OSPF = DONE

Well, I finally finished the OSPF labs in both the Technology Focused and Bootcamp workbooks and man do I feel better. I had a pretty good understanding of OSPF before, but a lot of the nuances always got me - like Frame Relay interface types and OSPF. I understand all of that much better. In fact, I was able to rip through all the labs in under 6 hours. I consider that to be not too shabby. I won't be studying next week, because I will be out of town for 3 days in Miami. It will be nice to get away to a warmer climate and see the beach, but at this point, I really do hate missing ANY study time.

Anyway, when I return I plan to attach the BGP labs for two weeks. There is lots of information on BGP and I wholly expect all the labs to take two weeks. I was lucky enough to get access to the Cisco ASET labs. I plan to use the ASET labs purely for my switching labs. I can use up to 6 sessions per month, for free. So if you work for a Cisco partner, and you don't have access to a real rack, get with your Cisco rep and get access to these labs. Between Dynamips and the ASET labs, you can study for your CCIE for almost $0 hardware costs.

After I utilize the ASET labs, I will review on what I though. The one downside with the ASET labs is they are pretty booked up, so you may need to schedule up to a week in advance.

In other news, the bootcamp scheduled for the second week in May has been cancelled. Well, that really sucks. The bootcamp was going to be free (as my 2nd retake) and I was going to stay with friends, but it a great way to stay on top of things. Well, with that session being cancelled, the next session that is available for me is in July - right before my test. I was planning on taking that session anyway, but just as more of a brush-up right before the test. Well, since I will only get two bootcamp sessions in, I am going to move my test back a week.

With my test moved back a week, I can take the bootcamp on July 20 -24th, head home, whip through as many mock labs in a week as possible, and then fly out to take my test - with of course a few days rest inbetween. Well, that is all I have for now - I'll post more on BGP and ASET in a few weeks.