When I set up my initial rack for RS with real switches and routers, I spent over 40 hours cabling, rack mounting and installing IOS’s on the devices. Configuring remote access and troubleshooting the odd anomaly took a few more hours. This might not sound like much but in real terms this took me a whole month. While the home rack is the ultimate tool to use for ccie lab prep it does take up time setting up. My main motivation for going for the live rack was my lack of faith in the other options. The fact that the live rack is always available is what makes the home/live rack the ultimate choice. If you have a $10000 budget for lab equipment, this is the option. Even if you sell at a 10% loss, it is still a good deal.
Personally I think rack rental is the fastest and easiest way to prepare for the lab. Obviously if you use many hours on the rack it can become an expensive exercise. 600 hours on rack rental could set you back as much as $3000. The pros of using rack rental is that your setup time is almost zero and if you run into any hardware issues, it is not your problem. The cons are that you can not use it when you want to and have to use it when dont want to.
Dynamips on the other hand, is flexible like a home rack. The major drawback, is that it takes many hours to get the hang of. To give an example, I burnt two days setting up the Ipexpert SP topologies. If you have very limited time to prepare for the lab and have not worked extensively with dynamips, I would say give it a pass. Not that this option should not be explored, it is definitely a fantastic tool, but it does have its cons. If you have ample time to first learn the app and maybe an operating system then it is a winner.
Some comments from a ccie candidate starting to prepare for his lab date due in less than three months time:
Jay says (11:49 AM):
battling with this frame relay switch grrr
Antonie – Work says (11:55 AM):
hehe, the dynamips built in frame switch?
Jay says (11:56 AM):
yes
Almost three hours later
Jay says (02:39 PM):
ok i got dynagen going but I have 2 questsions!
Antonie – Work says (02:39 PM):
shoot, will try to help if i can
Jay says (02:39 PM):
first..i watched the IE vid on it..and they use the extracted IOS but i cant seem to get the extracted version to work only the IOS in its downloaded form boots
Jay says (02:40 PM):
i tried two diff IOS’s same thing
Antonie – Work says (02:41 PM):
i’ve used winrar and on linux unzip
Antonie – Work says (02:41 PM):
ok, so it takes long to boot 
Jay says (02:42 PM):
I guess that cant be help ;/
Antonie – Work says (02:48 PM):
are u running MS or linux?
Jay says (02:49 PM):
this is on ms at the mo..should be getting another copy of linux on the weekend to try give that an install
Jay says (02:50 PM):
hope it wont take to long to get used to it
Jay says (03:42 PM):
such a nightmare of a program .downloaded IOS from cisco they dont want to load zipped or unzipped..can only seem to get one ios to work..and for some reason when i have a terminal window open i cant type in dynagen so I cant calculate the idle pc…about to throw my pc against the wall lol
Antonie – Work says (03:44 PM):
lol
Jay says (03:50 PM):
its tough so many issues spend more time on the trouble shooting forums then anything today
The Ipexpert dynamips topology has been running for a few days. Currently the virtual rack is running a 16-port switch module as the switch. Today I tested a usb->ethernet adapter to a real switch and it works seemless. Cant believe how easy it was. I need to find some more of the same adapters. Preferably I want to run only real switches, so I will need a bunch of usb->ethernet adapters. One for every router in the topology. In case you are wondering how to break out to real switches with dynamips or how to use your ethernet in dynamips, this is the string I used on my linux servers:
[[ROUTER R1]]
s1/0 = R2 s1/0
#f0/0 = LAN 1
f0/0 = NIO_gen_eth:eth1
cnfg = R1.txt
I noticed that the IPexpert volume 1, 2 and 3 workbooks as well as the 5 SP mock labs from Proctorlabs run the same topology. All based on the ATM topology and it appears they all use a maximum of two layer three switches, but I will probably buy three more switches. The topology can be viewed at proctorlabs.com: http://proctorlabs.com/PDF/SP_7200-ATM_Topology.pdf
Open vrack running the Proctorlabs SP ATM topology:
R1: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2021
R2: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2022
R3: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2023
R4: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2024
R5: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2025
R6: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2026
R7: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2027
R8: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2028
R9: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2029
Sw1: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2030
BB1: telnet://vrack.homeip.net:2031
Again, please reserve your sessions on the scheduler.
