CCIE Achieved!

Like the title says. I’ve achieved my CCIE. I’m number #62198

I’ve done reviews of my first and second attempt. You can find them here:

• First attempt
• Second attempt

I’ve also done a third attempt and failed that one. I didn’t have much to say about that attempt back then that I hadn’t already discussed in the earlier posts, so I didn’t write a post back then.

Now however, after my fourth attempt I finally got the coveted number.

I must say that I’m very happy. The exam went pretty smooth for me this time. During tshoot I missed a 4 point ticket, but I got all the others correct. Diag was easy and Config went great.

Due to the missing 4pt ticket I ‘borrowed’ 15 minutes from config, which in the end didn’t solve the 4pt ticket, but did help me verify all other tickets were solved according to the restrictions. This meant I had 5 hours and 15 minutes for config. In the end I needed little over four hours to finish config. The last hour I used to verify (and even fix some things). The last 5 minutes I logged in to every device on the lab to give a ‘wr’ command (just to be sure :-))

This time I needed the proctor for the first time in four attempts. My session hung. This is not really uncommon since they are Citrix sessions, so sometimes you might encounter a hiccup, but most of the time the session resumes quickly. This time, after waiting a minute or two the session still wasn’t back. So I called the proctor and he restarted my thin client. After this the session continues without any problems.

Just as a small reminder (they will tell you at the start of the exam), when you run into issues they have to fix. Make sure you tell them within 10 minutes. They will give back a maximum of 10 minutes (plus repair time), so if you wait 30 minutes before getting the proctor involved you lose 20.

During config I already had the impression the exam was going my way (you just feel it I think). So much so that when I went to get a cup of coffee and the proctor was also at the coffee machine I had a little talk with him about the newly announced (that night) changes to the certification program.

So, this means this blog won’t be “A CCIE Student’s blog” anymore, but henceforth will be “A CCIE Blog”.

For now this will also mean that I will take a break in creating CCIE content, but don’t worry. I will resume creating study material after I’ve taken a break. I will probably start this up again after summer is over. I still have some other posts (mainly ACI posts) in draft phase and I’ll probably start working on those again soon.