Sorry it’s taken so long to finish this out. I’ve been incredibly busy with work, learning Cisco Viptela SD-WAN, SDA, and attending GSX (Global Sales Experience). Just after I got back from Las Vegas, I had to leave to go to Virginia for a family emergency. I’ve taken extra time to try and collect the thoughts, advice and takeaways to roll up into a final post on my CCIE journey. If you’ve stuck with me through the previous posts, this post should pay for all. If you skipped all of it, you can probably read just this one to summarize the whole thing.

To recap, I had failed my first lab attempt, but bounced back, studied hard, and was ready to try again. I felt better once I knew how the lab would look and feel, and it gave a measurable goal to work towards. More than that, it gave me an idea of where I needed to be to ‘be ready’ for the lab. That’s how I knew when it was time to try again.

Lab Day: Redux

This time, I didn’t show up quite so early. I rolled up around 6:55 AM and opened the door. I waited with a few other candidates, and promptly at 7 AM, David showed up. We checked in and headed back. I knew exactly what to expect this time, so I made no nervous mistakes. Badge went in the locker immediately and I was ready to go. We started a little bit early, which meant that we would also end a little early. I still didn’t feel nervous, which was surprising. I had worried that after my first-fail experience, the gloves would be off and I would start to put more pressure on myself, but I didn’t.

I need to elaborate here a bit for those who haven’t taken a CCIE lab exam. The percentage of people who pass on the first try is exceedingly low. You go in trying to pass but mentally ready not to pass. If you don’t pass, it’s not that surprising. Because of this, there is generally far less pressure to succeed on your first attempt, both internally and externally.

Once you fail the first time, the training wheels are off. The ‘first-time jitters’ are gone and you are squarely in the realm of ‘fail until you pass’. There’s no special significance between attempt #2 and attempt #20. You’re just taking the test. Paradoxically, it’s normal to feel more pressure on the second attempt than the first.

TSHOOT 2: Electric Bugaloo

My prior experience with TSHOOT had been death by a thousand cuts, and I was determined to avoid that this time. Once again, I read every ticket and examined the topology, trying to determine an attack strategy that would waste as little time as possible. In this case, I ended up spending about 5 minutes on each ticket to probe the difficulty and determine what could be the root cause. I was determined not to be caught chasing rabbits, and the approach helped. When I hit a ticket that would take longer, I scribbled notes quickly about where I’d left off, then moved on to come back to it. If I was close to solving a ticket, or in process of solving it, around the five minute mark, I kept going. If, after another 5 minutes, I wasn’t as close as I thought, I took notes and moved on.

I think I rotated through all the tickets that weren’t immediately solvable two or three times by the time the popup appeared asking me if I wanted to extend the section by 30 minutes. I had tallied my points and I felt I had a comfortable margin of passing, but I still extended my time to take 10 minutes and go back through my resolved tickets to verify them. This took 10 minutes away from the Config section, but I felt the time taken was worth it to be absolutely certain that I had the points needed to pass the section, and that the resolutions would meet requirements.

Diag: The Return of Jaffar

I was dreading Diag after the problem I had run into on my first lab, and so I determined to finish early and check both tickets several times. Luckily, I was able to do that. The Diag tickets I had were not particularly difficult, and I finished the section (and verified that the answers were selected) early. I went for a quick break and came back to start Config.

Config 2: On The Move

It was in this section that I hoped to make the most use of my speed training. I’d spent countless hours working on quickly configuring templates and features between lab attempts, and it was time to see if that would pay off.

Having already been exposed to the format and feel of the lab exam, I was more prepared for it this time. I am happy to say that I just flew through the first few sections with no problems at all. My basic strategy was to read through the entire lab once and make note of any giant red flags that would indicate a certain path to follow

After that, I dove in and started chewing through exam material, utilizing all the speed enhancements and template improvements I’d worked on since the first attempt. My basic flow was to create a template for anything that would go on more than a single router, then replicate as efficiently as possible, and lastly verify changes. Before moving on, I’d re-verify that the requirements to get the points were met.

