One of the big things that helped me was just the experience I had prior to starting on the CCIE. My experience going into the studying likely gave me a huge step up compared to if I tried the exam earlier in my career. If I tried the CCIE eight years ago like I originally wanted to, it would have been a lot more difficult and much more time consuming. I would have had much more to learn from scratch, and much less practical experience to help.

Additionally - the other huge benefit was going into the lab with a solid strategy around time and task management. There were several places through the exam that I felt like I could have easily lost 30-45 minutes on one item. It was very important for me to be able to step back and admit I couldn’t solve something. Instead, it let me focus my time on completing the tasks that I could do - and working on the unknown stuff if I had time later.

On the task management side - I spent time early in the study process on finding a good strategy that worked for me. Once I had this figured out - I used it on every single practice lab. I ended up using a combination of a few things other people have written about previously. My base task management was using a great blog post by Chris Miles (Read it here). In Chris’ blog, he suggests breaking up the tasks per location - then completing all the tasks for a location, one location at a time. That part didn’t work for me. Instead, I only used his method of organizing all of the tasks under individual locations - that way I could easily see what tasks were left and where I still needed to work. For example, if I needed to configure EIGRP - I could easily look at the sheet and see every location that needed some form of EIGRP config.

For the actual order in which I implemented tasks, I followed the guidance of a LinkedIn post by Kim Bartlett (Link here). In that article, Kim suggests a logical order of operations - like L2, IGP for MPLS, then MPLS, etc. Doing things in this way made sense to me. So I worked out what order worked for me, and decided to follow it. The big difference in my strategy, was that I found it easier to complete all tasks for a certain protocol/technology at once. For example, if I was configuring OSPF - then I would configure it at every location at the same time before moving onto the next piece. My overall order of operations was something like this: L2 -> all IGP -> VPN/MPLS -> MP-BGP -> iBGP -> eBGP -> BGP -> IPv6 -> Anything else. I found this to be a good flow for me. It allowed me to configure things like BGP only after I had already configured all of the underlying dependencies - which meant I could test immediately to see if everything was working as intended.

All of the above combined with constant labbing for months prior to the exam was absolutely critical to helping me pass on the first try. I had found a good strategy that worked for me and applied it to every practice lab, which meant that I walked into the actual exam feeling like I had a good way to guide myself through the onslaught of work. Had I walked in with just labbing experience and no good strategy, I don’t think I could have gotten close at all.

Okay, Now What?

I’m now getting around to posting this over three months after I passed the CCIE. I’ve spent a lot of time catching up on things around the house, reading books, running through a few video games, and overall just trying to enjoy the free time.

That being said - it wasn’t long for me to start feeling guilty and itching to start working on something else. My first thought was to begin working on the DevNet certifications. I’ve been doing a bit of Python & network scripting over the past few years, and I’m excited that Cisco is launching a certification program around it. I’ve been working on this a bit recently, which has also helped me get back into a few Python projects I hadn’t touched in a while. My current plan is to try taking some of these exams shortly after they launch.

I’ve also kept thinking back to one of the other certifications I considered going after: the CCDE. In my current job as a Systems Engineer at Cisco, the content behind this certification applies a lot more to my job than the CCIE. That’s not saying the CCIE doesn’t help me - it absolutely does. However, my job today is more understanding the technologies and how they fit into a customer’s network, rather than performing in-depth configuration work.

I don’t know yet whether I will fully pursue the CCDE and take the exams. But I have started reading a few of the recommended books, and I’m already finding bits of information that are valuable to me. I’m also really enjoying the content and getting much more interested in some of the topics. For now - I am planning on continuing to read through the information just to learn it and see where I can apply it. Once I get a good feel for everything, I’ll decide whether to chase the actual certification or not. For now, I think I’ll just enjoy not looking at a PuTTY window for a while 🙂

Thanks for reading - and thanks to all the people who have supported me over the past few years. It’s was a long journey, and not always an easy one - but I think it was well worth it.

Started here? Read the rest of my story:

Part 1: Getting Started

Part 2: Written Exam & Lab Prep

Part 3: Lab Day

Part 4: Lab Strategy & What’s Next

Lab day finally came - and I arrived at Cisco building 5 in Richardson, TX around 7:45am. There were already a handful of other CCIE candidates waiting outside for the building to open. Once it hit 8am, we all went in to get signed in and fill out our lunch order forms. Then it was time to wait.

The exam proctor showed up around 8:17 and guided us to the exam room. I figured there would be more time allotted to the proctor talking through rules, guidelines, etc… but instead he just said a few quick things and we were told to begin.

Troubleshooting

The troubleshooting section had me a bit concerned. It’s always difficult to jump into a completely unknown network and try to fix a problem - and this was no different. My first question immediately made me start panicking a little. I read the ticket, looked at the expected output - and began wondering where to start while being very aware of my short time limit. Every question felt like “I’m never going to figure this out in time” - yet after a few minutes of troubleshooting I was able to find the answers to the first few questions.

Halfway through the section I received a few tickets that required a lot more work. Some of these I didn’t make much progress on, and some I was able to get half-way resolved. For each of these I tried very hard to keep to a reasonable time limit per question, then mark it down as something to come back to later if I had time.

A lot of people talk about counting your points during the exam to know where you stand. I had originally assumed that this would just be a waste of time. Yet when I finished going through the remaining tickets, I knew I had to make sure I had enough points. Turned out I was barely on the edge of a passing score - assuming I had resolved all of the tickets correctly. My first two hours ran out, and I got the 30 minute warning. I was hoping to avoid using the extra 30 minutes, but I knew I needed to go back to the 3-4 questions I hadn’t completed.

About 15 minutes later - I had managed to figure out one or two more of the tickets and decided to give up on the remaining items. Based on my estimated point count - I should have been in a good spot on the troubleshooting section….. But I still wasn’t confident in all of my answers. I knew I had a ticket or two that might not be resolved in the correct way. I decided to save the remaining 15 minutes and just move onto the next part of the exam.

Diagnostics

Next was the diagnostics section. My biggest complaint here (and it’s somewhat minor) is that the on-screen timer is located in a completely different place than troubleshooting & config. At first (probably because I was in a rush), I couldn’t find the timer - and I also had not kept track of when I began the section. That was a big mistake on my part. So I forced myself to rush through the section, knowing it could end unexpectedly at any second.

Once I wrapped up my diag questions - I finally found the timer… and to my surprise had just under five minutes left. Not a ton of time, but enough for me to go back and double check a few answers that I had rushed myself through. I also used the last minute or two to run for a restroom break before starting the config section.

I honestly had no idea how well I was doing on this section. One of the questions seemed straightforward, but the answer I picked felt too simple. But maybe I was just overthinking it? The other questions made me waffle back and forth between a few answers. In the end, I just went with what my instincts told me was the most likely answer and just stuck with that.

