CCIE Anniversary (and my CCIE Journey)

TL;DR: This article discusses what happened after my passing attempt of the CCIE Lab Exam, but in the section after that, I briefly discuss my CCIE journey and my experience on each exam attempt (without breaking NDA of course). So, feel free to skip to that if that’s more appealing to you.

Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) fell on a Friday last year and while many others were probably out drinking and partying, I was anxiously and nervously waiting in a hotel room in Richardson Texas for the results of an 8-hour Lab Exam that I had just taken. This exam was the hardest exam that I had ever taken in my life. That much is evident because this was my 4th attempt. Keeping in tradition with my post-exam activities while I await the results, I ordered some dinner when I got back to the Hotel after leaving the Cisco building where the exam was held. I wanted to try something different this time, something that was well-deserved after yet another grueling attempt at the world’s most difficult and in my opinion most valuable singular IT exam (we can argue about this later). After searching online for quite some time, I found this place called Big Tony’s West Philly Cheesesteaks right before they were about to close. I ordered the “Southstreet” Cheesesteak, which comes with Steak, Chicken, Sauteed Onions, Extra cheese and SHRIMP! It was delicious! Little did I know that it was actually going to end up as my Victory Meal ??

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So after anxiously waiting for the results, praying and watching TV in the Hotel room to let the time pass by, midnight had passed and I still didn’t get that email from “[email protected]” letting me know that the exam results were ready yet. In my previous attempts, I would typically get the results either the same night or the next morning but, I was nervous, I was anxious and I was exhausted. Although I couldn’t wait to find out what the results were, I was so tired that I just decided sleep on it, because I had already gone through enough stress and lack of sleep preparing for and taking the exam, so it was finally time to get some well deserved rest (as hard as it was to do in that moment).

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I actually didn’t sleep that well that night, but I woke up the next morning to an email that came in at 3:33am in the morning letting me know that the results were ready. Almost nothing ever woke me up faster (besides coffee). Once you receive that email, it lets you know that the results are available and you can log in to the cisco website to view your score. Just like with my previous attempts, I wanted check my score while on a video chat with my family. So, I got up and completed my normal morning routine, went down to the Hotel lobby to get some breakfast and after I ate my breakfast, it was time to get on a video conference with my family. After much anticipation, I logged into the site and went to look for the results (expecting yet another fail), and right after I entered my login credentials, there was some text at the top of the page that I wasn’t accustomed to seeing, but I was scrolling down to the bottom of the page to view my score report so fast that I just ignored it before my brain could register it. When I finally got to the bottom of the page, my eyes kept fixating on the “Failed” attempts, but when I finally saw that “PASS” I jumped out of my seat and shouted “HALLELUYAH, THANK YOU JESUS” at the top of my lungs!!! I’m sure I woke up some people in the hotel rooms next to me as loud as I was! The text at the top was a notification that my CCIE status was “verified” and notifying me of that coveted number that I was working so hard for in the past 3 years. And that number was – 67254 ??

It was a long and hard journey, but for me it was totally worth it. 5 months later, I got hired at my dream job – Cisco. All of it was totally worth it!

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If you’re still reading this article, then you’re a nerd like me who’s really interested in this stuff. So, for those people, I would like to talk about my CCIE journey and my experience during my lab attempts. Now, yes, it did take my 4 tries to finally pass, but honestly I feel much sharper after 4 attempts than if I would have passed sooner, because of the time and triple, even quadruple checking of my understanding and deep research that I had to do before finally “mastering” the material.

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So, my journey started out in January 2020 when I had decided it was time to go for the CCIE. Ever since I had decided to specialize in Networking, I knew that I had to get the CCIE. I went from the Network +, to the CCNA, to the CCNP and took some specialist pit stops along the way (Meraki CMNA, CCDA, CCNA Security, would’ve gotten the CCDP, but I wasn’t ready by the time they retired the exam). The Cisco “Cert-pocalypse” had just occurred in February 2020, which was a refresh of all of the Cisco certification exams, including the CCIE. This refresh was a major overhaul and with it came the introduction of being able to take (non-Expert level) exams from home! One of the remnants from the Pandemic era. In my case, I didn’t have to take the CCIE Written (which was now the CCNP ENCORE exam, due to the refresh), which is the Pre-requisite before being able to even take the CCIE Lab Exam. I was Grandfathered in due to having an active CCNP at the time, so I pre-qualified to take the CCIE Lab. Even though, I decided to take the CCNP ENCORE anyway, in order to familiarize myself with the new topics on this new version of this new CCIE exam such as; SD-Access, SD-WAN and Automation, which were new to me. I ended up passing the ENCORE exam on the first attempt and then the clock was ticking to take and pass the CCIE Lab Exam.