My reliance on templates actually almost ruined my lab attempt. I was doing a very large configuration task across multiple routers, each requiring some shared and some device-specific configuration. It took me  very little time to get multiple routers configured, but my verification failed.

I spent time checking the configuration across multiple routers, and specifically on the ones which were most important for the solution to work, and I simply could not see the problem. I had spent about 20 minutes troubleshooting, and at this point I just gritted my teeth and moved on. A large section of the exam was not able to be completed as yet, but I had enough other things to work on and needed to make up for lost time.

This decision, more than any other, is most likely responsible for me only needing two attempts to get my number.

I moved on, spent about 30 minutes configuring something else, and then came back. There was the issue, staring me right in the face. As clear as day, making me wonder how I had ever caused the issue in the first place, much less missed it while troubleshooting. But that’s how it is. There’s a reason that editors proofread manuscripts, and why it’s always good advice to put some distance between yourself and a problem when you get stuck. Your brain naturally glosses over small mistakes because it knows your intentions. It’s the reason why we have spellcheck, because it finds errors your eyes would have skimmed over. Giving some distance allows your brain to reset expectations and you will return to the issue with fresh eyes.

I solved the problem and had most of the lab configured by lunch time.

Lunch was about the same as the first attempt. David talked to people that felt like talking, everyone ate, and too quickly, it was time to return to the exam.

After lunch, I just flew through the rest of the lab. Most of it was done with about an hour and a half left to go in the day. At this point, I put aside the last small point tasks that I would need to research to get, and focused entirely on going all the way back through every task with a fine-toothed comb. Why would I do this, when I’d already verified tasks as I did them? For the same reason that I let my earlier problem go when I hit a wall – Putting some distance between your brain and the problem allows you to return with fresh eyes. I used the time to methodically verify every point, and sure enough, there were tiny errors to resolve. Errors so small they didn’t impact traffic flow, but would not meet requirements. I estimate that I probably salvaged 6-8 points in that review, which is far more than I could have scored by working on the unfinished 1-2 point tasks.

I looked at the clock.. I had five minutes left and about four questions worth 1-2 points. I shot from the hip on a two pointer, diving into the documentation with a best guess. The answer was right there, and I got my last two points. That was it – the exam was over.

And now, we wait….

Unlike last time, I did not get my results the same night. I had taken the exam on a Friday, and the exam wasn’t graded that evening. I wasn’t sure if I had passed or not, so I spent all day Saturday consulting the notes I’d taken after my second attempt, labbing and studying. I went back to the office on Sunday and spent the day labbing again. I was determined to re-book for 30 days out when I got my failed report. I headed home on Sunday night feeling exhausted and determined to knock it out next time.

There is a time-honored tradition for CCIE lab candidates. Candidates receive an email when the score report is available, but can also check the CCIE Lab Exam Scheduler website to see the report when available. If checked too often, however, the site locks out candidates for 24 hours. It’s a long-running joke that all candidates lock themselves out of the site checking too often. I was determined not to be that candidate , and it was tough to do over the weekend. I actually had resolved to wait until Monday because no one grades them on the weekends, but a coworker of mine had been teasing me about it all weekend, and he asked again on Sunday night if I had results yet. I decided to check once before hitting the sack.

I remember thinking it was a mistake at first. I stared at the screen, unseeing. Finally, I muttered, “I passed.” Vocalizing it somehow made it hit my brain better. It started to sink in. Then I stood up, looked at my wife, and said, “I passed.” Her eyes went wide. My daughters ran into the room. “You passed?! Yay! Daddy passed!”

There was a lot of celebrating. I The first thing I did after that was go to the bathroom and shave my beard, as I had determined around November that I wouldn’t shave until I passed. After that, I shared it on social media, and tried to figure out… what’s next?

There is no next. It’s a profoundly alien feeling not to be spending all free time studying or labbing. Anyone who’s passed the lab is familiar with the feeling: It feels like you are doing something wrong. Like you NEED to be studying something, you feel guilty for not doing it.

