Cisco Learning Blog

Long time no update. I have done different things and also just came from a holiday. My son is now nearly 2 years old on he is about to make great steps further into the future.

In my current job i have done some migrations and audits for example. Also i made my Prince2 (project management) certification in the meantime.

Time to go deeper again. Time to go in depth with the current sec lab.

In two weeks i will be at the INE bootcamp end of april near london for a week. Currently i’m still trying to setup my lab alltogether. I’m still not having a IDS/IPS solution. I’m hoping the cisco aset lab will open soon to be able to train mor on this equipment.

I was in trouble motivating myself for the next path. But i’m starting again. Currently looking at ACS and IOS authentification.

I still haven’t booked my sec lab yet. But i think this will be at the end of august/september. So here we go.

Glad having gns3 on my side. There have been numerous changes since version 3 and 4. I use it quite often while travelling for example. Great work guys.

I have overslept this one a bit, but i will catch up quickly from now on again.

In the past, there have been several new certifications around. Seems like Cisco is doing a lot to set new goals apart from CCIE. Formerly this has been the highest level of certification. But seems like Cisco is setting higher goals or new high goals to be reached by individuals.

It’s the Cisco Certified Architect which has been new to the top level available certifications. As a prerequisite you need a valid CCDE certification. To get started with a more detailed view about the Certifed Architect you could start reading this article by Scott Morris, he is sharing his insights. Price to start here is 15.000 $ for the new cert. You will have to pass the CCDE also first. This has been a privilege to only some people. Thinks it’s a good idea to read Scotts article, to form your opinion.

In fact Cisco has announced also three more new certs:

Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Wireless

Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Support Specialist

Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Design Specialist

Any comments on this are welcome. See you soon.

Source:

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/cisco_certified_architect/index.html

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/community/certifications/ccde

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-5483

Updates to the Lab and Written Exam for the CCIE R&S. Cisco is currently doing a lot for the CCIE. some great changes are introduced starting from the 18.10. 2009. After this date, Cisco might be testing also on new equipment, updating to 1800/3800 on 12.4(T) IOS images. Mayor new topic will be MPLS and Layer 3 VPN’s. I was wondering, while this topic was still missing in today’s labs, but starting from the end of the year, this be a valid one. Think this is a good idea. Also testing for core topics again, to keep your cert special.

Source:

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/rs/index.html

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-4605

https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/community/certifications/ccie_routing_switching/written_exam?tab=1

Like for the R&S Lab, Cisco has now introduced the 4 Open-Ended Questions also for the Security Lab. If you are prepared and now your major topics well, this should not be a problem. I have seen them already in the R&S Lab exam. Starting to change from the 15th of June this year. You will have up to 30 minutes to complete these questions. Maybe these questions will be added to all other CCIE tracks.

As i was looking for something i could do next, after passing my ccie r&s, i took the security path next and last week, i did the written as a first step. It have been 105 question with a 790 points passing score. I managed to pass the test. It was quite close, i didn’t expect to pass. I was feeling i would fail, but tried my best and the last 10 – 15 questions and there must have been some correct answers.

With the new written in security i also recertified my r&s ccie for nearly the next 4 years now. The next time until i had to recertify is the 26.2.2013. Cisco just adds the new Written at the end of the first ending period. So that will take some time.

Since i read that the Security ASET Labs have been a great help for preparation, i have already booked some ASET Labs at the end of may until june. I know that for r&s they have been absolutly helpful and one of the best resources.

I still will look for some PEC courses for security. I found some for r&s with have been at least interesting. But the PEC www.cisco.com/go/pec was reorganized and the website changed a lot. I found it very difficult to get to the courses i have seen before.

I have to look again at the PEC. Might have been changed again.

I have booked the lab at the end of October in Brussels. But I’m unsure if this will be enough time for preparation. I will see. I had to decide until end of July. So until then, i will probably know more about, if it will work.

Currently i reorganize my testing environment also. Still was using a OpenSuse installation on my notebook. But i feel moving to another distribution. Might be Fedora or Ubuntu. Shouldn’t be a problem with dynamips on both. I have ordered a new HD with about 320 GB, so i will have more space available for my vmware installations. Still using my Lenovo T60 though. Have 3 GB of main memory, but i’m already looking for notebooks with more than 4 GB. I’m still waiting for.
But first I will be on holiday with my now 1 year old son for some time.

