What's next

After passing CCIE exam, I felt kind of lost for some period of time, during which I was coming up with different ideas about what to do next and some of them were so fundamental that it would take many months if not years to tackle them fully. This post's main target is to list all topics that interest me and try to layout my plan of tackling them.

How it all began....

I was going back and forth between CCIE SP, VMware NSX, CCDE, Python, Ansible and the likes.

Unfortunately, our time is always limited, so you have to prioritize. I decided to make a list of technologies that I would like to expand on and here it goes:

1. CCIE SP. Honestly, I would not call this exam super exciting but I need to know these topics for CCDE, so I will pass it as a part of my CCDE studies.
2. CCDE. This is what really interests me. When I began my CCIE studies, I truly believed that CCIE knowledge makes you a God of networking. What a shameful misconception! I was getting closer and closer to the exam and realized something more and more: CCIE doesn't bring you to the heaven of networking. CCIE engineer can simply translate what he has been told by an architect into CLI commands, but he doesn't necessarily understands why this particular technology was chosen. What were the business requirements? Why IS-IS was chosen over OSPF? When do you need to use this particular protocol? And this is what CCDE brings to the table. In fact, the next day after I passed CCIE, I was jumping like crazy because I had set myself new target - CCDE. That is my next try of getting closer to the heaven of networking.

The topics mentioned above will be the core of my studies. Plus, in parallel I will do my research on:

• Ansible
• VMware NSX

Out of all these topics, NSX deserves a few more words. Once I was done with CCIE RS (e.g. mastered DHCP on legacy IOS, you know), I was very excited to learn about VMware NSX. And their certification that allows you to pass VCIX-NV bypassing all pre-requisite exams if you hold CCIE DC or RS. I've started to play with it and was impressed by it's capabilities, but...doing everything via GUI just...feels so unnatural and inefficient for me (sorry Windows guys). So I guess I will put VCIX-NV on hold for some time, while I'm doing stuff that really moves me: network automation. That said I will focus on Ansible and of course my great friend Python.

Sounds like a plan.

CCIE tips

This week my exciting journey to CCIE R&S ended in Toronto. I passed the lab on my first attempt.

As always, I want to share what I believe is important to successfully pass CCIE lab. This time I'm not going to talk about technical part. Enough was said by many people. Contrary to that, most of the time CCIE candidates miss one very important part of the exam - mental preparation and physical health.
No, I'm not going to give you advice to go to the gym instead of spending hundreds or thousands of hours in front of CLI, but here is what I trust is important:

1. Align your preparation schedule with the lab time.

For the past 3 months, every single weekend at 7 am I have already been sitting and doing mock troubleshooting labs. And yes, weekdays also. Your body has to be ready to think and act fast early in the morning. Troubleshooting was by far the most difficult part of the lab for me as time was very limited, GUI was unknown, etc.

2. Sleep well. Don't be exhausted when the lab time comes.

3. Use secret weapon - ear plugs. I took mines to the lab and the proctor allowed me to use them no problems. I was so grateful I didn't forget them at home, they helped me to concentrate more easily (in fact, earplugs were the first thing I packed to my backpack before going to Toronto! :)).

4. And the last but not least - get support from your family. Talk to them, explain the importance. Intensive CCIE studies is a very hard time for everybody, including your loved ones. Especially it applies to people with kids like me. My wife and 2 daughters agree :)

Dream, study, win!

Igor