Config

The config section is extremely overwhelming at first. Well, I suppose it doesn’t get any less overwhelming during the exam - but you quickly get busy enough to stop caring about that 🙂

I had about 30-45 minutes in the config section before we took lunch. That was enough time for me to get through all of the Layer 2 tasks quickly and then build out my task list on the scratch paper. During this time, I thought I was doing okay until I got to the end of one of my first tasks. I had just completed all of the items within that task when I read the last item - which made me realize I had done the entire task incorrectly. That was not a pleasant feeling. Luckily, I caught my mistake before moving on - but the time had already been wasted and now I had to go back and re-configure that entire section.

Lunch was quick. We went out, ate our food, then got back to the exam in less than 15-20 minutes. There was a bit of minor discussion - but not a whole lot.

The remainder of the day went by very quickly. As I had practiced during the prior weeks of practice labs, I placed my trust in strategy & order of operations - then just went heads down and got to work. I tried not to look at the clock and instead just focused on getting the tasks done as quickly and efficiently as possible. I’ll share a little more on my strategy in the next post.

I ran into a few problems here and there throughout the exam, but nothing too crazy. The strategy I used allows for quick connectivity/functionality testing after completing a task, which allowed me to find and fix my errors quickly. Similar to the troubleshooting section, I hit a few tasks that I could only figure out parts of - so I marked them down to follow up later and just moved on. Since you don’t get partial credit for tasks, I knew I would need to circle back to these if I wanted a shot at passing - but there is no sense in wasting too much time on one task if I couldn’t figure it out quickly.

By the time I had finished every task, I finally let myself check the clock. I was shocked to see I still had almost a full hour remaining. I quickly took advantage of the time to go back to the several sections I needed more work on. A few of these I stumbled through until I was able to find my problems - and some of it I had to crack open the documentation site to figure out what I needed to do.

Running through a lot of the verification steps - there was still a few things not working as they should. I spent time troubleshooting, changing configs, and finally figuring out a few things. I made quite a few configuration changes here to force a few things to work, but I wasn’t sure if they were valid solutions - or if I would end up losing points for doing things I shouldn’t have.

In the last 10 or so minutes, I tried to very quickly add up my points while performing a quick skim through the tasks again. Being that close to the end of the exam - it made me feel a bit sick to start finding additional items I had missed. I rushed to throw in a few last-minute changes, then retest to make sure nothing broke in the process. I didn’t make it through re-reading all of the tasks, so I was left wondering what else I might have missed.

Assuming I had not missed anything else - my count of points placed me in a fairly decent spot on config. However, since there is an overall cut score for the entire exam - I had no idea if I would have enough total points between all three sections to pass. I was already like I might have just barely scraped enough points together for troubleshooting, and diag felt like a complete wildcard.

When I left the exam center, I found myself feeling much better than when I had entered. If I passed, then that would be awesome. And if I had failed, then at least I was confident in what I needed to go back and study. Rather than having to keep worrying about what tricks the exam might hold, I now had the experience of knowing what to expect. I was happy to have attempted the exam once - and knew I would be far better prepared the next time.

That evening I went to dinner with a few CCIE candidates who would be attempting the exam the following day. Just tried to have a good time, and not check my email too much :). When I got back to the hotel that night, I still had no results yet - so I just went to bed and tried to get some sleep.

The Next Day

I woke up probably a dozen or more times throughout the night. Every time my first instinct was to grab my phone and see if I had gotten my results yet. Every time I forced myself to not check, and just go back to sleep. Around 5am, I finally let myself check once - but still had nothing.

I finally got up around 6:30 - and the CCIE exam site was down. I had a bunch of text messages from people back home asking if I had anything to report - but now I couldn’t even check the site. Later I would find out that the site was broken due to an internal issue at Cisco, but for the time I couldn’t do anything. I tried a few more times throughout the morning, but mostly just gave up and decided to wait it out.

My flight left around 10:30 am. While waiting in the airport, I still kept checking every so often but could not get to the site.

Once I got onto the plane, the site finally loaded! But my results were the same: No score yet. A this point I figured I would just give up, enjoy the flight - and check when I got back home.

Boarding took a little longer than usual for the remaining passengers. Right as it was announced that they were shutting the doors and we would be taking off shortly, I decided to try checking one more time.

As the site loaded - this time I was greeted with a new status: Pass.

My initial reaction was just absolute relief to finally be done - knowing that I didn’t have to keep worrying about trying to pass before the upcoming certification changes. I sat back for a minute before refreshing the site again to make sure the result didn’t change. Nope - the result still said pass.

With that - on October 9th, 2019 - I was done. I had my number. CCIE #63461.

Keep going for the rest of my story:

Part 1: Getting Started

Part 2: Written Exam & Lab Prep

Part 3: Lab Day

Part 4: Lab Strategy & What’s Next

Finally in early 2019 I gave up on trying to gauge where I was at - and figured it was time to just give the exam a shot. I had already been studying for almost a year and a half, and I was craving some definitive way of figuring out where I was at. I went ahead and scheduled an exam for Tuesday, March 12th.

When I walked into the written exam, my first question immediately made me feel unprepared. It was something specific to provider WAN switching - not a topic I had spent enough time on yet. I did my best to take an educated guess, but that first question gave me a lot of doubt about how well prepared I was.

The written exam overall felt very… all over the place. It didn’t feel like a single cohesive exam - instead it felt like 20 different banks of questions shuffled into one. Some people call the exam just random networking trivia - and in some ways that might be accurate. For example, I might have a question on very basic L2, followed immediately by a very in-depth question on MPLS. Then probably over to something completely different. I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but I probably felt far less confident in answering many of the questions I got - and gave my best effort on guessing at quite a few.

Already not feeling great about how well I was doing, the test finally made its way into the evolving technologies section. This section did nothing to ease my nerves :). I completely understand why this section exists, but it felt like there was almost no effort put into some of the questions. Many of the questions I got made no sense, had grammatical errors, or gave a set of possible answers that didn’t line up with what the question was asking. Even for technologies that I did have a lot of experience with, it felt like the question was just written by someone who had no understanding of it.

As I finished my last question, there was no doubt in my mind that I had failed. To me, it was just a matter of how badly did I miss and how can I better prepare for next time. I was already making several mental notes on what topics I desperately needed to go back and review for the next attempt.

However - when I clicked through the remaining screens on the exam, I was extremely surprised to see that I had passed. It was only by a few points - but a pass is a pass!

Walking out of the exam, I sent a message to a few people at work to let them know I had passed. Even with the score sheet in my hand, I didn’t feel comfortable saying that I had passed. At no point during the exam did I feel like I was doing well. Maybe that’s just part of the difficulty? I don’t know… I’m honestly glad to see the written exam requirement is being dropped from the new exam blueprints.

Studying for the Lab Exam

Once I had gotten past the written exam, my full attention went into working toward the lab. I spent too much time initially trying to get my lab environment all sorted out. Went back and forth trying to choose between EVE-NG and GNS3, before finally settling on GNS3. Then I wasted a bunch of time trying to find the right images to use and testing them to make sure everything worked.

