IEWB Vol II Ver. 4.1 Lab5 & 6

Boy this lab had its ups and downs. I am getting the L2 stuff pretty down pat and pretty quick. It’s all the other stuff…

• One plan of attack for me is to do my Etherchannels and then my trunk links before even worrying about VLANs and VTP.  This way I have infrastructure and will have minimal hiccups with VLANs.
• I’ve also figured out that there are only so many way to configure FR, PPP & HDLC. These have been exhausted so far in the labs so far, I think. I even took a small peek at a level 10 lab scenario and the FR , PPP and similar stuff is roughly the same as the level 6-8 stuff.
• Multicast got me this time. I need to get good at creating multicast ACLs, especially how to configure a range of groups for RPs or MAs. Quite a bit of filtering in this lab.
• IPv6 was not bad, but I didn’t do the IPv6 BGP. One of the proctors announced in the Cisco forums that there wasn’t any IPv6 BGP and so I stopped studying it. I skipped these and just gave myself the points. I hope he was right about it being gone from the lab test.
• I have been concentrating a lot in my book and lunch-time studies on QoS. The QoS questions are making sense to me now and I am starting to solve these easier. I did get one out of the three tasks wrong (RTP header compression), but I didn’t pooch the FRTS or the interface shaping with MQC. I was definately happy about that.  I did learn that you can apply RTP or TCP header compression on the frame-relay map statement. I used the interface-dlci mode, but I guess it wouldn’t have worked since the interface wasn’t on a PtP link.
• I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out and configure privilege levels. I eventually did do it, but it took me a whole evening to get how it works and to do it. I am going to find where this is located in the DocCD, so I don’t have to remember it.

All in all, I didn’t do too bad. I deleted my configs off my router rack too early, but as I went through the tasks to see what I would have gotten, I figured it would be right around a 73, give or take 5 points. I am doing about the same as the other labs, so I need to figure out what I need to do now to improve. I am finding that I get the L2 and IGP done in a good amount of time, but all the other topics are the time killers. This isn’t so bad now, since I am taking the time to learn and get these topics under my belt.

I officially scheduled scheduled my first mock lab with IE for May 31st, about three weeks away. I am nervous, but I will just do the best I can. I have 3 more to do before lab day – one for June and two in July.

I have turned up the studying gas and really started to put hours in. I need to be done with this process, so life can get back to normal for me and my family. I am having visions of what it will be like when I pass and want them to come to fruition. With the help of the big man upstairs, I know I can do it.

IEWB Vol II Ver. 4.1 Lab4

OK, it’s been a wild time this week. My DSL went down for 3 days and took time to troubleshoot with Verizon. Waited to get a new DSL modem and all is well.

I started Lab4 this week, my 4th level 6 lab. I will be starting the next lab at level 7 to get used to the more difficulty. Things that are getting me this time:

• Task 4.6 – triple paths between 2 routers. I didn’t read the task very well. It stated to load balance between two of them, but I somehow got it in my mind that it should be three, so I set the OSPF cost for all three. The next task states to use the PPP link as a backup. Well, I racked my brain on how to do this if they all were same cost – backup interface, IP SLA both went through my brain. Because I didn’t read the previous task correctly, I did unnessary thinking and spent unneccessary time doing research. I only needed to have the PPP link as a lower cost and either the FR or the ethernet link would have failed over.
• Redistribution wasn’t bad this time. Just some summarization with it and metric manipulation with OSPF. It was nice to not have a monster redist lab.
• I learned how to do IOS menus. Kinda cool feature, but this is definately a DocCD topic. I’ll take some notes try to remember where on the DocCD it’s at and let it go.

I am still working on this lab, so I have a bit to go. I am getting more and more comfortable with QoS, especially with QoS on the switches. Doing the project at work has been helping tremendously. I still get hammered with the traffic shaping forumla and how it is used and applied, but I think this will come with time.

The Cisco docCD site is doing a bit better. The web people recognized the problems with the 12.4 section and now have put back the old stuff, but alos have placed a link to the new stuff. I will be using the new links to get used to them. Now that there is some structure and order, I have more confidence in using it instead of my UniverCD reaped CD.

I think I will start including my time on Dynamips on my hours list. At first I wasn’t going to, but is still is IOS. I study at lunch once or twice a week with dynamips with the Vol III technology-based labs and it does help. I am planning on upping this quite a bit more very soon. I will become a hermit to the rest of our team until I pass the test, since I will be bringing my lunch and studying instead of going out with the guys. Honestly, there have been days where I haven’t seen or talked with anyone directly. I just come to work, go to our training lab, work all day and go home – all discussions by email.

Onward and upward…