Today I stumbled across a SP Blog that looks absolutely super. I just had to make a post about it. Zarar Ismail is a Cisco employee preparing for the SP lab somewhere in Feb/March, cant quite tell exactly when. Anyway, the list of SP bloggers are growing (I think 9 bloggers) and by the amount of SP related traffic on groupstudy compared to RS, to me there is a clear indication that the SP track is gaining popularity.
Zarar’s blog is worth a visit: http://www.debugall.co.uk
Current list of SP blogs : http://21500.org/?p=240
If you know of a SP blog that is not on the blogroll yet, please do let me know.
The QOS game plan at the moment is a bit chaotic. I have been way to ambitious by scheduling the QOS 642-642 obstacle two weeks away. That equals to roughly 12 days of prep if I start today with one off day in between. From experience I know I cover roughly 40-50 pages per evening. 12 Days will not be sufficient time to cover the whole Cisco QOS Exam Certification Guide. I will select a few key chapters where I suspect the majority of the questions will be coming from. Now I have to ask myself does this short schedule not defeat the object. Well yes in fact it does. Rushing the material will probably mean that I will miss some important facts. That one of a hundred or less questions that might appear on the lab that makes the difference between pass or fail. On the other hand scanning through the material it is all familiar terms and concepts. It “should” be revision of old knowledge. Well it remains to be seen. Depending how confident I feel that I covered enough material to not have to go back to the QOS books before the lab, I will make a call whether to postpone the exam. This time I will make sure I get a confirmation email.
This morning I managed to pass the 642-661 exam. This means I have one left to complete the CCIP. At this stage it is starting to looks as if the CCIP is being a waste of time. Taking a step back is important. The CCIP is not the objective but rather preparing for the CCIE Written in phases. Next will be to prepare for the QOS portion of the CCIE SP written and lab. Before moving on to the next phase I will take a QOS exam. The exam happens to be on the CCIP track. Then it starts to make sense.
Regarding the exam: For a newly minted CCIE RS the exam should be managable after a good review of some BGP material, depending how many months have lapsed since the lab. That said the exam is not a walk in the park. Some very detailed facts about confederations, communities and features are tested.
As usual majority rules. The correct answer is that MED received in an AS will not leave the AS. The first two answers that could be eliminated was that MED will not be shared to peers and that MED will be shared to peers. While in certain cases they will be true, these are incorrect as they are not always true. Another piece of the puzzle to keep in mind is that the “nontransitive” bit means that if a BGP peer does not recognize the attribute it will quietly disgard it. This did not play a role in any of the answers.
The answer that came very close to the truth is that MED received via the IGP will not be forwarded to eBGP peers. This one could stir some debate so I will use an example. Three routers, R1, R2 and R4 have been setup so that R1 and R2 are internal running OSPF. R2 (As1) and R4 (As2) are external peers. R2 advertise the internal route via the bgp network command:
R2#sh ip bgp
Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 1.1.1.0/24 12.12.12.1 501 32768 i
The MED was derived from the IGP metric.
R2#sh ip route ospf
O 1.1.1.0 [110/501] via 12.12.12.1, 00:01:32, FastEthernet0/0
The result is that the MED via the IGP is advertised to the EBGP peer
R4#sh ip bgp
Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 1.1.1.0/24 24.24.24.2 501 0 1 i
That said, there was a typo in the answer where it read IBGP in stead of IGP. Med shared over an IBGP peering session will not be forwarded out the AS. This is the same as MED received in an AS will not leave the AS. However this proves that MED values could be advertised to external BGP peers. Imagine a task requiring to use MED to influence the return path inbound from the external AS without using a route-map. How will it be possible?