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And so, it was the Summer of 2020 and my journey officially began. I started tackling some CCIE-level reading material that was recommended from a lot of the CCIE veterans at the time:

·???????? Routing TCP/IP Vol. I and Vol. II – (Jeff Doyle)

·???????? CCIE Routing & Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide – (Narbik Kocharians, Peter Paluch)

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I read those books cover to cover, along with other books that in some way, shape or form assisted:

·???????? CCNP and CCIE Enterprise Core ENCOR 350-401 Official Cert Guide 1st Edition – (Brad Edgeworth, David Hucaby, Ramiro Garza Rios, Jason Gooley)

·???????? Designing for Cisco Network Service Architectures (ARCH) Foundation Learning Guide: CCDP ARCH 300-320 (4thEdition) – (Marwan Al-shawi, Andre Laurent

·???????? CCNP Enterprise Design ENSLD 300-420 Official Cert Guide – (Anthony Bruno, Steve Jordan)

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I also watched tons of videos and whatever I could find on YouTube related to the CCIE. One honorable mention is a video playlist for the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure by “ThinqTank Learning” on YouTube. I felt I got a lot of value out of that. And an MPLS/L3VPN video series by JP Cede?o on Udemy.

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Once I was done with all that (and after reading; “Your CCIE Lab Success Strategy: The Non-Technical Guidebook” – (Mr. Dean Bahizad, Mr. Vivek Tiwari), I felt like I was ready to start labbing more at the CCIE level, so I read and labbed up all the scenarios in:

·???????? CCIE Routing and Switching v5.1 Foundations: Bridging the Gap Between CCNP and CCIE

By The one and only, the Guru himself – Narbik Kocharians!! This book bridged gaps that I knew were there but didn’t realize how deep things went.

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But it didn’t stop there, I was always told by many who have traveled this path that I must go and take Narbik’s Bootcamp when I feel like I’m almost ready to take the exam. So, that I did, and boy was that one of the best decisions that I’ve made during this journey! I was floored by the level of mastery Narbik had on these CCIE topics! There are some who misunderstand the value that Narbik brings to the table. I hear some people online saying that he’s good for learning “Nerd Knobs” and “Corner Case” material, well what I have to say to those people is that they are missing the point completely! Narbik corrects a lot of misunderstandings that people have on Networking Technology and how and why things are supposed to be configured. He gives you a plethora of creative examples (in Lab format) of how to DEEPLY understand a topic AND how to verify that it works. My favorite quote from him is “if I can’t prove it to you and show it to you (through the output in the CLI), then I’m lying to you”. Now, I have experienced first-hand, a lot of self-proclaimed “experts” succumb to the pitfalls of thinking they understand something when they really don’t. Either that or they have critical gaps in their knowledge. The things that I learned from Narbik, 100% assisted me with passing the CCIE lab exam and it’s knowledge that I will carry with me throughout the rest of my career and I do not regret taking his Bootcamp and courses one bit. I believe it was worth every penny, but I digress.

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So after months and months of practicing using Narbik’s Labs and deep diving on RFC’s and Cisco Documentation, I was getting closer to being ready for the Lab Exam however, by this point, I received the best news that I’ve ever heard in my life: I was about to become a Father! At that point, I knew the clock was ticking fast and I had this added pressure of trying to pass before my son was born. Unfortunately, things would turn out not working out that way, but NOTHING stopped me from reaching my goal. Right before I was getting ready to pull the trigger and schedule the exam, I spoke with a good friend of mine Jon, who was also a former student of Narbik’s and had recently passed. He basically slapped me back into reality by asking me how good I was with SD-WAN and SD-Access and that really busted my bubble ??. I realized that I had huge gaps in my knowledge. So, he recommended that I take a few more months to fill in those gaps and recommended some books for me to read:

·???????? Cisco Software-Defined Wide Area Networks: Designing, Deploying and Securing Your Next Generation WAN with Cisco SD-WAN – (Jason Gooley, Dana Yanch, Dustin Schuemann, John Curran)

·???????? Cisco Software-Defined Access – (Srilatha Vemula, Jason Gooley, Roddie Hasan)

·???????? Cisco SD-WAN Design Guide (CVD)

·???????? Cisco SD-Access Solution Design Guide (CVD)

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And I’m so glad that he got me to pump my breaks, because those books (and CVDs) definitely filled in all the gaps in my knowledge on SDN (especially, Cisco’s flavor of it), how to implement it and most of what I needed to know for the CCIE Lab Exam.

