Love this video. You are spot on hand-holding. I started my ICT career 11 years ago relying only on myself, learning and figuring it out. It got me places. I always say to junior staff that the best way to learn is when a 10 min How to RU-vid video becomes an all-nighter. Figuring it out on your own is priceless. When it comes to achieving any cert time/money situation is tricky. And we all learn in different ways. I can afford CCIE cost, but time is tricky. Would it be worth it for me to take months off work to pursue CCIE - No. Will it get me much more money than I earn now - No. Will I do - Hell yeah! If it takes me another 5 years, so be it.
Discipline is key. Remembering the reason why you want to get certified and the discipline to study no matter what is the only way you can pass something this in depth and challenging. I’ve been waking up at 4am to study before work everyday for this exam. It’s sucks but that’s one of the few time slots I have during the work week I can dedicate time. Thank you again Jeremiah for putting these out, especially so soon after taking the exam. Can’t wait to see how you went about labbing DNAC, that’s probably my biggest concern at this point.
For version 1.0... DNAC was very basic. I did nearly all my labbing in Khawar's DNAC rack. His actual lab guide, though not even close to the exam, does cover all the skills that you will need for the actual exam. WITH ONE BIG EXCEPTION. There is much more ISE than I was prepared for. However. IF you know ISE... even a little bit (which I didn't) I think the ISE tasks would be pretty easy. In fact, once I knew it was on the exam, I was able to figure out how to do it pretty easily, and get it down to about 3 minutes. I wish I could tell you what it was, you'd feel so relieved. But I can't. Again, that's for v1.0. I have no idea what to expect come September 20th.
v1.1 is what I'll be taking. Luckily I have ISE working now but hopefully the release of their official version of virtual DNAC will make it easier to lab. The company I work for has about 6 CCIEs and everyone of them I have asked pretty much said exactly what you said, you have to take it at least once and see the real exam. Go in with the hopes to pass but the expectation to fail.@@jeremiahwolfe
Hey, just wanted to say congratulations. I know you been on that road for a minute. I give you props also. I don't think I have the patience to stay on track for the CCIE.
Do you usually read white papers on every exam objective for Cisco exams? I’ll usually spend so much time going through the OCG, INE video course, labs, Boson, etc and then still have to spend a ton of time reading documentation to feel like I even have a chance at an exam.
Hey Jeremiah, thanks for all the videos and well done again for passing this behemoth. I have a question, which is a fairly common question seen on multiple forums. If the jump in knowledge from CCNA to ENCOR = x, then the jump from ENCOR level knowledge to knowledge required to pass the CCIE lab is many times x. Is the ENCOR exam a suitable prerequisite for the IE lab? Just curious on your opinion given your recent experiences. John.
It depends on how you look at it. I might argue that the prerequisite is really for the candidate's benefit, not for Cisco's. What I mean is that a CCIE candidate should pass ENCOR in pursuit of their CCNP, then ask themselves, "Okay. Having just passed ENCOR... which was a real challange, do I have it within myself to spend the next 2 - 3 years taking all the topics I just learned and deep diving on each of them until I'm an expert?" If you have the right attitude, the ENCOR exam becomes more of a "Is this really what I want?" vs a proper prerequisite.
Jeremiah, would you recommend doing SD-Geeks AND KBits SDA course? Or is one of these enough? I'm pretty confident I'll have all the vDNAC/ISE/SDWAN/etc all working in my home lab in near future so is there a good SDA workbook out there that you recommend? I know you LOVE questions like these, so I'm asking. :P
I do love these questions. "Hey Jeremiah, I've looked into it and found there are multiple sources. Have you used them? What are your thoughts?" I'll answer questions like that all day long. However, "Hey Jeremiah, should I be a CCIE? Is it hard? How do I do it?" Those questions annoy the f*ck out of me. Anyway, I've said this several times in my recent videos, but the SD-A portion of the v1.0 exam is painfully simple (if you know the basics of SD-A). Kbits lab guide covers all of the tasks (and more) that I was asked to perform on the v1.0 exam. Terry's lab guide (that came with Narbik's course) did likewise. (I don't know if Terry's CCIE workbook is available to sd-geeks subscribers. But again we're talking about basic DNAC tasks, so I'm sure he covers it early in his courses.) NEITHER Terry nor Khawar cover the ISE tasks. I was not prepared for that portion of the exam. That said, after seeing it in my failed attempt, it was easy to find a how-to guide online and to practice it in Kbits SD-A rack. Before leaving for attempt #2, I had the ISE tasks down to... 3 minutes. So clearly not too difficult. I too am anxiously awaiting the vDNAC release. (If it has been released I don't see it anywhere.) I don't have access to Cisco downloads, so it won't do me much good initially. I can only hope that it finds it's way into the wild. (Or they make it available to CML subscribers... which I doubt.)
