Finish Lab 2? Well, not so much...

Whew, what a day. In between a Dr. appointment, dropping my dogs off at the groomers, picking up my dogs from the groomers and watching the historical inauguration (in addition to around-the-house-stuff), I managed to make it up to section 9 in Lab2. No where near where I wanted to be today, but I guess that happens. The last three sections are pretty easy and I should zip through them either tonight or early tomorrow. Overall, I think I'm still making pretty good time.

Lab 2 BGP was pretty simple, but there are still things that throw me for a loop, like prefix filtering and using route-maps. This is definitely one area I need to read up more on. I know how to use prefix lists, route maps, and access lists, I just don't know when and exactly how to use them. I did much better in the peering session, identifying where I need to use route reflectors, albeit I did place them on the wrong end of the session. I truely feel like I now understand route reflectors, which is a good thing.

Multicasting was pretty easy, but ip pim nbma-mode really messed me up. I will certainly need to read up on this and it's purpose. IPv6 was also very simple, only tripping up on my own mistakes and assumptions, but overall, I understood the problem and how best to attack it. I just need avoid assumptions such as eui-64 where it's not needed!

I felt more confident during the QoS section, but I still have issues discerning how to form the access-lists, since you can only do "service-policy output [policy-name]". Again, an area I need to read up on and one I will become more familiar with as I progress through the labs. Policy routing was also slightly difficult, only because I forgot the command sytax and forgot to set next-hop in my route-map. Again, something I will tackle better with time and practice.

Overall, these first two labs have been fairly simple and straightforward. In reading another candidates blog whom used NMC DoIT series, I realized that these labs are simplier than those from the DoIT series. Perhaps the IEWB progressively get harder, we shall see.

I'm also debating taking a boot camp from Narbik. The cost seems right, especially if I can get my employer to pay, I just don't want it to be a waste of money. I want to be the most prepared that I can be. So in short, here is my "new" expected plan of attack:

1. Complete IEWB Workbook I
2. Complete IEWB Workbook II
3. Complete IEWB Workbook III
4. Supplement practice lab with DocCD and Exam Cert Guide reading
4a. Schedule Lab Exam
5. IE Mock Lab
6. Revist Labs
7. Narbik CCIE Lab Boot Camp
8. Revist Labs
9. Cisco Lab Assesor
10. Revist Labs
11. Attempt Lab Exam

Well, it's been a long day so far, and I'm kind of burned out. More later....