Finally - I picked up a copy of “CCIE Routing and Switching v5.1 Foundations: Bridging the Gap Between CCNP and CCIE” and got started. Going through this first book was far less enjoyable than I had hoped. Each lab was a completely different topology with a lot of pre-work to get going - and in many cases completing the actual practice lab would take a fraction of the time it took to get set up. I got frustrated with this a lot - but tried to keep pushing through to at least finish the book as a starting point. This ultimately amounted to a rocky start to labbing for me. Not working on it as much as I should, and not necessarily looking forward to it.

My next set of materials would be the INE workbooks - which honestly are structured far better. These labs were all on a shared topology that I could easily clone in GNS3 every time I started a new section. All of the pre-config is done for you - so that you can just focus on the pieces relevant to the topic. For example, if you’re working on a BGP lab - you don’t have to start from scratch with IP addressing or L2 configs. This made the content much easier to consume, and did a lot to help me spend more time working on practice labs. I got through these labs pretty quickly and repeated quite a few for additional practice.

At Cisco Live US 2019 - there was a huge announcement regarding certification changes. The CCIE exam & content was changing (along with pretty much everything else). I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear the announcement since the existing track was several years old, and I had come across a few rumors on the internet of possible changes. Even still, I was finding myself now up against a very finite amount of time to pass the lab exam. The old test would be phased out in just eight months (in February 2020).

After the announcement, I talked to my manager about what to do. We decided it would probably be in my best interests to schedule a lab date, and do whatever I can to try and pass ahead of the exam changes. So - only a few days after the new content was announced, I had scheduled a lab date for October 9th, 2019. This was less than four months away, and I still had a ton of content / practice labs to get through.

Having the looming deadline did great things for my motivation :). On the good side of things - It helped me to spend more and more time studying for the lab exam. I was able to focus more than before, and I was finding it much easier to push myself to practice even when I wasn’t necessarily excited to. Over the summer I nearly doubled the amount of time I had spent labbing compared to before the announcement. On the not-so-good side - I had also put together a week-by-week plan of what I still needed to accomplish between now and October. It was a tighter timeline than I was originally looking at, and now it felt like I didn’t have enough time to accomplish everything. I pushed through it anyways, knowing that October was just my first attempt. If I couldn’t finish everything in time, then I would still have time before the second try.

Remember back when I mentioned that six year gap between getting the CCNP and starting on the CCIE? This is the big part where that helped me a ton. Going through a lot of the workbooks - I didn’t necessarily feel like anything was too crazy. Over the past 10+ years I’ve worked at a number of different companies and had the opportunity to play with a lot of networking gear. I had a great base of experience with most L2/L3 technologies, including quite a bit of practice with all the fun that BGP has to offer.

One of the other big things that I think helped was that not all of my prior experience was on Cisco equipment. Having to learn how to configure BGP, VRFs, or switching on multiple vendors forces you to think beyond the syntax. Every vendor implements things in their own unique way - and this helps you to get beyond just memorizing what commands to enter. Instead, you begin having to learn much more about the underlying technologies and how they operate - and understanding what you’re actually trying to accomplish. Then it’s just a matter of researching whatever syntax that specific vendor uses to implement that function.

Having that good base of knowledge and experience helped me burn through the practice labs fairly quickly. A lot of content felt very familiar, with maybe a few new variations of commands - or maybe a new option that I hadn’t previously used. Even some of the pieces that I hadn’t used much of before, like DMVPN or multicast, still seemed easy enough to grasp how it worked and learn the necessary syntax.

That being said - In a lot of ways it also gave me a false sense of security. Feeling like maybe I knew more than I realized and therefore maybe I was better prepared. Yet at the same time, knowing how difficult the lab is supposed to be - and constantly wondering what I could be missing.

Keep going for the rest of my story:

Part 1: Getting Started

Part 2: Written Exam & Lab Prep

Part 3: Lab Day

Part 4: Lab Strategy & What’s Next

In about a month, most of the exams will be changing over to the new blueprints so I’m not sure how relevant any of this will be - but it’s still worth throwing out there, right?

Why CCIE? Why now?

The two years I spent working on the CCIE dragged on for what seems like forever. Back in late 2017, I had hit a point where I felt like I wasn’t being challenged enough technically - and I missed the old days of excitement when I was studying/labbing for certifications exams. I had always wanted to go after the CCIE for a number of reasons, but it never made sense before. I had decided that maybe it was finally time to give it a shot.

To step back for just a moment - I originally began my career in networking by taking advantage of the Cisco Networking Academy program, which had been offered at my high school. It’s hard to believe I started that over 14 years ago - but it was likely the single most influential thing in getting me where I’m at in my career today. After two years of classes, I walked out in late 2007 with my CCNA and eager to begin working in networking.

Over the next few years - I worked on a number of additional certifications. I always had fun going after certifications because they gave me a path to follow and a goal to achieve. They helped to make the process of learning a bit more fun. On the Cisco side of things, I worked on the CCDA, CCNA Voice (now retired), and my CCNA Security. Finally in 2011 I finished up my CCNP and had to figure out what was next. I was super interested in the CCIE - but there was no way my company would pay for it. For the time I shelved the idea - but I didn’t give up on it as a goal. Instead, I just continued to maintain & recertify my existing certs, and picked up the CCDP along the way.

Fast forward to late 2017. I had officially passed my 10 year anniversary on my CCNA. I was also feeling like I was hitting a wall in my technical abilities. I wanted to do something different and fun - and my first thought went back to pursuing a new certification because of how much I used to enjoy the process. I debated between a handful of certs, including CISSP, CCNP Security, CCDE, and CCIE R&S. After giving it some thought and talking to a few people, I decided it was finally time to tackle the CCIE and work toward one of my long-standing goals. That six year gap between CCNP and starting on the CCIE would come back to cause me a lot of problems, but also help me in a few ways I hadn’t expected - both of which I’ll talk about later.

Time to Study

On October 4th, 2017 - I ordered by first set of books and began studying for the CCIE Routing & Switching written exam.

To be absolutely honest, I had no plan going into this. Historically when I took certification exams my process was usually watching a set of training videos (usually CBT Nuggets), reading through the official cert guides a few times, picking up maybe another book or two, taking a bunch of notes, then a lot of labbing. It was never enough for me to just watch/read about the stuff - I needed to get hands on and break it to really learn. Usually by the time I had finished all of that, I would be feeling confident enough to go give the test a shot. I went into the CCIE written assuming this strategy would still probably work - and I was absolutely wrong.

When I began working through the books and videos I had - I found that I wasn’t getting as excited about it as I had hoped. In fact, it just felt like so much of the content was just review of things I had learned years ago during CCNP studies. That long gap since my CCNP also left me reluctant to want to memorize all of the little details again. How many things had I studied for the CCNP that I never used in my actual job? I certainly didn’t want to waste the time trying to re-learn/re-memorize those things now… But I knew I would need to if I wanted to pass the exam. This kinda killed my motivation in some ways - because I would end up having to force myself to try and retain information that I didn’t want to.