@@jeremiahwolfe , I really like Terry! His material and teaching style is exceptional. I respect him tremendously. I watched his DMVPN video series on youtube, then stood up my own lab around DMVPN, and now feel like I'm a pro now with DMVPN. lol. It just clicks for me listening to him. He is a pioneer is this SDA space right now and clearly the world sees this, which is why Cisco gave him early access to the vDNAC. I also second the comment "hope that it finds its way into the wild", because I'm a wilderness man myself and savy in the wilderness. :P The struggle is real though; I've been going back and forth with Cisco for weeks now trying to get this vDNAC; I'm not even kidding, even had the CCIE program manager email me about my CCIE EI topology I put together in EVE-NG pro (it's on my Linkedin) and their stance on the release of the vDNAC to the public. As it stands right now; the wait could be longer than we have heard. The comment I received back was 'if this is released to the public' it will be no earlier than October or later time frame. But the keywords I saw in the email was 'IF" this is released. I then unloaded some harsh criticism about Cisco's politics and challenged their own logic behind even mentioning a response like that to a CCIE EI candidate. The OVA was created because the DNAC was in the EI exam; but the full blown DNAC deployment takes 1. Cisco account with access and 2. Baremetal server to install DNAC. Tons of guys ( I think yourself included) found out the hard way out difficult this install is and the vCPU min (62) per Terry Vinson. So I'm just going to save more money and build a full blown DNAC in near future. It is what it is; I can't wait for Cisco to release this OVA to the community, even though they created the OVA for the community, but now have second thoughts with their comment being "IF" this is released to the public. So hats off to Cisco for following through with their 'lite' version of the DNAC, but WTF on the release to the CCIE EI candidates studying for the exam. It's the only piece in the EI blueprint I'm missing. So I guess it's off to the wilderness to observe' or "WITNESS" if you will nature in it's raw form. :P
Do you agree that CCIE candidates should not read books cover to cover, and instead focus on videos and labbing? I've seen conflicting opinions on book reading for CCIE. Some people list 20 books you should read, and others saying that you need to spend more time labbing than getting bogged down in books. For example, Rohit from INE said that he only read something like 10-20% of the Routing TCP/IP books when he prepped for his first CCIE, because he skimmed them for configuration commands and verification, not really paying attention to all the "fluff" of the history, theory, etc. Would this method result in a CCIE candidate that can pass the exam but not really be at an expert level after the fact? Or is it true that there is just too much to read, and labbing and videos are the best use of your time? Another question I have is, what is your opinion on doing lab workbooks multiple times? I've heard of CCIEs doing the old INE workbooks and the Cisco 360 workbooks 10 times before sitting the lab exam. Does that really help? Lastly, do you recommend spending a lot of time studying the command reference guides and white papers? I've seen that INE used to recommend literally reading through the entire command reference before your exam because at least you would be familiar with where to find something. But other instructors say that you will be so pressed for time that if you have to open the docs you don't know it well enough and you won't finish on time anyways. But INE's perspective in their old CCIE videos seems to often be "just be familiar with how to kind of do this and you can look it up during the exam." I guess what I'm wondering is, let's say for NAT, do you get into every single little option you can do with NAT and lab it up? Or is having a generally good understanding of NAT but you can look up little features if needed "good enough"?
There is nothing unique about a CCIE "candidate" vs a CCNP "candidate." There's just more to study. Use sound study principles and study with the methods/tools that work best for you. There's on trick or secret. You're going to have to read 10s of thousands of pages of books and documentation. You're probably going to watch hundreds of hours of videos. And you'll spend thousands of hours labbing.
I'm not sure what you mean. Rather than take notes, I just go slower and remember things. I should say, snark aside, that there are studies that show that note taking is largely ineffective vs proper study techniques. -Get information from multiple sources in multiple formats (reading, videos, labbing). -Take your time. -Do not read for completion... read for comprehension. -If you're not absorbing the material... stop. Come back when you're better rested. -Sleep (nap) immediately after studying. (Proven to greatly increase retention.) -Study in a cyclical fashion. i.e. Hit a topic once and you'll remember the basics. Hit it a second time days or weeks later and you're brain will comprehend even more. Hit it a third time days or weeks later and you'll understand it much better. -And perhaps most important of all... BE SELF AWARE. You and I are different. Pay attention to what works for you... do more of that.
WoW.! From “rarely uploading videos” to “daily 1 videos” you are turning into a RU-vidr slowly 😁 I have a question too. Would you consider becoming a part time RU-vidr once you have a full time job.?
Nope. I've got a few more CCIE related videos to get out then it's back to 1 video a week or less. It's addictive and very time consuming. Plus, I don't think I could ever get to a point where I'm making money at it. And, while it's not as bad as most social media I still see that many RU-vidrs seem to become disconnected from the real world. No thanks.
