Another month of CCIE studying is in the books! It’s already mid-March, so this post is a bit late, but I want to keep this habit up so here’s a quick update on how my month of studying went. First, the stats:
- Study hours: 82
- Flashcards made: 339
- Current total number of flashcards: 2,162
- Last month I made over 1,000 flashcards, so this is quite a reduction.
I use flashcards like a substitute for note-taking, with the bonus that my notes automatically quiz me every day! So why did I make so few flashcards in February (by my standards)? There are a couple of reasons:
- If I maintain January’s pace every month, the number of flashcards will get so large that the daily reviews become unmanageable. I’d rather not spend two hours of my day going through flashcards.
- I spent about half of the month studying for ENCOR to renew my CCNP; more on that below.
I last took ENCOR about three years ago, and my CCNP was scheduled to expire in a couple of months, so I decided I’d take some time last month to renew it. I passed! As someone who is in the middle of making an ENCOR course, it would have been embarrassing if I hadn’t! In my position, I probably could have passed the exam without doing any particular review, but I took the opportunity to go through the topics once more. Here’s what I used:
- CCNP and CCIE Enterprise Core ENCOR 350-401 Official Cert Guide, 2nd Edition
- ExSim-Max for Cisco 350-401 ENCOR (Boson)
- For transparency, this is an affiliate link.
The OCG by Cisco Press is a bit hit-and-miss. In many chapters it feels like the authors just list information, leaving it up to the reader to figure out what it all means. But that’s also probably not their fault—effectively teaching all of ENCOR in one volume, whereas the CCNA needs two, is simply not possible. But even with that said, it’s a good resource to form the basis of your studies. Just don’t expect it to be sufficient on its own.
Boson’s ExSim is great, as usual. I’m a Boson affiliate, so feel free to believe or not believe that my recommendation is honest, but they’ve got the best CCNA and CCNP practice exams, no doubt. Don’t get discouraged if their exams beat you up the first time—they’re meant to do that. If you take the time to review all of Boson’s explanations for their questions and do some additional research on your weak points, you’ll get a lot of value from ExSim.
You used to be able to view your ENCOR score in the “Cisco Expert Level Certifications Tracker”, but it seems that isn’t possible anymore. Oh well, a pass is a pass! And now I have three years to get my CCIE. I can’t guarantee that I’ll pass the CCIE on my first attempt, but I’m 100% confident I’ll do it before the three-year mark.
So, what did I use for my CCIE-specific studies last month? I’ve been working through these books:
- The CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide, Volume 1
- The CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide, Volume 2
These books are very good. Of course, the CCIE Routing and Switching exam doesn’t exist any more, but these books are an excellent resource for grasping the routing and switching topics on the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure exam. You still have to consult RFCs and Cisco Docs if you want to reach a CCIE-level understanding, but it’s always nice to have a structured book as a guide.
Unfortunately, it seems the CCIE R&S OCG isn’t for sale anymore, but I managed to get used copies on Amazon. The certification changed, but the material in the books still holds up, so I hope it will be re-published in some form or another.
I’ll leave it at that for this month—look out for March’s update at the beginning of April! So far, studying in March has been slow; I’ve been focused on planning and making videos for the routing protocols section of my ENCOR course. I’m hoping to get all of the OSPF videos out by the end of April, and then I’ll move on to EIGRP, BGP, and multicast routing, in that order.
I don’t have any timeline for completion of the ENCOR course yet, but I’m making progress! I’ve basically dropped everything except my course and my CCIE studies, so I’ll do everything I can to push both of these projects forward as much as I can this year. Thanks as always for your support! Every time I read the comments on my videos and posts, I can’t help but think that I’ve got the best audience in the world. See you next month.
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