Studying for the written was hard for me - and probably more than it should have been. Between the mixed motivation, I was also working through a lot of stress and nonsense in both my personal and work life. I would eventually work through these issues - but sometimes it would mean having to take a few weeks off from studying.Every time I took a break, I knew I needed to - yet it was still very demoralizing.

I got some help toward my goal in June 2018: I had the opportunity to take a job working at Cisco as a Systems Engineer. In terms of working toward the CCIE, this was an absolute key step in getting there. I was finally working for a company that was willing to encourage and help me toward my goal. I was also surrounded by a ton of engineers and enthusiastic networking professionals who were there to support me. I got to spend time with other people who were working on certifications, and even network engineers at my customers who always wanted to ask how my studies were going. This helped a lot to get me back into being excited about the content - and brought a bit of motivation back.

Even though I was spending a lot of time studying for the written exam - I never really felt like I was making true progress. I believe this was likely caused by the fact that the exam blueprint is so large and diverse. I never settled on a good method to reliably track how far I had progressed on all of the content. While I felt like I had learned a lot, I also perpetually felt like I was nowhere close to where I needed to be. I also have an old habit of waiting to schedule the exam until after I already already feel confident I have a good shot at passing. With the CCIE written, I felt like that level of confidence was never going to happen.

Keep going for the rest of my story:

Part 1: Getting Started

Part 2: Written Exam & Lab Prep

Part 3: Lab Day

Part 4: Lab Strategy & What’s Next

Over the past year and a half (and still ongoing), I’ve burned through a handful of books and other resources while working toward the CCIE. I know quite a few people have already dumped out their recommended reading lists - but I figure it’s still worth writing out what has been working for me 🙂

I went ahead and studied for the written exam independently of the lab - so I’ll be providing the resources that I used for each separately.

Also note: This page will be updated as I continue working toward the certification. I’m not done yet!

Written Exam Resources

Books:

• CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide
• Routing TCP/IP, Volume I & Volume II
• CCIE/CCDE Evolving Technologies Study Guide

Videos:

• CBT Nuggets - CCIE Routing & Switching

Lab Exam Resources

Books:

• Your CCIE Lab Success Strategy: The Non-Technical Guidebook
• IPv6 Fundamentals: A Straightforward Approach to Understanding IPv6
• Cisco QOS Exam Certification Guide (IP Telephony Self Study)
• IP Multicast, Volume I: Cisco IP Multicast Networking
• MPLS and VPN Architectures
• More soon!

Videos:

• INE CCIE R&S playlist

Workbooks:

• CCIE Routing and Switching 5.1 Foundations: Bridging the Gap Between CCNP and CCIE
• INE CCIE Routing & Switching v5 workbook
• More coming soon 🙂

Hope these links help! What has worked for you guys? Add on in the comments below.

Well I ended up missing the original goal I had set. It’s now October and I haven’t even scheduled the written exam yet. I haven’t given up though - and my current plan is to shoot for attempting the written before the end of 2018.

That being said - The past year has been an interesting experience, and I want to talk about some of the things I’ve dealt with that caused me to completely miss my goal.

Having the right support is important

This was one of the biggest things that has impacted my progress. My first IT job was working for a local consulting company who was a Cisco Partner - so they highly valued certifications and continued education. They offered a ton of free training options to employees, and occasionally offered incentives to achieve certain levels of certification. This is where I passed the vast majority of certifications that I still hold today and I felt like I had a lot of fun working toward them. I was constantly surrounded by other people who were also working on certifications or just general training. Getting time to study or lab new stuff never felt like work - but instead it was very exciting and I really enjoyed it (More about this later).

After I left that job, I worked for a couple of companies who didn’t place much value on certifications. Unfortunately this shift made those environments counter-productive toward certification studies. There wasn’t much interest/support for what I was working on, and it was very difficult to get study time or training money. Once in a while I was able to get reimbursement for a passed exam, but even that wasn’t the easiest thing to come by.

All of this meant that getting started in the CCIE studies ended up being more difficult than I wanted it to be. It might seem stupid - but it was hard to get myself motivated when it seemed like I had no support behind me. I tried pushing through anyways, but eventually it became clear that I wasn’t enjoying it. I still kept making progress, but extremely slow progress - maybe reading only a few pages every week or two when I thought about it. This caused me to start doubting myself a bit, and begin wondering if maybe I just lost that early-career excitement.

Lucky for me, this changed in a big way in June of this year. I left my prior job to begin a new adventure working for Cisco. I was expecting a bit more of a supportive environment, since it’s a Cisco certification - but I was very surprised with what I actually got. A number of people I met asked if I had a CCIE cert or if I had any intention of getting one - and they encouraged me to go for it. Once I said I was working on it, most people were more than willing to talk through their experiences and offer support or advice. My manager has also offered to help me with time and materials that I might need. Needless to say, I’m getting excited about getting back into learning and labbing.

There is a lot of content

The amount of content to be consumed for the exam is enormous. As I’ve talked to a few people recently, I keep comparing the CCIE against what I used to do for a CCNA/CCNP level exam. For example, the CCNP certification is so cleanly broken into three parts - so each exam has a somewhat smaller focus area to study. The SWITCH exam only focuses on switching and layer 2 technologies - and the overall exam blueprint is a manageable list. When I studied for the SWITCH test years ago, the amount of time investment was comparatively small. I spent time watching training videos, reading through the cert guide once or twice, and then some amount of labbing along the way - and that was enough to do well on the exam. At the time I was also allotted time within work hours to study, since I was still working for the consulting company who valued certifications. This all made it feel significantly quicker and easier to work toward than what I’m facing today with the CCIE.

Comparing that to what the CCIE Routing & Switching exam covers in a single test - it feels a bit crazy. There is such a wide base of topics covered that it’s easy to sit back and wonder how you’ll ever manage it. And not only do you need to know fundamental routing and switching concepts/protocols/etc, but you need to have a much deeper understanding of them than before. Now while that’s the part that I really enjoy, it does become a bit overwhelming to keep track of. I’m finding it easy to feel discouraged by the lack of progress I’m making - especially given how much easier prior exam study was. I am actually reading a lot - but it’s still just a small percentage of the overall material. I guess it just takes a bit of a mental refocusing to account for the scale of things. After all, this isn’t something you can accomplish overnight - so why expect that you can?

Another thing I’m still struggling with is separating which content is new vs review. It’s been easy for me to gloss over sections on some routing protocols or pretty much anything layer 2 - because I feel too comfortable with them. There is a lot of content that feels like just reviewing things I already know or I’ve studied before… but hidden away are still bits of information that are relevant. I know I need to get better at forcing myself to read through everything, even if it feels like the 500th time I’ve read about how to make BGP work. Even if I do feel like I know something fairly well, it’s worth reviewing to further solidify knowledge of those concepts.

Sometimes life happens

Going for a CCIE-level certification isn’t necessarily something that you can just work on once in a while. It takes a fairly decent amount of dedication, time, and motivation. It consumes quite a bit of your free time - which can make things difficult when suddenly life decides to get in your way.

