Bootcamp October 2010 and General Update.
This was all written yesterday 🙂
Airport fun!
So right now (im sitting in London Stansted Airport after having attended the last of Narbiks bootcamp. Its going to be good to get home to the girlfriend and my puppy.
He had a guest with him this time around. Rolf Schärer. The guy is a tripple CCIE (R&S, SP and Storage). Very knowledgeable and nice guy. If you have business in and around the Swiss nation, he is a safe bet when it comes to Cisco technologies.
He showed me it was possible to get 2 harddrives into your macbook pro 🙂 Basically you swap out the SuperDrive with an extra kit with a HD. I need to check this out. Its only $100 for the kit, and i have the harddrive, so it should be doable.
He did the closing up on Multicast for Narbik, great stuff.
As you know, Narbik has his own workbooks, which i think take a quite different approach than for example the IPexpert way of things.
Whereas IPexpert makes some assumptions on what level you need to be at in each technology, Narbik goes through all the technologies.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
IPexpert = Starts out with more complex topologies.
Narbik  = Goes through each technology.
Since i dont have access to INE products i cant say whether they follow one or the other. All of them are said to be good.
Anyways, last week has been busy, having long days (9 to 21-22), and actually going to bed around 1-1:30. Not much sleep, and lots of impressions.
Unfortunally, none of the guys from the last bootcamp was there, which i had hoped for. It would be nice to see some of them again.
But the people this time around were great as well. All comming from different backgrounds. Its interesting to meet people that are in some way “different” than yourself. I like that alot.
Tomorrow is the 10th, which means i have about 20 days left before my first lab attempt. Im really nervous about it! I am in the middle of the Volume 2 labs of IPexpert (done all the Narbik ones), which i think ill have a hard time doing all of. Ill probably select individual ones and then do some Volume 3 ones (Mock Labs).
Even at this point, i can still see some areas where i need to do better. Most of them are really not that much technology related, but more of a “lab” approach.
1) I need to learn to focus more on the task at hand.
2) Time management is key.
3) Getting your IGP’s up and running is extremely important.
4) Need to draw out my labs. This one requires a bit of explanation. Since most of the time ive done Narbik labs, and these labs are generally less complex labs, i could fit most of them in my head, so to speak. With the more complext labs (Volume 2 especially), i made rookie mistakes, such as not to draw down the topology. If lab is heavy on switching, draw a L2 topoloy. Draw an IGP topology no matter what! (Requirement!!). Draw yourself a simple BGP topology, and finally you might want a Multicast domain topology. The IGP is simply required no matter what, whereas the other ones depends on your lab. It might be heavy on switching, or it might be less heavy on switching. 3-4 switches (with special configuration on them), then i would do a L2 topology drawing. This is certain a weak spot of mine.
5) Dont overcomplicate things. I have a tendency of getting stuck because im over-thinking and over-complicating things. Take it for what it is.
6) It seems like it would be a good idea to use the proctors more than i initially thought. When listening to the “war” stories, the trend appears that you approach the proctor more often that you would initially think.
I think i still have a way to go, hopefully i can do it in those 20 days.
Right now im finishing up a simple L3 VPN network and im running out of battery, so i better close this post up. Take care!