My CCIE Journey

Today (tonight???) I feel tired, very tired.

Need to catch some sleepppzzz ... see you later .... ZZzzzzzz

It seeems that my habit of learning by doing still works out well. However, only boosting confidence, creativity and quick-thinking are the keys foor passing my CCIE lab exam.

Been doing allright this far, I can have rough ideas on what the answers supposed to be for certain tasks. However, additional reading and navigating in the Univercd and lotsa books will help me alot in pin-pointing possible solution for lab tasks.

Well, you may call me superstitious; but the left hand usage for increasing creativity has been proven working now!!!

All this while when I use my mouse with right hand (I'm right handed anyway), somehow most of my idea just stuck everytime I started doing it. Now with the shift to left hand, my brain's creativity side has been 'forced' to work again.

I noticed this when I was in Malaysia. Due to limited desk space and not to be disturbed by other items on my desk, I shifted the mouse on my left and use my left hand.

Guess what??? since then all my creativity never stops!!!

If you are already left-handed, you can try using your right hand more often to do some non-muscular task like: mouse, dialing mobile phone, texting, etc.

God provide us with two hands, as long as you are able to use it, use it then before He took it from you :) Sorry, I don't mean to preach here, but my point is: use whatever you have while you still have and can do it.

My wife is going away for official duty this week.

That means full blown lab whenever I have chance till she returns.

So far I keep struggling in the 'logical connection' of the 7200 simulator for different scenarios.

The lacking of this method is: there is no real switch that I can connect to in order to test the VLAN, VTP, etc. Even though I am confident in this area, but missing 15 points for this 'easy' task would be unbearable.

The rest of the process: I just have a though of doing different approach for the IEWB. Instead of stuck with up to IGP -every time- because of unconfigured 'switch' router; then I will modify the diagram instead to suit my simulators. It will take extra time to do this but by doing this approach, as the progress goes, I will not face any more problem if there is any missing configuration on the other devices.

So, from tomorrow until the next 2-3 days, I will be practicing frame relay, PPP/HDLC and other tasks listed in task 1 - 3. If possible, I will proceed with task 4 (IGP) as well. It seems doable this far and I always stuck in this part, due to troubleshooting the frame relay interface that would not go up because of wrong logical connection of the sim's.

This week, I have decided to conclude my work with my client. Reason: study for my CCIE.

Am I obsessed? Am I doing the right thing? Nobody knows, except myself :)

Today, I finally meet with the real challenge of CCIE lab: multiple routing protocol. It hit me quite hard today and somehow I was amazed that the solution is simple yet challenging to be implemented.

I was tickled to face this kind of challenge long time ago when I decided to be a system/network engineer. Surprisingly after deciding it, many years after, I have forgotten that I would like to be a aystem/network engineer. MY former supervisor said to me on something and I hit me with a shock: "Hey, I am a system/network engineer now". But that's acoording to him. I am still polishing myself to a better system/network engineer that can provide solutions instead of reacting from problems.

Here I am now: part-time instructor (teacher???) and part-time CCIE certification candidate.

I have discussed this decision with my other half as well. I inform her that by taking this decision, my income source would be halved (or quartered???) and I will depend on her financially. Since I am not owrking other than my teaching, ideally I would not spend more money :) I am still human anyway, more money = more spending :)

Tomorrow I am going to meet a very important person that I called him as guru/ mentor and ideal person that I considered him to be a role model of a succesful person. He is not rich as in amazingly rich, but he surely fit into what I always wanted to be: a techy businessman. Maybe I will tweak myself as geek businessman.

Somehow I started to like hearing the word 'geek' for me.

Come on brain, let's work together to overcome this CCIE lab. Creativity is a must and I have one secret: use your left hand if you are right-handed.

The last 48 hours, I have been playing around with the 7200 simulator. Man, it is a great stuff!!!

The challenge faced with this simulator is the same with having the real router: you need (MUST) know how to connect them.

I have learned a great lesson today in troubleshooting the lower layer (again!) and it reminds me to keep checking on lower layer to the higher layer. I felt like learning my CCNA all over again, but with router this time ;)

Anyway, during lab this evening, I do it while listening to some music. Suddenly when the problem managed to be fixed (yes, layer 1 problem), the song played "You Simply the Best" by Tina Turner. Somehow I felt excited and that thought came to my mind "Yes, you are the best"

Oh .. the router has been reloaded now, gotta go !!!

"If you look carefully, you'll find it"

That's what many people said and actually it is true.

Since the preparation until I pass the written exam, I keep wondering on how may I afford to have home lab for CCIE lab exam?

I know the answer is out there somewhere, and surprisingly, I actually already have it long time ago even before I prepare for my CCIE seriously.

Around early this year, someone from mailing list posted an information that there is a Cisco simulator that is not like Boson network/ router simulator. This simulator can load the real Cisco IOS and run it as though it is on the real Cisco hardware, but it is inside a PC!!!

I always wonder on how to start making such a program. Because my logic just guided me many times: what you could do to program a hardware logic is possible to simulate it as software logic. It is juat a matter of how to understand the hardware logic works :)

Here I am now, just past midnight (an hour ago), sitting in front of my PC and still amazed on this full-blown CCIE lab that I can simulate at the comfort of my home

Somehow maybe I was fated to be what I am today with whatever I have.

I recently purchased a server, a REAL server, for replacing my old soon-to-be-dead-but-no-one-knows-when server.

This new server, logically, would be able to run around 12 instances of the router simulator. Many people that heard this was asking me what are the hardware specification, is it expensive, etc, etc ... I just smiled :)

The fact with this simulator is: even if it does nothing, it take 100% CPU resources. If we run 2 instances, per instance took 50% CPU resources each. When I run all 12 instances, it took around 16% CPU. Hang on a minute, isn't that supposed to be 8%??? Well, I have a processor in hyper-threading mode, that is the reason it could provide adequate and sensible response.

Plus, it still runs my internal mail server, web server, etc smoothly.

Maybe I will buy the 2nd processor and upgrade more memory into it. Or if the price for upgrade is very close, maybe I'll buy another server instead. We'll see later on then :)

Yep, that is my task towards my lab end of Oct 2006.

Meanwhile, everytime there is spare slot in the lab, I am doing my lab practice over and over again.

I am down now, feeling sick. Even though it gets better since morning, but the effect has been spread out all over throat and my whole body feels very, very, very ... tired

Catching up with sleeps then, hopefully as I awake later, all are fresh and ready to go