To start with, I probably shouldn’t have started studying when I did. I might say it was a bad time, but is there ever really a good time? Probably not - but I think I started chasing the CCIE for bad reasons. Don’t get me wrong, getting my numbers has been a goal of mine for a long time. However, at this time last year I was having a bit of a rough patch - finding myself feeling demotivated and struggling to keep interested in technology. I knew I used to love studying new stuff for certification tests, and I knew I wanted the CCIE eventually - so I figured it might be a way to kick-start myself back into getting excited again.

How did that go? Well months of making myself miserable for not making enough progress - and constantly feeling guilty for not studying enough. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fixing the root causes of my problems - I was just trying to distract myself with something else. Not my best idea, and something I can look back on now and easily identify - but at the time it was much more difficult. There were a lot of things playing against me. I was working too much, which meant that every night I came home and wanted to do absolutely nothing. I was on-call often enough that my sleep schedule suffered and some weeks I was only averaging 4-5 hours a night. I felt restricted in my ability to change or improve the situation. These and other things amounted to me no longer feeling interested in what I was doing every day, and even harder to get excited about studying something new. A few people I was talking to at the time suggested that I might be dealing with complete burnout - but I was stupid enough to think ’nah, not me'.

While this whole thing is written in the context of studying for the CCIE exam, that’s certainly not the only thing that suffered as a result of my lack of motivation. I stopped writing much here, for one. In fact I pretty much quit all of my personal hobbies and interests. Any time I had an idea for something, I couldn’t find the effort to even try.

Did everything magically change when I got the new job this year? Not at all - but it was a start in the right direction. Unfortunately, recovering from that state of life takes time. So I did exactly that: I gave myself a while to get settled into the new job and start working on getting my life and sleep back to a good point. This included forcing myself to give up on the CCIE studies for a few months. I still spent a long time feeling like I wasn’t getting better, or maybe I was going to be permanently disinterested in technology. It was sometimes a bit terrifying, because when I started in IT I felt so excited about everything - and I just wanted to get back to feeling like that.

After a few months of giving myself time, I can finally say that I think I’m making some decent progress. I’m starting to get excited when I’m out talking to my customers about their networks. I’m able to reliably sit down several times a week and read some of my CCIE books. It’s not quite back to the way things used to be, but I’m at least finally hopeful that I’m headed in the right direction.

Sometimes life is going to get in your way, whether for CCIE studies or otherwise. I guess at some point you need to know when to give up and come back to it when the time is right. Sometimes you just need time.

This post ended up going in a direction that I wasn’t entirely intending on - but I’m going to leave it. Hopefully this might help out someone else out there who has been struggling with similar problems. And if you are - feel free to reach out. I would love to talk to you about it.

As I said in the intro - I am still serious about going for the CCIE. I still need some time to catch up, but I feel that I’m making good progress now. I’m currently looking at trying to schedule an attempt at the written within the next few months. I’ll keep you guys updated!

What is an etherchannel? It’s a way of taking multiple independent links and bundling them together, so that they appear as one logical connection between two devices. Etherchannels are commonly used between two switches, or between a switch and a host - which allows for both additional bandwidth and fault tolerance/redundancy. In the example today, we’ll be using an etherchannel protocol called Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). LACP is an IEEE standard (802.3ad).

You might be thinking “Wait, wouldn’t multiple links cause a loop? Or trigger Spanning-tree to block ports?”. Not in this case! Etherchannel technologies work around those problems by creating a single logical interface for spanning-tree to worry about. The etherchannel protocol itself worries about loop prevention in between the two devices, so we get multiple ports of non-blocking bandwidth.

For everything we cover in this example, we’ll be using the following topology:

So we have two switches, which are connected together via Eth0/0 and Eth0/1. Each switch has three VLANs configured - 10, 20, and 30.

Configuring an Etherchannel

I’ll only be showing the configuration from the perspective of 0x2142-SW1 - but all configuration is replicated on 0x2142-SW2.

! We'll use the interface range command to apply the etherchannel configuration to
! both Eth0/0 and Eth0/1 at the same time:
0x2142-SW1(config)#int range Eth0/0 - 1

! We specify which etherchannel protocol to use by configuring 'channel-protocol'
! PAgP is a Cisco Proprietary protocol, but we'll be using LACP for this example:
0x2142-SW1(config-if-range)#channel-protocol ?
  lacp  Prepare interface for LACP protocol
  pagp  Prepare interface for PAgP protocol
0x2142-SW1(config-if-range)#channel-protocol lacp

! Next we need to specify a channel-group and mode:
0x2142-SW1(config-if-range)#channel-group 1 mode ?
  active     Enable LACP unconditionally
  auto       Enable PAgP only if a PAgP device is detected
  desirable  Enable PAgP unconditionally
  on         Enable Etherchannel only
  passive    Enable LACP only if a LACP device is detected

0x2142-SW1(config-if-range)#channel-group 1 mode active
Creating a port-channel interface Port-channel 1

0x2142-SW1(config-if-range)#
*Jan 26 01:03:04.532: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Port-channel1, changed state to up

Let’s talk through a few notes about the above configuration. In order to enable etherchannel, we only need to configure two commands: channel-protocol and channel-group. The channel-protocol command tells the switch which etherchannel protocol to use for negotiation (LACP in this case). The channel-group command provides two necessary components: the group number and mode. The group number is just a device-local identifier for which group to add these ports to. When we specified group 1, the switch adds both Eth0/0 and Eth0/1 into the new logical interface Port-Channel 1.

The etherchannel mode is also important. The two primary options we want to look at for LACP are active and passive. Active tells the switch to preemptively send out LACP negotiation packets. In this case, the switch really wants the ports to become a bundle and will ask it’s partner device for an etherchannel to be formed. Passive mode tells our switch to only negotiate if another device wants to. In this mode, our switch won’t send out any etherchannel negotiation packets unless its partner device does so first.

Generally speaking, the most common configuration is to set the mode on both devices to active. This ensures that both devices actively participate in trying to establish an etherchannel. Placing one device in active and one in passive will work as well. However, if both devices are placed into passive mode, an etherchannel will never form.

