Cisco Expert – Got my CCIE R&S and CCNA Voice

Hello everyone,
For now, just let you now that my CCIE journey, lots of hours of studying and hands on live routers just payed off. Yesterday I became CCIE# 23373 in Routing and Switching on Thursday 29th January 2009.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday 27th January, I also got my CCNA Voice, in my opinion, the best and more pleasant certification I ever studied for. Call Manager Express or CUCME like Cisco now calls it is definitely funny to configure. I am starting to think that Voice may be my thing in the future. We will see…

I will update this post over the next few days after I get some hours of sleeping and resting, well deserved.

Story of my life:

All started in February 2007 when I decided to take my first IT cetification MCDST. I attended the MCSE course certification at a Microsoft learning center. On the first day, I knew nothing about IT, only windows XP and that was it. After the first lesson, I knew that certifications was my thing and IT would be my passion.

After my first exam I was a MCP and I jumped so much when I got my certification. After the second exam I got my MCDST. After 6 months I was done with MCSE, then I asked myself, now what?? Well I got some old CBT Nuggets of CCNA of a friend in September 2007  and I started to watch the first video. After 5 min I was like…where are the wizards and all the GUI’s? Didn’t like the feeling, but I kept on going because at the Microsft Center, everybody said that being a MCSE + CCNA was the best thing anyone could be. So I used GNS3 and practice a lot so I got my CCNA. At this point I was in love with Cisco. Worth to mention that, I found no use in taking lessons for Cisco Certs as I did for Microsoft. Found that most places are just trying to sell courses for huge price, and most trainers aren’t even prepared to teach.

After that I took my CCNP, CCSP. CCDP, CCIP. I studied day and night for these certs. After this I got a job in Northern Ireland in HP.

In HP, with all the certs and some experience in the pocket that I already had from a portuguese company I was offered that job. Man, the network here is huge…Anyways, I saved some cash and bought my own rack…and started my CCIE journey.

The next 8 months, used Internetwork Expert Vol 2 and spent 3 hours daily in my rack.

After practicing for a while, I started to feel confident so I went for the CCIE R&S Written exam which I cleared it. After this exam I practiced another 3 months just labbing, labbing, labbing and 12th Nov.2008 arrived fast….I was in Brussels…

“I will be your proctor for the day” – says Bruno

…. Ricardo….Rack 11

The exam started….after 4 hours I had only BGP and Multicast left…so I was relaxed. QOS and Security seemed a bit odd to me but there was a good chance to pass. Spent the whole afteernoon checking the configurations, having drinks, I knew I had a huge chance to be a CCIE…16.30…Lab over.

They say, if you were to pass your results should be available earlier, I’m guessing they run a script and if it says you pass, you passed but if says you have failed probably a proctor will check all your configurations and that takes extra time. Again I have no information on this, I am just guessing.

1:48am in the Hotel…the email came through and I had failed but with a good and very very very close score…QOS and Security was horrible…I say good because most topics I scored 100%, then on QOS and Security a disaster. I was actually happy, I knew if I studied those 2 topics, I would be fine next time…Flew back home and scheduled my 2nd attempt for 29th January…

During this 2.5 months I didnt touch 1 lab from start to end. I just practiced random stuff, OSPF, EIGRP and all the normal easy stuff just to make sure I wouldn’t forget a thing. Now the big secret….I opened the Cisco DOC CD online during my preparation, I read from cover to cover, Ip services, QOS and Security stuff and I labbed everything. Man…this was my salvation. I think IE vol.2 is not very good for Security, IP services and lacks some information for QOS as well.

29th Jan.  2009

This time Istvan if I remember his name correctly was the proctor. I was not nervous like the first time or anything and this time….”Ricardo…Rack 10″…I know I had to do it this time. Found this lab a bit more difficult and tricky than the first attempt but I didnt care, just followed the normal cisco procedures for the problems and troubleshooting they threw at me, and before lunch I finished the lab. In the afternoon, after lunch, I checked the configurations 4 times and all seemed ok. I was a bit afraid of the interpretation of some questions but there was nothing I could do. So I just had 3 drinks, Cecemel, this is some chocolate drink with caramel…if u go to brussels drink this…it is awesome.

Well…I think the say is true…this time at 11:30 I got my result and CCIE# 23373.

My biggest tip is, if you want something really bad you will get it…there are no limits, just study, understand the technologies and pass the lab. Motivaton is the key…