I did not pass the test today. I just left Brussels after my first take on the CCIE Security lab. I made a list of tasks and marked each item as it was configured. My sum total was 78p. (100 is max, 80 is passing score). I am not 100% sure that all checked tasks was correct so I expect a somewhat lower score. Score report will probably be available later tonight.
So, what happened? I Showed up early, 7:40 and was escorted to the lab room together with 6 other candidates. We had a lunch break that I can barely remember anything from and all of a sudden it was 5pm and time to leave. The first hour I did all preparations. Diagram, task list, lab reading and all that. After 1:30 I had the basic l2-l3 setup with ASAs and IPS. I got kinda stuck at the same point as so many times before: understanding the topology, get a feeling about what part of the network should work like what and where the boundaries are. Which addresses should be hidden and which should be universal routable. Doing a few mistakes with that costed me at least an hour to troubleshoot and fix what I killed by mistake. The self confidence was way low when it was time for lunch. After having serving to eat (a hamburger, but I honestly don't remember what else was on that plate!) I decided to do some cherry-picking. Selecting and gaining the easies points in the work book always do miracles to your mind! I summarized the task list and found that I had cleared about 70p! The last hour or 2 I just tried my best to get as many of the remaining points as possible. When I left I had the following list of uncleared tasks: * 2 individual tasks within the same technology. I definitely know what to study for the next attempt! I tried them both bud left them unfinished after I spent way too much time on them. These could have pushed me over the line! * one task worth 5 (or so) points. I left it untouched because I realized how much work it would have taken. If I had more Time at the end I'd probably fixed it. * one 3p task that I immediately saw that I had no idea how to solve. I could have done this as well if I had more time. Conclusion: I wasn't prepared enough. I need to speed up my workflow even more and focus on configuring a few specific technologies over and over with different tweaks. Oh. And the OEQ;s. My worst nightmare came thru: I got 2 hard questions. Now when I think about them I am quite sure that I nailed them. But they are EVIL! I am SO focused on getting this done. I can hardly get on the plane back to Sweden, I just wanna have one more attempt on it right now! Out of those other candidates I met today there was none that was confident with their result. At least 3 blew it for sure. One candidate lost ALL configs when doing a reload the last 30 minutes. While of course feeling a bit sad and worthless today I keep telling myself that there would probably be noone except for me at my company that would pass this test. I keep repeating Markos words: there are no failures when it comes to the CCIE lab exam. There are only "pass" and "no pass". Wait and see, I'll be back! Skickat från min iPhone _______________________________________________ For more information regarding industry leading CCIE Lab training, please visit www.ipexpert.com