Validation

So how do we validate that the etherchannel has formed correctly? One way is using the show etherchannel summary command:

0x2142-SW1#show etherchannel summary
Flags:  D - down        P - bundled in port-channel
        I - stand-alone s - suspended
        H - Hot-standby (LACP only)
        R - Layer3      S - Layer2
        U - in use      N - not in use, no aggregation
        f - failed to allocate aggregator

        M - not in use, minimum links not met
        m - not in use, port not aggregated due to minimum links not met
        u - unsuitable for bundling
        w - waiting to be aggregated
        d - default port

        A - formed by Auto LAG

Number of channel-groups in use: 1
Number of aggregators:           1

Group  Port-channel  Protocol    Ports
------+-------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------
1      Po1(SU)         LACP      Et0/0(P)    Et0/1(P)

From the output above, we see that there is one group configured with the group ID of 1. It shows that both Eth0/0 and Eth0/1 have been added into the Port-channel 1 interface. The (SU) next to the Port-channel interface indicate that the etherchannel is up (U) and configured for layer 2 (S). I mentioned earlier that spanning-tree only worries about the port-channel interface, not the individual member ports. We can also check that out by using the show spanning-tree command:

0x2142-SW1#sh spanning-tree vlan 20
VLAN0020
  Spanning tree enabled protocol rstp
  Root ID    Priority    32788
             Address     aabb.cc00.1000
             This bridge is the root
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32788  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 20)
             Address     aabb.cc00.1000
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec
             Aging Time  300 sec

Interface           Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Et0/2               Desg FWD 100       128.3    Shr
Et0/3               Desg FWD 100       128.4    Shr
<-- Output omitted -->
Po1                 Desg FWD 56        128.65   Shr

Making Configuration Changes to an Etherchannel

Now that we have a working etherchannel - We have a few things that need special attention. The individual port configurations, Eth0/0 and Eth0/1 in this case, need to match at all times! Port configuration mis-matches are going to be an easy way to inadvertently bring down the port-channel. The good thing is that we now have a convenient Port-Channel interface which we can use for configuration. This logical port will replicate any configuration changes to all member ports.

! Let's jump into our Port-Channel 1 interface and configure a trunk for VLAN 20
0x2142-SW1(config)#int po1
0x2142-SW1(config-if)#switchport mode trunk
0x2142-SW1(config-if)#switchport trunk allowed vlan 20
! Now we can check the individual port configs:
0x2142-SW1(config-if)#do sh run int e0/0
Building configuration...

Current configuration : 176 bytes
!
interface Ethernet0/0
 switchport trunk allowed vlan 20
 switchport mode trunk
 channel-protocol lacp
 channel-group 1 mode active
end

0x2142-SW1(config-if)#do sh run int e0/1
Building configuration...

Current configuration : 176 bytes
!
interface Ethernet0/1
 switchport trunk allowed vlan 20
 switchport mode trunk
 channel-protocol lacp
 channel-group 1 mode active
end

Easy enough, right? The configuration changes for the trunk are now on both Eth0/0 and Eth0/1.

Troubleshooting Etherchannels

There is always a possibility that something goes wrong - so let’s take a quick look at some common problems and how to fix them.

Remember how I said that the member port configurations had to match? Here’s what happens if we make a configuration change on only one of the two member ports:

0x2142-SW1(config)#int eth0/1
0x2142-SW1(config-if)#switchport trunk allowed vlan 30
0x2142-SW1(config-if)#
*Jan 28 20:43:55.458: %EC-5-CANNOT_BUNDLE2: Et0/1 is not compatible with Et0/0 and will be suspended (vlan mask is different)

Eth0/1 immediately gets put into a suspended state, and is no longer active in the port-channel interface. In this case the switch gives us a good hint as to what’s wrong - vlan mask is different. Error messages will vary slightly, but a suspended port is easy to fix by comparing individual port configurations and fixing the mismatch.

Here’s another one:

*Jan 28 21:06:07.346: %EC-5-L3DONTBNDL2: Et0/0 suspended: LACP currently not enabled on the remote port.
*Jan 28 21:06:08.009: %EC-5-L3DONTBNDL2: Et0/1 suspended: LACP currently not enabled on the remote port.

This error message can mean a few things - the common one being exactly what it states! Check both sides of the connection, and ensure that LACP is configured on each device. This error message can also occur on certain mismatches - like if one side is running as a Layer 2 etherchannel, but the other side is running as Layer 3.

One more:

Jan 28 20:83:55.458 %ETHPORT-5-IF_DOWN_PORT_CHANNEL_MEMBERS_DOWN: Interface port-channel1 is down (No operational members)

The above message is also somewhat self-explanatory. In this case, the switch is unable to bring up the port-channel interface, because none of the underlying member ports are coming online. Troubleshoot what might be wrong with those ports first, then the port-channel should come up.

Hope this was useful! In a later post, we’ll dig into more configuration and considerations - like packet hashing, layer 3 etherchannels, and how packets are weighted between interfaces.

Questions? Drop them in the comments below!

One of the things I’ve had problems with in the past is keeping a blog updated. Usually I would start, write an entry or two, then completely forget about it. I never thought I had good enough content to warrant sharing, or I was trying to keep to too narrow a topic. So when I started this blog, I said that I was going to focus on networking but leave it a bit more open-ended. I also wanted to try sharing some more generalized IT experience and career advice. I started off with a list of topics that I wanted to write about, and even began pre-writing a few of them so that I had a bit of content lined up ahead of time.

Even though I told myself originally that I was only going to post something whenever I had something good to share, I still ended up setting myself a goal of writing one thing a week. For a while this actually worked out, because I was forcing myself to think about it more often - but eventually I ran out of immediate ideas. I had to remind myself that it was more important for me to write/post content that was actually worth reading, not just having something available on a weekly basis. Even so, I’ve managed to post 44 items since I started, 40 of which were in 2017 - Much better than I had actually anticipated.

So here is to 2018 - I’m not going to try and set any strict goals for myself in terms of posting content (or at least I’ll tell myself that now). However, I’m also going to try and work on getting better at putting up content. I spend too much time waiting for that ‘great thing’ to write about, and not enough time on just writing something that might not be particularly fantastic - even though it might still benefit someone. I feel like I have a lot to share, and not everyone is an expert. Continuing to think that much of my content ‘isn’t good enough to post’ is just holding me back. I’m going to try and be better this year about this - and not keep waiting for only the ‘great things’ to share.

The other big thing I’ll be focusing on this year is studying for the CCIE R&S, which I wrote about in October. I bought a few books and found some training videos, which I’ve been slowly working though… and when I say slowly, I mean probably much slower than I should be. Now that the holidays are over and it’s a new year, I’ll be pushing myself a more to actually make progress. My current tentative goal for attempting the written exam is June - so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to make it work.

The blog has been fun so far, and I’ve done a bit more than I thought I would with it. However, there was one thing over the past year that I wasn’t really expecting at all - getting to talk with a bunch of other people who are interested in networking/IT. I’ve mostly been on Twitter, and more recently on Reddit’s /r/networking and /r/cisco. There have been a ton of people I’ve gotten to talk to, get opinions from, or even a few people that I’ve been able to help out with some of their problems. A large portion of my career has been limited to working with just a small team of people, few which actually have much interest in networking. I’ve really enjoyed the experiences over the past year, and I’m really looking forward to what else might come. If you’re one of the people I’ve interacted with over the past year, thank you!

A new year comes with new challenges, problems, and complaints - but it also comes with new accomplishments and new things to look forward to. I hope that all of you reading this are able to set new goals for the year and pass your expectations!

I’ve been making progress going through my CCIE books, and the earlier sections are focusing on layer 1 and layer 2 technologies. A lot of this is review from CCNP studies, but with STP the book starts to get into additional detail on the inner workings of the protocol - which I’m finding to be quite fascinating. It seems like in many of the companies that I’ve worked I’ve found that a majority of the IT staff (whether sysadmins or network admins) don’t really have a good handle on how STP works and why it needs to be tuned. So this post is meant to cover spanning-tree at a very high level, and I’ll include some examples from issues I’ve seen in the past.