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In order to lab up and practice what I learned from the books, I have to throw in this HUGE honorable mention here. I HEAVILY followed and used the SD-WAN labs from “Lab Minutes” by Metha Chiewanichakorn, (CCIE#23585). This guy is a BEAST! I attribute my success to the SD-WAN and SD-Access portions of the Lab to Metha. His labs are amazing! Go ahead and check out Lab Minutes!

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Now for the SD-Access portion, although I had bought a Server and ran my Practice Lab environment off of that, which allowed me to lab up the traditional Routing & Switching technologies and also SD-WAN, I unfortunately wasn’t able to run SD-Access at the time (No physical Catalyst 3850/9300 Switches, DNAC appliance, etc.) So, in order to practice that, I relied heavily on Cisco’s CCIE Practice Labs, which had just came out at the time! I encourage everyone going for their CCIE to check those practice labs out! That was the sole reason why I was able to do well in the SD-Access portion of the exam. I spent about ~$650 on those Practice exams and I’m not ashamed to say it ??

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So after months of labbing and practicing, I was ready to go for my first attempt, which I approached as if it would be my passing attempt. And boy was I mistaken, but the lessons learned during each attempt were invaluable. I like to joke that each attempt of the C-C-I-E earned me a letter ??

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Attempt #1 – “C”

Location: Home (NYC)

So this was right before my son was born and they were surprisingly holding a Mobile BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Lab in Cisco’s NYC Office right in my own backyard ??! I tripped over my feet to schedule the exam. Luckily, I didn’t have to travel, but I did book a Hotel nearby the office so that I wouldn’t have to deal with traffic to get to the office or delays in Mass Transit. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sleep that night at all! Not only were my nerves getting to me, but they were doing very LOUD construction right outside of the hotel building! ?? I’m sure you can imagine how frustrated I was when I woke up in the morning, nervous and anxious to take the exam. I had a muffin and coffee for breakfast and walked to the Cisco office an hour early. I was the first one there and they allowed me to walk up to the lobby and wait for the proctor. To my surprise, there was only 1 other guy taking the exam with me that day. The proctor was awesome! (Shout out to Ben Ng!) So, once it came time to take the exam, we set up our Monitor, Keyboard Mouse (since this was BYOD) and booted up the Cisco Lab Environment on a USB Stick into our Laptops. In hindsight, my laptop was definitely below the required specs that Cisco recommended in order to take run the lab environment, because I kept running into performance issues.

So, after the proctor went through the Guidelines and wished us good luck, we began the exam and my heart was racing! I was soooo nervous and sleep-deprived but couldn’t wait to go through with this. I was first faced with the Design Module of the exam, and I thought it started out pretty well. I felt pretty confident of the answers I gave and was familiar with the topics from the questions I was receiving early on. But halfway through the Design module, I felt I was in trouble. I was spending 15-30 minutes on some questions with tricky wording that I was reading too much into. I had a plan of “5 minutes per question”, but that quickly went out of the window! “Everybody has a plan until they get hit!” is an accurate way to describe that situation. The Design Module is 3 hours long and I ended up taking the full 3 hours and not feeling very comfortable with how it went.

So, before I moved on to the “DOO” (Deploy, Operate, Optimize) module, it was time for lunch. Ben had ordered Chic-Fil-A for us. The other gentleman who was taking the exam along with me had driven up here from the VA area I believe. I asked how he felt he was doing so far, to which he confidently replied “Oh, I know I failed. I’m going to have to come back and take this again…” That was an eye opener to me. I haven’t even begun the DOO (Configuration) module, so I didn’t know what I was in for!

After lunch time was over and I resumed the exam…I quickly saw what that other guy was talking about ??. After getting stuck on the first task for almost an hour on an issue that seemed easy and I’ve done multiple times, I realized that this was going to be a long day…

Long story short, I didn’t even get to finish Section 1 of the DOO Module before the clock ran out. I was so disappointed! This was the “Home” Game, I was supposed to Pass and close this one out so I wouldn’t have to go on the road. And I also wanted to pass before my son was born, because I knew it would be really difficult tending to a newborn, while also trying to pass the CCIE.

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Stay Tuned For Attempts 2 – 4!

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