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Hey guys looking for some reviews on the INE 10 day bootcamp for Routing & Switching.  If you have links to old post that would be cool also.  I have been hamering out the Volume 1 lab book on my home lab.  Just a note on that I was doing rack rentals with another company before, and found that I was not spending enough time practicing.  Now I have a full lab that completley replicates what the lab workbooks use.  I am thinking at the rate that I am going I will have the first volume completed in another month, and than start tackling volume 2, 3, and 4.  I am thinking about possibly attending the bootcamp in Seattle in May once I get my company to sign off on the training. I think they will be good with it since it also has a voucher for the lab itself.  Another thing that I am wondering if anyone took the lab the week after the bootcamp, or how long after did they attempt the lab.

I just wanted to check your experience with Rack Rental compared with home lab. Since I am still trying to get used to Dynamips and the format of INE Work book, I was thinking just to choose Rack rental for my LAB practice, is this plan feasible. What problem did you find in rack rental that you built your home labs. do you use Dynamips or real gears for routers? I thought using real gears are more expensive than Using rack rental for the whole journey. thank you for sharing the experience

Ellie I was using rack rentals just about every weekend from November to the December before I took my CCIE R&S Written exam. It helped me to put the technologies to use and really understand them.  The problem that I had was trying to actually schedule my free times, and the rack rentals were always really early in the morning or to late in the afternoon.  The problem that I also had was I felt like I was always rushing since I had 8 hours and than it would be done.  I have used dynamips a little bit, but was just not happy with it.  I bought the ultimate CCIE Lab from ciscoland.net that was built for the INE workbooks.  I will tell you since I have had it in late January I lab every single day now :)  It has also been nice since dynamips and rack rentals do not give you the full experience that you will help in the real world.  I had to rack and cable all of the equipment, load the configurations, setup the access server.  I have had a serial card that was bad that I had to replace, and a bent pin that I had to play around with to get to work.  So these types of things have helped me go through things that I just could not get without real equipment.  So I think #1 really was being able to just jump on my equipment every morning when I get up for 4 hours before work, than on my days of fri-sun I can lab as long as I want or can handle :)  I guess it just depends on my qucik you want your CCIE #.  I am sure you could do rack rentals on the weekends, but you are going to be looking at a lot more time before you are ready from what I can see right now.

Hi lancen1999,

you might want to check up on this thread: http://ieoc.com/forums/t/18684.aspx
(Brian McGahan linked 2 reviews from attendees there).

Regards,

Ford

I am going to the upcoming Bootcamp in DC.  I'll give my two cents worth when I am done.  

I would be hesitant to sit for the exam right after the bootcamp, unless I was reasonably sure I was ready before sitting the bootcamp.

Thanks Ford! That was a good blog by Daniel and others.  It sounds like the bootcamp really goes into a lot of details and allows you to get on some real equipment during the bootcamp to be able to moc up the different scenarios and troubleshoot them.

Thanks Dennis! I was also looking at that bootcamp, but think a little extra time might be better for me to hit up the one in Seattle.  I think you are right that it would probably be best to attend the bootcamp, and than assess where you are at.  It looks like these boot camps go into a very good amount of detail.  I am thinking I will probably want to come back from the bootcamp and apply this techniques on my home lab with some more practice, than go sit the lab.  I am about half way through the ATC videos, and just finishing the IP Routing section of the Volume 1 workbook.  So I I think by May I will have gone through most all of the workbooks.

I would not hurry up and take the lab unless you are close to the 3 year time limit. Why waste the lab fee when you can study for a short amount of time and then pass it.

When i can, i am looking at the bookcamp also, but i will wait till i get more hands on and read a lot more of the books before i do it. That way i get the most out of it and know what to expect. I hate to give anyone my money that i am working so hard to keep in my pocket at this time. That is why i do not mind going though the INE bootcamp since i have heard a lot of good things from them while looking at training.

The bad part is that where i am at, no bootcamp is going to be held here, i guess i will wait till i get back to the U.S. and take one to really make it a lot better for me.

Dennis what hotel is the training at?  I am thinking about DC as possibly an option.

lancen1999:

Dennis what hotel is the training at?

That detail has not been finalized at this time

This student attended my bootcamp in London a couple weeks ago.

http://blog.initialdraft.com/archives/2962/

http://blog.initialdraft.com/archives/3144/

--
Brian Dennis, CCIEx5 #2210 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/SP/Voice)
bdennis@ine.com

Internetwork Expert, Inc.
http://www.INE.com



On 02/28/2012 02:49 PM, lancen1999 wrote:
> Hey guys looking for some reviews on the INE 10 day bootcamp for Routing
> & Switching. If you have links to old post that would be cool also. I
> have been hamering out the Volume 1 lab book on my home lab. Just a note
> on that I was doing rack rentals with another company before, and found
> that I was not spending enough time practicing. Now I have a full lab
> that completley replicates what the lab workbooks use. I am thinking at
> the rate that I am going I will have the first volume completed in
> another month, and than start tackling volume 2, 3, and 4. I am thinking
> about possibly attending the bootcamp in Seattle in May once I get my
> company to sign off on the training. I think they will be good with it
> since it also has a voucher for the lab itself. Another thing that I am
> wondering if anyone took the lab the week after the bootcamp, or how
> long after did they attempt the lab.
>
>
>
>
> INE - The Industry Leader in CCIE Preparation
> http://www.INE.com
>
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.ieoc.com/forums/ForumSubscriptions.aspx

Thanks Brian! When do they usually find out where they will be hosting the bootcamp for places like DC?  Just asking since I would need to put these details in for training request ahead of time.  Also of course in DC you want to book hotels as far out in advance as possible.

Thank you Lancen, I really appreciate your feedback. It definitely helps to decide on the LAB setup. Thank you for sharing your experience again.

Thank you Lancen for sharing this link again. I think If we wanted to buy each gear individually, it would be more. The website offers three options. Which option did you choose. I know there are in different prices but which one is better and matches perfectily with INE Work book?  I assume that they just ship the gears and we should download the configs from INE website via our account. Should I ask for any thing else or just the items listed is enough. Thanks

Another thing about the rack rentals was anytime they had something go wrong I had to wait for their tech to go fix the problem, and on the weekends they were not on site.

I chose the ultimate CCIE Rack, and also you will want to add a 2511 access server with the octal cables.  Some people actually use the 2600 with an NM module but I have not experience with that. With the 2511 you will want to go to ebay or cables&kits.com to get an AUI transiever to setup your ethernet connection.  They had some cheaper options but I wanted to have the exact equipment that they were using in the INE workbooks, and so far it has been a great experience, and you can work every technology.

Correct you can download the configs from INE once you purchase the workbooks.  There is also an awesome reference on here I think from DennisD about CatTools and how you can automate your config uploads.