So what is spanning-tree protocol anyways?

At it’s very basic level, STP is a communications protocol used between switches to allow them to identify redundant paths in the network. The goal of STP is to figure out what is the most efficient L2 path through the network, then block all other paths to prevent loops. The best way I’ve heard STP explained is that it’s essentially a routing protocol for layer 2. Rather than routers communicating and exchanging routes to determine the best path through a network, all of the switches will talk to determine the best (loop-free) layer 2 path.

STP determines the best layer 2 path - but the best path to what?

When configuring a standard routing protocol (like EIGRP or OSPF), you might have a node that advertises a route for 10.10.10.0/24. All other routers in the network are going to select a best path to the router who originates this advertisement - but how does something like this work when we’re talking about layer 2?

Spanning-tree relies on the concept of having a single root bridge of each network. At the beginning of a spanning-tree process, all switches will hold a quick election to determine who the root bridge is - then each switch will figure out what it’s own best path is to that device. The switch that ultimately becomes the root bridge will be based on the priority set by the administrator - but by default all switches are pre-configured with the same priority. In a tie, the switch with the lowest MAC address will win and become the root bridge.

What does that actually mean? More or less, one switch gets put in charge of defining the best path through the network. All other switches examine all of their redundant paths to the primary switch,  then figure out which of those paths are more preferable than the others. An important note here, is that the “best path” selected is all from the specific viewpoint of whichever switch takes charge.

For an example, let’s use the following topology:

In this example, we have five switches and a firewall - which are used to provide connectivity to two network segments (NET1 and NET2). For each of the two network segments, there are a number of different paths that traffic could take to reach the firewall. Without spanning tree, NET1 might send traffic to SW4, which in turn would forward it to both SW2 and SW3. This sounds like a good thing, since we would use all available paths to try and reach the firewall - but in reality this can cause other problems like the firewall receiving packets out of order.

So for the example above, let’s assume that SW1 becomes our root bridge. SW1 is now in charge of determining what the best path through the network is. It does this by sending out messages on all ports connected to other switches, called Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDU). In this message, SW1 asserts it’s role as the root bridge - and provides some information for other switches to use for path selection. Each switch will examine the message from SW1 to determine which of it’s uplinks is the most efficient path to SW1. Once each switch does this, it will forward on the message to downstream switches - this time adding in some of it’s own information (or path cost).

After all that is complete, we might be left with the following path below:

The green lines above show the final path that was selected. For NET1 to reach the firewall, it would use SW4, then SW2, then up to SW1. For NET2, it would use SW5 > SW2 > SW1. This leaves the orange links unused. In fact, spanning-tree will place these links into a blocking state. The switches might still listen on those links, just in case their neighbor starts advertising a better path - but they will not forward any data traffic on these connections. In the case of SW2 suddenly failing, SW4 and SW5 would still be aware of their connections through SW3 - and after a brief period would begin using those links to reach the firewall.

This is a very simplistic explanation, and there is a lot more in the background that actually happens during spanning-tree operation. There are a number of different STP standards that a switch can run, each with their own options for configuration and tuning. There are also methods of providing a loop-free path while still utilizing some redundant paths. I plan to cover some more detail on these topics in later posts.

So why should I care about STP?

Remember that part earlier when I said that if STP priority is not configured, then switch with the lowest MAC becomes the root bridge? Well as it turns out, MAC addresses are the hardware addresses configured by the manufacturer - and these addresses increment as they produce new devices. So the lower MAC addresses are typically going to be the oldest equipment in your network. Unfortunately, this can have a dramatic effect on your network traffic if you’re not paying attention to STP.

From the earlier example, what happened if SW4 became the root bridge? Maybe this was an old Cisco 2950 that someone forgot to replace and it’s just been left in the network. If the STP configuration went unmodified, then this switch would likely become the root bridge of our network. Let’s look at what that path might look like:

So in this case, SW4’s path to the firewall hasn’t changed. However, it’s best path to SW5 and NET2 is through SW3 - which means any traffic from NET2 to the firewall has to follow the path of SW5 > SW3 > SW4 > SW2 > SW1. Not only does that add more layer 2 hops that NET2 has to pass through, but it also adds more (unnecessary) load onto SW4. What happened if SW4 was so old that it still had 100M ports? It might get overwhelmed pretty quickly.

Now you might be thinking, “How often does this really happen”? Well, when I started at my last job they were experiencing a similar issue. The primary building had three floors, each with two Cisco 3548 switches to service users. Each of these switches linked back to a pair of Cisco 4500 core switches. All of the 3548 switches were purchased at the same time (far prior to the 4500s), and it turned out that one of them on the third floor had the lowest MAC address in the network. The entire layer 2 topology was then based on this switch as the central point of the network. This caused the interconnects between the core switches to be put into blocking mode - meaning that if a switch on the second floor needed to connect to the alternate core switch, then it would have to pass traffic through the third floor. A quick change to the spanning-tree priority (during a maintenance period) was all that was needed to put the core switches back in charge.

This doesn’t immediately make spanning-tree a bad technology. As with just about anything in IT, it’s something you need to understand and tune to fit your needs - otherwise you’ll just get less-than-ideal results. At another employer, I actually found out that the previous network administrator had manually disabled all of the redundant paths in the network - because he didn’t understand STP, and therefore thought that any redundant paths would cause a loop. Spanning-tree isn’t something we need to be afraid of - it just needs a little attention.

So next time you’re logged into one of the switches in your network, just run show spanning-tree and double-check that the switch you assume is your root bridge actually is.

Well I hope that this was helpful. As I mentioned earlier, I meant this as a fairly basic overview - but I intend on diving a bit deeper in later posts. The most fascinating part of networking to me is all the details on how things like spanning-tree actually work behind the scenes. Have any spanning-tree stories? Leave a comment below

I first completed my CCNA certification back in August of 2007. After that I started working on certifications pretty heavily, because I wanted to learn as much as I could about networking. I used the certifications as both motivation to learn and a measurable goal of my knowledge. Over the next few years I obtained a number of Cisco’s associate-level certifications, and by April of 2011 I had finally obtained the CCNP.

Later in 2011 I had changed jobs to a company where certifications were not valued as much. Instead, they urged me to return to school and obtain a college degree. This obviously took up enough of my free time that I really couldn’t spend as much time on studying certifications as I wanted to. In 2014 when I needed to re-certify my CCNP, I was just barely able to squeeze together enough time to study for the CCDP ARCH exam. This allowed me to re-certify what I already had, plus gain an additional certification.

Fast forward to early 2017 - I needed to re-certify again. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what new tests I could study for. If I was going to re-certify then I would rather spend that time learning something new than just re-take a test for something I’ve already done. Unfortunately, I was nearing the end of my college degree program, and I just couldn’t find the time to dedicate to a new certification - so I ended up re-taking the CCNP TSHOOT exam to re-certify.

