serovso
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posted May 21, 2011 06:24 AM
I passed the lab on my second attempt in RTP. Here is my post after first try 5 months ago.
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Last Friday I failed the lab on my first attempt in RTP. Even it’s a failure I’m still happy with my result – I got 70% on lab part, but I failed big on OEQ. The lab is hard, but it’s doable. I used INE books for preparation and its great material, but I think I made mistake by concentrating on Vol II and by reviewing Vol I only. Real lab is much simpler than INE examples (topology, preconfigured routing protocols, etc.), but it has more tricks. Yusuf’s labs are must.
OEQ is different story and I’m totally lost at this moment. I read Yusuf’s “Dev. Network Security Techs” book 3 times, used his flash cards, read DocCD a lot, but on the exam I had 3 questions that were totally out of my preparation scope. It took me around 2 hours to find correct answers using Google, because questions were based on different counters in debug/syslog outputs.
Anyway, I’m going back to basics – This time I’ll be covering all small details, will run debug on every possible setup to know and to understand every single massage or packet. Planning to use INE and CCBC. My next attempt is in May.
…..use as many sources/study materials as possible. I used INE Vol book II as main source, but I missed a lot of small items. This is why I’m doing INE Vol I again and I’ll switch to CCBC WBs to cover any gaps. Yusuf’s labs are extremely important – I practiced on his labs a lot to get speed and to get familiar with wording, and it helped me a lot the lab.
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Here is how I studied in the past couple months:
1. Went through INE Vol I again – they have great description of topics;
2. CCBC WB Vol I – helped to fill gaps;
3. CCBC WB Vol II – the labs are much closer to the real ones, but after 3-4 of them I got felling that they are all the same. So, I went through 1-3 and 10-7 only ;
4. Went back to INE Vol II. This time the labs did not look to difficult.
5. Yusuf’s flash cards;
6. Again, Yusuf’s labs are MUST!!!!;
7. INE OEQ online section;
8. Yusuf’s “Dev. Network Security Techs”. Here is my opinion on this book – it’s very basic, and I used it as blueprint. You must go much deeper in each topic;
9. On my first lab I had NAC pasture validation related questions, so I used “NAC Framework Deployment” Vol I and II – good reading.
Strategy on the lab:
1. I was able to perform ~90% of tasks with no DocCD. It saved a lot of time, so practice as much as you can, especially for simple tasks like initial configs;
2. Parts like initial ASA and IPS setups were done first and took me ~1 hour. Pay attention to masks, static routes. You do not want to spend time on fixing mistypes;
3. VPN – I used a lot of copy/paste from DocCD example configs to save time on typing;
4. Extremely important – if a task has instructions for verification then make sure you get the same result. According to proctor they do the same verifications during grading;
5. I was done by ~12pm and I had more than 3 hours to check everything. Since I had a lot of time left I went through the whole lab again question by question, but putting solution (quick notes) on a paper first and then verifying configs.
My number is 28978 and after months of studying I got my life back . Going to CiscoLive this year and planning to start R&S journey after.
Thanks,
Sergey
Posts: 32 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2011
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