I finished off lab 11 yesterday, and I plan to repeat the above 6 labs a few times as it covers a wide spectrum of different technologies. I marked myself just like INE would mark me. i.e. NO PART CREDIT. You get a tiny thing wrong in a subsection, you get ZERO. So yes I had a few zeros. What I’d like to do is show you how I did on each, and then see where I failed at miserably. This at least shows me where my weak points are.

INE labs are rated from 6/10 – 10/10 in difficulty. The real lab is apparently around a 7-8/10 in difficulty. There is only a single VolII lab marked as 10/10

These are the sections I got zero on in each of the labs:

Lab 1 – difficulty rating 6/10 (50/79)

• 2.2; 2.3; 4.1; 6.3; 6.4; 7.3; 7.7; 8.1 and 8.4

Lab 7 – difficult rating 9/10 – (47/79)

• 1.2; 2.2; 2.3; 2.5; 7.4; 7.5; 7.6 and 7.7

Lab 8 – difficult rating 8/10 – (62/79)

• 2.4; 2.5; 5.1; 6.3; 7.3 and 8.2

Lab 9 – difficulty rating 8/10 (60/79)

• 2.3; 5.1; 5.3; 6.3; 7.6 and 8.5

Lab 10 – difficult rating 8/10 (49/79)

• 2.6; 2.9; 5.1; 5.3; 6.1; 6.2; 6.3; 6.6 and 8.2

Lab 11 – difficult rating 9/10 – (42/79)

• 1.2; 1.3; 2.2; 3.1; 4.2; 5.3; 5.4; 6.2; 7.1; 8.1; 8.3 and 8.4

For those who have not used INE’s labs, the sections are divided up like so:

• Section 1 – Layer2
• Section 2 – IGP and BGP
• Section 3 – IPv6
• Section 4 – MPLS
• Section 5 – Multicasting
• Section 6 – Security
• Section 7 – Services
• Section 8 – QoS

So if we count the sections together where I get a zero I get this:

• Layer2 – 3
• IGP and BGP – 11
• IPv6 – 1
• MPLS – 2
• Multicast – 7
• Security – 9
• Services – 9
• QoS – 8

Now of course, different labs have different amounts of tasks per section, so it’s not a perfect show of where I’ve gone wrong. However what it does show is that my Layer2, IPv6 and MPLS are all pretty good. My IGP and BGP are both pretty good as well, but I lost a lot of points with redistribution. When I fix that part I’ll be a lot better. Multicast has always been a bit difficult for me as I simply don’t use it all that much. I am improving a lot with it though.

I did poorly with security because there is a lot to know. You need to know all kinds of ACLs/CBAC/IOS Firewall/Zone Based Firewall. As above I am getting better with this stuff.

Services encomposes so many different things. I need to learn how to find things in the DocCD quicker so I can refer to that come lab day. Know the basics of what can and cannot be done and then get the actual syntax from the DocCD.

Finally QoS. With the CCIE lab you need to know all the old legacy QoS models for frame-relay, as well a MQC (which is easy) and then 3560 QoS which is a bit complicated. I’ll go over the QoS section of Vol1 again.

I’ll be doing all the above labs again as soon as I get the chance as we’ll see how my scores improve after round 2 :)

This exam is graded higher than the last and I got more points than the last. However I still failed. This time I got 59/96

I need to check my configs again though, as the results say I did very poorly on my IGP section. I spent quite a bit of time on that section and I know I should’ve done better. I don’t know if I was marked wrong or what?

However there are a couple of things I need to take from this. I had to set up some IPv6 tunnelling and run OSPFv3 over it. I had that up and working. A later task then required me to do some filtering on ACLs. I was stupid and forgot to allow ipv6ip traffic through this ACL. I noticed when I had about 5 minutes left on my lab that suddenly I didn’t have OSPFv3 adjacencies. I couldn’t even ping my neighbours. I tried to rush to find out what the problem was, but I ran out of time. I therefore lost points both on the OSPFv3 section AND the ACL section for blocking the tunnel :(

Troubleshooting I got 100% – but I must admit the troubleshooting section for this lab seemed almost TOO easy

This is the report:

So I thought I’d take Sunday off but I didn’t. I wasn’t really happy with my first 2 lab results so I did another 2. INE Vol2 labs 8 and 9 are both rated as level 8.

Lab 8 I did yesterday and bagged myself 62/79

Lab 9 I just completed and in total I got 60/79

Both are officially fails, but I’m happy with the progress. Nothing makes you learn the stuff more than just doing the labs. Anything I stumbled on I just used the DocCD. This is good as I’m getting a lot better at navigating that beast finding the things I need quickly.

Tomorrow I do INE’s marked mock exam. Alas I only get the results a day or two later so I’ll have to wait. Apparently Lab5, which is the one I’m doing, is a pretty tought one.

I took yesterday and today off, and I also have leave next week Monday and Tuesday.

Monday I take my second INE mock exam. I’m hoping to do much better than last time, but we’ll see what they throw at me this time.

I’m using the other days to do full 8 hour labs as I just don’t have the time for a full lab every day thanks to work. If any of you have dont INE’s Vol2 labs before you’ll know they grade them in different difficulties. 7-8 is pretty much on par with the real lab, while 9 is very difficult indeed.

Yesterday I did a level 6 lab just to start myself off again. I ended up with 50/79 – Which is a fail. You need at least 65 to pass. There are no part credits for any sections, so if a section is worth 5 points and you get a single tiny thing wrong you get 0 for the section.

So I wasn’t feeling too good :(

This morning I then did a level 9 lab. This time I got 49/79 – still a fail, but I’m actually quite happy with it as this stage. This lab is purposefully mad difficult and the fact that I passed most of the sections makes me happy.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a level 8 lab. Then I might chill a bit on Sunday. Monday is the mock lab and Tuesday I’ll be going over whatever I tanked on with the mock lab