After I finished the degree program, I opted to finally take a break for a bit. Even just two months later, and I was already considering what to do next in terms of certification studies. I wanted to look at Juniper’s certification line, since I’m more heavily involved in their equipment now - but I also wanted to look at what’s next in terms of Cisco certifications.

Well, I’ve finally made up my mind, and purchased my first set of books to begin studying for the CCIE R&S. I’ve been itching for the past few months to start working on something, but I wasn’t really having much luck  making a final decision. However, I was talking recently with our new manager at work about the potential of going to Cisco Live in 2018. This is something I’ve inquired about multiple times before and had no luck in getting approval to go. Since we have a new manager, the answer has changed to a “Sure, why not?”. Since I found out that Cisco Live offers free certification testing (and the CCIE tests are quite expensive), I decided to use that as my motivation to begin studying.

So here goes nothing! My current goal date is June 10th of 2018. By that date I want to be 100% confident in my ability to take and pass the CCIE R&S written exam. I half had the notion of trying to shoot for being prepared for the lab by then, but eight months might be a little too tight of a timeline - at least given what I’ve read from other people’s experiences. So I’ll shoot for the written test by then, with the intent of scheduling the lab soon after.

My current plan is to read through the CCIE R&S Official Cert Library first, then use that as a gauge to see what I know I’ll need a refresh on some of the content from that. I also know that IS-IS is included in the CCIE, which is something that was removed from the CCNP right before I started studying for it. However, it was actually still part of the CCNA content when I took that - so I have a very basic level of understanding. Outside of that - most of my current and recent jobs have focused heavily on switching technologies and less on routing. I’ve been working quite substantially with BGP, but not much with internal routing protocols - so that’s another point where I’ll likely spend additional time.

I know I definitely have a lot to learn, and it’s going to be a long several months of study. Obtaining the CCIE certification has been one of my goals since nearly the beginning of my networking career. I’m really excited by actually getting the chance to work towards that goal. I’m sure I’ll be writing a bit here and there as I go through my studies, so look forward to that!

If you have any insight you wish to share, please leave a comment below.

Wish me luck!

So now that I’ve had a bit to sit back and take a break, I’m starting to begin itching toward certification studies again. I really enjoy certifications because they give me a goal to work towards, and I can study the materials at my own pace.

For reference, I currently hold the following active certifications:

Cisco: CCNA, CCNA Security, CCNA Voice (retired), CCDA, CCNP, CCDP

I’ve been looking a bit at the Cisco Cloud and Data Center certification tracks, since I’m dealing a lot more with the Nexus switching line and data center technologies overall - but after reviewing the cert syllabus, I’m not really feeling very strongly toward those. I’m also hesitant because it would mean starting back over at the CCNA-level for the new tracks and working my way back up to the CCNP-level. I’ve also previously considered getting my CCNP Security, but I’m not actively working in Cisco ASA firewalls much any more.

The only next choice in the Cisco world would be going for the CCIE R&S or the CCDE. I’ve been considering for a long time that I would eventually like to get there, but those certifications also require a significant investment of time and money. I definitely think the information and skills I would learn along the way would be worth it, and I’m beginning to really consider this an option in the near future. I’ve spent a bit of time reviewing the exam topics listed on Cisco’s site, and debating which of the two would be a better first choice.

My other option is pursuing the Juniper side of things. Most of the data centers I manage now are shifting toward Cisco for switching and Juniper for firewalls - so it would certainly benefit me to educate myself further on the Juniper equipment. Until this point, I’ve been just learning on the job by buying Juniper SRX firewalls and figuring it out as I go. My only real hesitation on this would be maintaining two separate lines of certifications. Both Juniper and Cisco enforce a 3-year expiration on their certifications, so I would need to keep on top of both - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

So at this point, I really don’t have a clear idea of what I want to do. Those are my current thoughts and options, but I’m having a hard time settling on what would be the best option for me at this time. I definitely want to start studying for something (and potentially take the exam) before the end of this year though, so I would like to figure it out rather soon.

If you have any suggestions or thoughts on the certifications I’ve mentioned, leave me a comment below!

I talked about this briefly in my initial background story posts, but I went straight from Cisco Networking Academy in high school out to working a full time job at a local IT consulting company. By the time I finished high school, I had already passed the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) exams and become certified. Having that certification is what got me in the door for a number of interviews, and eventually got me the job at the consulting company. At that point, I really didn’t have much else going for me - I didn’t have a college education nor any real-world experience. In my time working at this company, I spent a significant amount of time doing self-study and labs for my certification goals. When I got my CCNP certification, I used it along with the experience I had gathered to get my next job. This new employer was heavily focused on their IT staff needing to have a college education - so they pressured me for a while to go back until I eventually gave in.

I spent a while reviewing many colleges in the area and online, trying to figure out what would meet my needs. I ended up picking out a four-year degree in network security, and opted to go the online-only route because it benefited my schedule better. I packed my classes up to a full-time schedule, because I didn’t want a four-year degree to take any longer than four years. At this point, I also had the benefit that my employer was willing to reimburse 100% of the costs - which certainly helped convince me to go back.

Over the course of the past four years, I have taken many classes that include general IT, development, networking, and security (not including the normal required materials). I found that a significant portion of these classes didn’t directly benefit me. A lot of the material was much more focused toward beginners who haven’t already been working in the field for six years - which is completely understandable. The most I really got out of this was improving my abilities to push myself through work that I didn’t want to do. I did have a few interesting classes, like an Android development course, which I found to be extremely fun even if I probably won’t use the knowledge much.

Four years later and I’m done - did I benefit from it? On some level yes, I think I did. At the time of my degree completion, I have now been Cisco certified for ten years and I’ve been working in networking nearly the same amount of time. I’m already further in my career than I thought I would be at this point, and I’m happy with my position and pay (the degree isn’t going to change either of these things). At this point in time, finishing the degree is not much more than an accomplishment that I can add to my resume. Sure, having the degree on my resume may get me past HR screening for new jobs and opportunities - but it likely won’t actually play much into a company’s decision to hire me.

In the end I think that both certifications and college education are useful - they can both be great indications to an employer that you’ve been trained on certain technologies or fields. However, I think that the actual on-the-job experience is what really matters - and I experienced a direct benefit from getting in the field early and working while all of my friends were still in college. I would not be as far in my career as I am today if I had waited four more years to start working.  Unfortunately, I think that we place a little too much importance on completing a formalized degree program, when equivalent experience and certifications may benefit a company more.

I understand that I had a bit of a unique situation, but I figured it would be worth sharing my experiences and how they have affected my view of college education. I’m still happy that I went through with it and completed the degree, but you won’t see me throwing a big celebration - except that I’m just super glad it’s all finished. At this point, I will take a few months to relax and spend time on hobbies - but I do plan on going back to certification studies (Juniper stuff and likely begin working on a CCIE).

Any thoughts? Comment below with your experiences - I’m interested to see if there are many people who have had similar experiences to me, or possibly even the complete opposite.