Karl Solie, CCIE

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One thing you'll notice is the book is written by CCIEs who have been in the field for years. We try and draw off this field experience by giving the reader real-world or field labs to work on at the end of each chapter. For instance our OSPF labs are not five simple labs; one where you configure a backbone area, one for a stub area, one for a NSSA area and so on. This is not how you would configure OSPF field, or during the CCIE practical exam for that matter.

In CCIE Practical Studies, the labs are very complex and difficult, one OSPF lab will have you configure multiple OSPF areas, Stub Areas, NSSA areas and do something like propagate a conditional default route for a little extra practice. For instance DLSw labs are not simple peer-to-peer configurations, you will be asked to configure promiscuous peers, backup peers, FST, and TCP peers and all in the same lab. Overall our intent was to make very challenging labs exercises, such that even the most prepared candidate would be forced to think on their toes.

CCIE Practical Studies V1 is also the first Cisco endorsed material on the CCIE practical exam. Lorne Braddock, CCIE program manager, wrote the forward, and Mike Reid, a CCIE proctor and CCIE test writer, was a key technical reviewer and helped with the five final labs in Chapter 18. We feel these labs are as close to the real thing has you can get.

GoCertify: What equipment is necessary in order to complete the CCIE practice studies in your book and where can candidates get that equipment?

Karl Solie: The different lab equipment needed is determined by the technology the chapter is focusing on. For instance the ATM and Voice sections will require ATM and Voice interfaces. Before each lab in the book is a list of equipment needed to complete the lab. Ideally, the candidate should have at least a four port serial router to serve as a Frame Relay Switch, an Access Server, and four routers with one LAN interface and one serial interface, an Ethernet Switch, and various crossover cables to complete most of the labs.

A majority of the labs can be completed on low-end equipment, such as Cisco 2500/2600s. The final labs, and labs in areas of special focus, as mentioned previously, will require equipment that can be hard to come by. For these labs the candidate should talk to the their local Cisco representative, as well as go to Cisco's Web site and look for some of the special training relationships and practice labs Cisco has set up with its various partners. Cisco training partners have set up special courses focusing on giving the CCIE candidate extensive hands on practice on the CCIE final labs in the book, as well as E-Labs. I've also seen many people go to EBAY and buy routers and switches, and simply sell them back when they are done with the test. You would not believe the Cisco equipment you can buy there!

GoCertify: Late in 2001 the CCIE lab format changed from a two day to one day format. How will this affect candidates as they prepare for and take the exam?

Karl Solie: The change in the format was done very carefully, so I don't feel it will impact a candidates study habits much. Time is more important then ever before, so the candidate must be very familiar on how to configure the various technologies. You won't have much time to be reading through configuration guides on how to configure DLSw if you're not very familiar with it.

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