Thanks.
This story must start with a big thanks to INE for its incredible effort in providing knowledge over anything else and in whatever track you will ever choose.
I now have the pleasure of sharing my success story for passing the CCIE lab. On Tuesday,24th June 2014 I passed the Service Provider track in Bangalore, India, making my CCIE #44181. This is my first CCIE and the journey to the destination was never easy but has been thrilling, fun and long hours... It was the attitude, persistance and hard work which resulted in my success.
It is always good to have a partner in crime :) i had Srikant, Deepak Arora and my mentor Sikander Shaik. It was always good talking with them, sharing the information, asking for suggestions, queries .. in short convincing yourself and building the confidence.
I am an amateur since this is my first one but i have benefitted from lot of these suggestions and success stories so here we go:
1. Always commit your changes once you solve your task.
2. Read the lab end to end before starting type. Everyword is important. The lab is pretty self explanatory but you have to know your stuff hence you need speed and accuracy.
3. keep track of IGP/BGP/RR/VPNv4/VPNv6/LDP/PIM-SM peerings
4. MPLS TE is the key, so make sure your core routing is converged properly.
5. Use notepads they are very helpful where you would like to do copy/paste.
6. Please practice all PE-CE routing protocol variations.
7. Please try and spend the first 20-30 minutes reading though the entire exam, drawing up the topology on sheets - RR / AFI / VRFs / PE-CE - trust me it will really help you down the lab.
8. Keep your friends with you while your CCIE prep. As Srikant / Deepak was for me, they are an invaluable resource to your real success.
My best wishes to all CCIE SP aspirers.
A big shout-out goes to INE and of course Brian McGahan for creating an awesome series of SP videos/blogs/write-ups and a great workbook to go along with that
Happy study!
Mayank Dev Mishra, CCIE #44181