Framework and labs.

Im somewhat in the middle of the CCIE exam certification guide, and still learning alot. I am putting down the framework for more detailed examination of technologies. I have a couple of books on my reading list after this to solidify the knowledge with more in-depth details.

Also, quite a few labs has turned up details, easily missed. Especially regarding summarization, and how it behaves under different circumstances.

A change in my study arsenal has occured. The other day while I was jolting down notes in Google Docs, all of a sudden i got an error, and it couldnt save my changes. I had to leave my computer running for 3-4 hours not to loose anything. That along with the lack of a more structured approach led my focus to fall upon a microsoft product… ick, i know. Anyways, its a good product, and its called OneNote. Basically its a replicate of a regular notebook, with tabs and pages. What it does better than a physical notebook, is the ability to insert more pages into a certain section. For example I have a section called OSPF. Under OSPF i have an Adjacency page, a Timer page, an Area page, and so on. This is pretty cool, cause it ends up giving me an overview of where to goto search for things and read up on them. For example, different network types used for OSPF. OSPF -> Network types. Anyways, i guess it all comes down to preference. Under all circumstances, i checked to see if it was possible to export it to something else if i change my mind, and that certainly is a possibility.

I also upped my concentrated reading effort to 45 minutes at a time. I can do alot more time when doing labs, which i guess is a good thing. I really need to get to at least 1 hour of study time at a time. Keep in mind however, that this is 100% focused, with no distractions. While reading, i am taking handwritten notes, which i then spend some time getting into OneNote. This has the added benefit of letting me review things again. In some shaky areas, i note down to lab this out, to see the results first hand.

One thing i think i have finally learned is that books are not always right :), a few times thus far I for the life of me cant recreate the results they stipulate (but doesnt show with examples). For example.: with the autosummary in BGP, it is stated that you can do a “network x.x.x.x” which will pick up subnets of the major net, advertise those subnets, along with advertising a major net. In my lab results, it picks up a major net, and advertises that, but nothing else. Go figure.

I will post more about BGP especially since that seems to be a huge topic which i still need to get a firm grip on.

I have to vacation days starting tomorrow, so hopefully I can do 3 full hours of study each day. This should be possible.

Some areas that needs more focus:

Will be back after a bit more study 🙂