If you wounder how often i could go on holiday, that nice time will shortly be over. I’m still on parental leave until midst of June and until then it have been 7 months altogether for me. My wife did the other 7 months before. Since 2007 in Germany it’s possible to parents sharing the time. And if one of them is taking at least two months, i will be 14 altogether, instead of only 12. It’s a great time with my son. He develops so quickly, for me it’s absolutely to quick. A few months ago, he was so small and now he is close to being able to walk already. It’s fantastic to see him every day and to experience his presence.

Have a nice time.

Two months after the lab exam, i received the plaque. Well it’s looking nice. Would be better if the font would not look frayed, but it does a bit, if you look at the characters in detail. All in all it’s ok. But a wooden border, like the plaques had before, would add some more value to it.

I gave it already a nice place.

Just came from a vacation. Did some cycling for about two weeks and continued my training for the ironman this year in Switzerland. In about three months in july 12, i will be in zuerich to do the:

3,6 km swim, 180 km ride, 42,195 km run

I have started learning for the written again. Think i will soon make the test. Maybe in about 3-4 weeks.

Now it’s one week ago and i still sometime login to my cisco certification account and watch at the result of my exam.

But what comes next? Have you thought about this before? Forward-looking i was already thinking about taking another path. Did want to have more knowledge about security. I was think about Service Provider also. But this is not as close to me, as security is, in the sense of building up a network. I take the path from LAN to WAN then after R&S, Security comes first and after that Service Provider. Had also already more experience in security and side effects will be better for me with security, i think. Also in April the security lab, will have some interesting updates as the pix and the concentrator will be removed from the lab.

Well, i have my little family and my son is still small. But now he is already close to his first birthday. Time runs, as i can just notice often.

So i will take the time i can spare to start the security track and start learning in the near future.

I will have to build my rack and have already seen that most of the devices can be build with dynamips/dynagen, pemu and vmware. So i will share my buildup and proceedings and populate my blog with more security topics in the future.

Will have some holiday also, if you think now, i should take that first.

DID IT! DID IT! DID IT! Can’t believe it still. I am happy. Long way has ended and new journey beginns. What a relief! Fantastic.

CCIE Number 23664. Yesterday in Brussels.

Hi,

here is the good news, thanks to my colleague pointing to.

Everyone who wants to try a graded lab, can do this for free, including a free 8 hours rack rental session .

http://www.imakenews.com/ipexpert/e_article001347969.cfm?x=bf96L3k,bcHBn6KQ,w

While IPExpert and proctorlabs has the grading feature for their labs, IE is now also the offering of the Poly Lab Assessment. I tried both and i can suggest both of them. While the Poly Lab is quite new, i tried it twice and the results have been interesting for learning. You can generate your own lab, depending on you skills. If you are novice, beginner, intermediate, advanced or expert in the different R&W topics. The lab questions are then generated on behalf of your skills. The difference to a mock lab is, that after you hit the grade button, your result will be generated in 5 minutes by tcl scripts. The mock lab will be graded by a human and you will get comments on your configurations.

The IPExpert labs have been also very interesting and grading has worked well.

You should try a graded lab. You will probably be astonished about how many errors you can make even with a first looking working configuration. That was for me also the most important thing. Since you will overlook many little errors looking at your own configuration. Many things you wont see that fast and the secure and more easy way to have a script grade you. Since it will not be able to overlook missing or wrong configurations parts. Very good for learning also.

If you are working at a Cisco Gold Partner, then you could also ask your Cisco SE for the ASET Labs. They have a grading machine in the back also from labgear.net. There are several different topics for about 4 hour sessions and also currently 6 different full time labs. All labs can be graded. These are very similar to the real labs, although they are not written by the CCIE Lab team from Cisco. But most important thing is, that you will get them for free and they come from Cisco. You can get about 72 hours per month lab time from Cisco. Even if you just want to lab some things out, this is possible on Cisco’s lab equipment.

If you want to get in touch with the real Labs, you can try the Assessor Lab from Cisco. The will cost you about 200$ each. Still only two four hour labs available, but is also good for a try.

Source:

http://www.internetworkexpert.com/ccie-routing-switching-poly-labs-assessment.htm

http://www.ipexpert.com/index.cfm/product/sku/CCIE_RS_Lab_Graded_Assessment

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/download/pep/aset_qualify.html

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/preparation/assessor_details.html