The Road to the CCIE

The Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) designation is considered by many to be one of the most difficult IT certifications to achieve. The certification consists of two parts, a written multiple choice exam and a practical exam.  By all indications, the written exam is not difficult compared to the practical exam. Many book sections and anecdotes on the Internet indicate that the practical exam is almost always required to be taken twice (or more). A lot of people even say that the available IT certification training courses for the CCIE are not sufficient training to pass the exam.

Based on what I've observed so far, candidates really need to have the equivalent knowledge of a Cisco Certified Network Professional to really begin studying for the CCIE exams. Individuals with the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification likely do not have the required background knowledge in routing and switching to meaningfully dig into the exam certification guide (and some of the recommended references for the CCIE).

I have not taken the exam yet, but I am planning to take both parts over the next 6-12 months and this series of posts will chronicle the progress with studying. My chosen method of study consists of trying to build a strong theoretical background using Cisco books and configuration guides and building virtual topologies in Dynamips/GNS3 that demonstrate working configurations with all of the stated exam topics and the related topics that are not specifically listed with the exam objectives on the Cisco Learning site. A check on myself that I have developed sufficient knowledge is that I will be able to clearly and coherently teach others about the technologies and explain them in detail, and that is my aim with this series of posts. A caution to the reader is important here because I explain the topics in an order that is different than most of the books on the subject. I start with WAN technologies (such as Frame Relay, ATM, and MPLS), then move to Ethernet switching topics, and then provide a discussion routing. Afterwards I look at how everything works together in different security, Quality of Service (QoS), and routing scenarios (IPv4, IPv6, Multicast).

The full list of posts is below. Note that many of the posts have working GNS3 labs and/or instructions available for download.

• General Study for the Certification
• Why Should a CCIE Read Standards?
• Layer 2 Ethernet Tools
• Setting Up a CCIE Switching Lab 
• Frame Relay for the WAN
• Introduction to Frame Relay Switching
• Cisco Frame Relay Switching Lab: Partially Meshed PVCs
• Cisco Frame Relay Switching Lab: Fully Meshed PVCs
• Frame Relay Switching Lab Using Multiple Switches (Tunnels)
• Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) for the WAN
• Layer 2 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
• Layer 3 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
• Routing Protocols (IPv4)
• Routing Information Protocol version 2 (RIPv2)
• Open Shortest Path First version 2  (OSPF)
• OSPF Concepts: Areas and LSA Types 
• OSPF Cost/Metric Calculation  
• Comprehensive OSPF Cost Example
• Single Area OSPF Routing Example 
• The OSPF Stub Area 
• The OSPF Totally Stubby Area
• The OSPF Not-so-Stubby Area (NSSA) 
• The OSPF Totally Not-so-Stubby Area (NSSA)
• OSPF Virtual Links 
• Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)
• Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS)
• Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
• On-Demand Routing
• Configuring Cisco On-Demand Routing (ODR)
• Routing Protocols (IPv6)
• Routing Information Protocol Next Generation (RIPng)
• Open Shortest Path First version 3 (OSPF)
• Border Gateway Protocol with Multiprotocol Extensions
• IPv6 Coexistence
• Dual Stack
• Tunneling
• Network Address Translation (NAT) strategies between IPv4 and IPv6
• Multicast Routing
• Quality of Service (QoS)
• Network Device Management 
• Scripting the IOS Platform
• Miscellaneous
• Interface Order of Operations
• Router on a Stick with GNS3
• Emulating a Managed Switch With Dynamips/GNS3
• Connecting GNS3 and Microsoft Hyper-V