For those of you following (or not), it has been long overdue for an update.
So let’s see how much information I can spew out in a shortest amount of typing.
With the retirement of the CCIP track, a new family of service provider certifications was born and I was at a crossroads. To either go to the top of the pyramid, or to meddle around somewhere else in the middle.
My decision became a no brainer. With the birth of my first son, (thank you, thank you), I now have a time limit to go to the top and earn my CCIE before the next one. Otherwise, it will become extremely difficult to study for the Cisco lab exam with two children under the age of 4 in the house.
When I made this choice earlier in the year, I continued to go through all of my CCIP which included the following Cisco press books, MPLS and VPN Architectures, Internet Routing, and Quality of Service along with the INE videos on each of the MPLS, BGP, and QOS topics.
The book that is on almost everyone’s recommended reading is the Cisco Press QOS certification guide is hands down a must read. I was scared of the unknown land of QOS before, but after reading that and watching the accompanying videos from INE, I have a completely different attitude towards that topic.
Keep in mind I have also been doing technology specific labs during each of the three CCIP topics during my studies thanks in part to GNS3vault.
So what is my current status?
I have specific sections from Routing TCP/IP Volume II and begun watching the INE Advanced Technology Videos (ATC) and reading the Cisco Press CCIE Official Cert Guide. The videos so far are great and I love how the cert guide reads quick and to the point. I am shooting for the written no later than the end of the first quarter in 2013. One last thing, I have begun using the online ‘Doc CD’ instead of Google for any configuration question or any additional explanation of technology since this will be the only resource during the lab exam.
I will attempt to post more often and frequently than I have this past summer.