Updates to some posts and pages:
Minilab – Dynamips verion has been updated due to some bugs I picked up yesterday. Added some slightly different questions and initial configs to support the dynamips topology. The zip file as been updated with the new files.
More Service Provider blogs has been updated with more SP blogs.
CCIE RS Study Schedule page has been added. Hope to do something similar for SP in order to make a comparison.
Calendar has been added due to the images on the RS Schedule page being a bit small. The calendar will display previous entries and ability to view future entries.
Vrack is still running Antonio Soares’ virtual rack. Adding IPExpert ATM SP topology soon, if I can get it to work. It appears to be a mission to convert the GNS3 files to dynagen, but Im still learning. Will consider selling the IPexpert dynagen files, once completed, for 1 million dollars.
Scheduler for the open vrack is operational but some functions still need to be added. Please be polite and book sessions before using the vrack.
I had to take my RS rack down as it was taking up valuable rackspace and I was not going to use it for SP. I am now relying on dynamips to take me through to SP. While Im still learning the dynamips ropes I made a dynamips version of the mini lab, used to conduct the technical interview for a network engineer post.
The dynamips topology is slightly different regarding device names and interface numbers. The initial configs have also been updated and the dynamips .net file is provided:
All files zipped:
Minilab.zip
Initial Configs:
R1
R2
Sw3
Sw4
Dynamips .Net file
Minilab.net
Other related posts:
Mini Lab – Question 1
Mini Lab – Question 2
Mini Lab – Question 3
Mini Lab – Question 4
Mini Lab – Question 5
Mini Lab – Question 6
Mini Lab – Question 7
Mini Lab – Question 8
Mini Lab – Question 9
Mini Lab – Question 10
Solutions based on live rack topology. Update pending:
The BGP Link Bandwidth feature is used to advertise the bandwidth of an autonomous system exit link as an extended community. This feature is configured for links between directly connected external BGP neighbors. This feature is used with BGP multipath features to configure load balancing over links with unequal bandwidth.
Prerequisites
•BGP load balancing or multipath must be configured
•BGP extended community must be configured to be sent between iBGP neighbors
•CEF must be enabled
Restrictions
•Can only be configured under IPv4 and VPNv4 address family
•BGP can originate the link bandwidth community only for directly connected eBGP peers
•iBGP and eBGP load balancing are supported in IPv4 and VPNv4 address families
•eiBGP load balancing is supported only in VPNv4 address-family
Overview
The BGP Link Bandwidth feature is used to enable multipath load balancing for external links with unequal bandwidth. When this feature is enabled, paths learned from directly connected eBGP peers are propagated through to the iBGP peers with the bandwidth of the external link. The link bandwidth extended community indicates the preference of an autonomous system exit link.
The attribute is a 4-byte value that is configured for a link that on the interface that connects two single hop eBGP peers. The extended community is used as a traffic sharing value. Two paths are equal for load balancing if the weight, local-pref, as-path, MED and IGP costs are the same.
source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_2t/12_2t2/feature/guide/ftbgplb.html
Update: I made a practical example of the feature. Be sure to have a quick look as it will start to make a bit more sense:
BGP dmzlink-bw Unequal-cost load-balance
I have cancelled my regular visits to the official worldwide statistics page. Instead I use Antonio Soares’ stats page. His site does not provision for comments, so here goes a ‘thank you’ to Mr Soares for his effort.
New CCIE’s in the last 6 weeks (24/11/08 – 06/01/09):
| NEW: |
TOTAL |
PER DAY |
| CCIE’s |
223 |
5.4 |
| SP |
50 |
1.2 |
| RS+SP |
11 |
1 every 4 days |
| RS |
139 |
3.4 |
| Dual CCIE’s |
42 |
1 |
| Tripple CCIE’s |
11 |
1 every 4 days |
| Total CCIE passes |
276+ (223 + 42 + 11) |
6.7 |
The Total passes does not account for the total CCIE’s going into inactive state. Therefore the total number of passes could be quite higher.
Another interesting article with more stats regarding new CCIE’s: China CCIE count grows 11 times more than U.S.
