The 4 week strategy

Today i just decided to brush right through the CCENT/CCNA/CCNP sequence once again. So I have drawn up the following timelines:

CCNA/CCENT

Start Date : July 20, 2010

• 640-822 ICND1: July 21, 2010

End Date : July 22, 2010

Start Date : July 23, 2010

• 640-816 ICND2: July 24, 2010

End Date : July 25, 2010

CCNP

Start Date : July 28, 2010

• 642-812 BCMSN: Aug. 1, 2010
• 642-813 SWITCH: Aug 2, 2010
• 642-832 TSHOOT: Aug 3, 2010
• 642-902 ROUTE: Aug 9, 2010

End Date : Aug 9, 2010

CCIE R&S Written

Start Date : Aug 10, 2010

• 350-001 v4.0 : Aug 23, 2010

End Date : Aug 23, 2010

R&S: The Written Stage

Its been a long time coming- Have been through certain high's and low's related to non-IE stuffs (you know what I mean) consequently occupying my time and more importantly taking me off my game. Well I'm back to the quest again and will probably have to re-learn Cisco (amongst other dependency IT stuffs) since I had left Cisco for like 2 yrs in pursuit of a higher education. Most of the CCNA/CCNP topics I am familiar with having been in charge of installing and configuring a combined total of well over ~100 switches, ~20 routers (vpn, ras, isdn), aaa/radius/tacacs and a few of the new services implementations in my previous job.

Revision will definitely be difficult now that I am in a foreign land (Yankee Doodle) with a TA job and no related cisco gear -yet I hope to remain undeterred. The CCIE written should sum up all the CCNA/CCNPs plus some extras to bring me up to speed.

I expect to take my written next month- I have already booked a date for it in the first week of August. A lot of work thereafter coupled with school work and my non-IE related job might seem an unlikely mix but we all multi-task all the time in our daily lives. I probably will abandon the idea of taking the lab by the end of this year But i will want to do it by option 1:Jan/Feb 2011. If that doesn't work, then it will be next summer before the end of option 2:July 2011.

I will be looking for CCIE lab dates immediately I pass the Written by November 2010 to meet up with my first option, then reschedule later in Jan/Feb 2011 (if necessary). My other academic factors will determine how well my preps will be. I would need:
1) A reading partner
2) Probably need to to inform one of my employers---just in case.

I already have some CCIE practice labs which I bought off from a friend 2 years ago (smirk)- so will probably have to buy the latest ones to reflect current changes to the Cisco outlines. I will be cross examining this today and by the end of the week will have placed my order.

Essentially practice, practice practice; Read, Recite, Review- Tools: my notepad, Dynagen, vLabs, mock labs, cisco.com, VOD (and/or Assessor Labs/boot-camp. Building a personal lab will definitely cost me-so i need to find place where I can at least rent equipment for like 2/3 weeks when I am near the tail end of my prep...I give myself only two attempts and if I don't make it after that, then I will most likely rest my game. Don't criticize me now for this choice, lets hope it never gets to that.

For now...my journey...my quest...has finally begun...