So, it’s been over a week since my last lab attempt and I have had plenty of time to reflect.

I will say that I underestimated the troubleshooting section considerably. My advise is when you hit a difficult question, do not linger on it, move on and try to come back if you have time. It’s hard to assess which tickets are the challenging ones without a little investigation. I will say that if you cannot solve the ticket within 10-15 minutes… MOVE ON. Next the configuration section was challenging, but very very passable. This is the CCIE lab after all, should we expect anything less that a formidable challenge?

I’m bummed out, but now it’s time to hit my study material and work on areas that need attention such as PfR, 802.1s, IPv6, ZBF, IPS, 802.1x, WCCP, EEM, and LAN QoS.

I’m going to try things a little different. I have used INE, CCBOOTCAMP, and Narbik materials in the past. This time I’m using two things. The Blueprint, and Cisco documentation. I’m going to work my way through (bottom up) the blueprint and after I’ve completed go back to my INE Mock Labs and see the results. My plan is to so engrain the theory and configs into my head, that I don’t need to worry about accessing the reference material when I take my next lab. I would highly recommend the vendors workbooks (INE’s worked the best for me) as the starting point, but I need to try something a little different and the Cisco documentation goes into much more detail.