trouble "oh god where did I read that explanation? Web? A book? Video course?" - I just quickly glance at my notes and there it is. But this makes sense only if you are not close to the exam of course. Now for other things... first the very exam: - use putty, the feature that you can select something and it gets automatically copied into the clipboard is a big time saver - then another time saver is the right mouse button which pastes automatically; these two combined are powerful method of quickly doing things. You can even use ALT and select in column mode which is a great tool to select several commands in a row from the console window. Now imagine doing vlan configs in vtp transparent mode, you type it all in the notepad and then just paste it with the right button on several switches in a row. few clicks and it's all in there. - be thorough in your studies, and be focused; but this must be done as a combo, not separately; what I mean is that in order to effectively use your study time, you must choose what will you focus on. And this is not easy, this is not a decision on whether I should focus on OSPF or not - it is more than that. OSPF itself is so huge that you must also stop in some point in time and say "no more digging deeper". You must choose these points wisely. So, when you decide on you focus, for all the blueprint topics, be thourough, be detailed. Learn everything about it (but stay inside the focus boundaries you chose for each topic) because it would save your butt on the exam when the wording of the question is vague, or when you realise that some question influences your work on earlier questions during the exam. - talk to the proctor, but in a way that he sees you know your stuff; in last 6 months I have never heard that proctor was rude or not wanting to help - and my experience is not like that either; he was very polite and nice. And I was the ONLY ONE who was talking to him - and I am 100% sure I was the only one who passed that day because I saw the faces of other candidates afterwards. If you talk to him the right way you will clear your doubts about some questions. And if you don't get the exact answer, this should be a clue for you that he can't give you the exact answer because you did not understand what's going on completely! :) It happened to me. I talked to him 6-7 times and on several occassions I got the precise answer, and on others he gave me a vague answer which set me up in a direction of digging deeper and thinking about the task again. Finally I realised what was he talking about. - time management... don't stick to one task too much, even if it is a core task... this is a sure way to hell. Your mind just keeps running round in circles and you don't see the solution no matter how easy it is. Afterwards you find what's the problem in minutes. Yes, of course, this also happened to me on the exam. :) I got stuck and one part of my IGP did not work. It was in the third hour of the exam. So, I decided to leave it broken like it is and work on services. I knew If I lose more time on this, I will have trouble of finishing everything. So, for next two hours I have done services only and then returned to my IGP fault. Of course, I solved it in 5 minutes :) and blood started running through my cheeks again. :) In that point I knew I am sooo close to passing. - Time mgmt is also crucial on TS; My first two tickets were long for solving - I figured that out from the task - and I skipped them just like that. No sweat. I know I can do it, but I will do easy and quick tasks first, to have enough time for the hard ones, so I won't drop in the state of panic. That attitude brought me to the point that I solved 60% in 1 hour approx. Then I came back to finish the skipped tickets and ended up having 90% done in 90 minutes. Just one ticket unsolved and 30 minutes left. - pay attention to details! details! don't think "oh this is the easy task" - maybe it is, maybe it is not... I have heard so many people talking "I did everything and get 0% on this section!" - the problem is either they did not read and understand the task fully, or they did not talk to the proctor and clear things up. There is a fine line of passing and failing, and sometimes not paying attention on details in one task, can influence your points in another task... So this is like a roller-coaster to 0 point score for many tasks. Finally, how did I prepare? In short: - use AS MANY SOURCES as possible (vendors, workbooks, articles, courses, whatever... but stay focused! You can't read everything there is...) - choose the bootcamp which will brush up your skills, otherwise it is a waste of time and money; you can learn by yourself 90% of the topics - there is the internet for you, waiting! use bootcamp for the advanced stuff, and if you can stay longer! I think strongly that one week is not enough - of course excluding bootcamps which offer one mock lab per day, this is obviously great way to make final preparations. - trust yourself! don't trust others opinions on the internet, whatever - when you don't understand something or you have a task to solve, dig and find your own answer; I did it like this and it proved right - and this is the best way to learn of course (this is the way for knowledge to get stuck in your brain) - use dynamips extensively; you can have 3-4 routers network in your computer running all the time, even if you are on a trip. Whenever you are not sure of something, config these 3-4 routers and give it try. It is a tremendous help. I wish everybody GOOD LUCK on their way to prosperity, and thanks again for the support on this group. Best Regards, Bojan Zivancevic Network Engineer -----Original Message----- From: marc abel [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: 16 February 2011 17:07 To: Marko Milivojevic Cc: OSL Routing and Switching Subject: Re: [OSL | CCIE_RS] Congratulations to Bojan Zivancevic - CCIE #28189 (R&S) Congratulations Bojan! I knew from your helpful, intelligent replies to this list that it would not be long for you. On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 6:54 AM, Marko Milivojevic <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>wrote: > I would just like to congratulate one of our active OSL participants > and students, Bojan Zivancevic, on passing R&S lab... on FIRST attempt > (I'm jelous - it took me three)! He is now CCIE #28189. > > Well done, Bojan! > > -- > Marko Milivojevic - CCIE #18427 > Senior Technical Instructor - IPexpert > > FREE CCIE training: http://bit.ly/vLecture > > Mailto: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > Telephone: +1.810.326.1444 > Web: http://www.ipexpert.com/ > _______________________________________________ > For more information regarding industry leading CCIE Lab training, > please visit www.ipexpert.com<http://www.ipexpert.com> > _______________________________________________ For more information regarding industry leading CCIE Lab training, please visit www.ipexpert.com<http://www.ipexpert.com> -- Nicolas MICHEL Ingenieur Réseaux et Securité (CCNA/CCNP) _______________________________________________ For more information regarding industry leading CCIE Lab training, please visit www.ipexpert.com