This took me weeks to shake.. but shake it I needed to. My family was ready to have me back and I was ready to be back.

Advice, Tips, Tricks, Strategies: The Rollup

I’ll try to condense my CCIE journey into usable, actionable insights and present them here. Some of it may be obvious, some of it may seem foolish, and it’s certain that some of it might only be applicable to me and my own situation. I leave it to you, dear reader, to take what you like and leave the rest. I promise not to take offense.

1. Ensure your life situation is fairly stable and that the major stakeholders in your life can buy into a CCIE journey, or it will fail mid-stream. Maybe earlier, maybe later.
2. Tackle the CCIE written exam as its own thing rather than as part of a lab exam preparation. Develop memory techniques and whatever other study habits which allow you to memorize a lot of data. Memory palaces, mind maps, flash cards, etc.
3. After passing the written, develop a lab study strategy. You will have to do a lot of labs, and do them a lot of times. Whatever you can do to streamline this process will save a huge amount of time, potentially a hundred hours or more.
4. Diversify training vendor material. Each vendor which offers CCIE training labs, workbooks and videos approaches the same content a little differently.
5. Use spaced repetition and staggered topic labbing strategies to avoid losing progress. If each week was a topic, I’d suggest a pattern similar to this: 1, 2, 3, 1, 4, 2, 5, 3, 6 — something similar to this. Larger topics necessarily take longer, such as BGP, OSPF and certain solutions like MPLS L3 VPN. Split these into manageable chunks. Always stagger and repeat. It takes longer to get through all material, but your foundation with each topic will be far more solid when the time comes to tackle large-scale labs.
6. Find a CCIE study group or study partner. Keep each other accountable. Cover the same labs. Discuss the labs. Discuss the material. Cover the weak points of the others and let them do the same. Win together.
7. Attention to Detail.

8. ATTENTION TO DETAIL

9. SEE ABOVE.
10. Did you read #9?
11. Read all the TSHOOT tickets first.
12. Train yourself to check the clock.
13. A lot of network diagnostics involves Wireshark. If you don’t know Wireshark, learn it. If you are familiar with Wireshark, download pcaps and get good at dissecting them. It won’t cover all the bases, of course, but it will help. You should also make packet capture and dissection part of your overall lab strategy to practice. In short, know how everything works and also how to interpret it on the wire.
14. You have to pass all three sections to pass the lab exam. It’s not enough just to pass, however, you have to make enough points to exceed the cut score on the entire lab as well. For this reason, I advocate using as much time as they give you on TSHOOT, unless you are confident in the solutions and they have been verified already. If there is any question of whether or not you have the points needed to pass TSHOOT, use as much time as possible to ensure the section is passed. You can’t pass the lab without passing TSHOOT, so taking time away from the Config section is a minor inconvenience next to failing the lab.
15. Read the entire Config section first. Make note of any requirements that lock you into a particular solution or feature, to save you time later. Nothing is worse than spending 30 minutes configuring something earlier in the lab and then reaching a requirement which invalidates all that work.
16. The CCIE lab exam is designed to force you to waste time and chase things down  rabbit holes. Train yourself to recognize when you are being baited into chasing a rabbit. Take frequent breaks to check the clock and evaluate your progress. By training your brain to check the clock, you can recognize when you are wasting time easier.

17. DON’T BULLDOG ANYTHING.

18. If you take no other advice, take #17 to heart.
19. Really.
20. I cannot stress this enough. #17 is the most important piece of advice I can give any CCIE candidate asking for tips on taking the lab.

In Conclusion…

I hope that this has been somewhat entertaining to read. I hope I didn’t rant and ramble too much. I hope that there are some nuggets of truth and helpfulness in here somewhere. I hope I was able to lay them out above. Most of all, I hope that you appreciate your own CCIE journeys. The CCIE certification is still valuable because it tests knowledge of a topic beyond the level of ‘good enough’. It requires true understanding to truly pass the exam. Not every last detail can stay active in your brain afterward, but for those that truly understand what they have learned, that knowledge is never far away.