Purpose
Last updated
Last updated
I created this lab workbook as a private study tool while working towards the CCIE-SPv5.1. Instead of creating notes during my studies, I created labs. Notes can be passively reread, but labs are a way of actively retesting, which I felt was much more useful. It seemed a shame to just let these sit in my private notes, when others may be going down the same path as me and could benefit from having these exercises, so I am making these publicly available.
I started creating these labs because I had some trouble retaining knowledge as I went through my studies. For example, I might spend a few weeks on multicast, then a few weeks on VPLS, then a few weeks on RSVP-TE. As time went on, my multicast knowledge became less and less fresh. I felt like I was forgetting the details of what I learned 2+ months ago. When you consider that the CCIE takes more than a year to study for, I was very concerned with being able to retain knowledge throughout the journey.
My solution to this was to create my own lab exercises in the style of the INE RSv5 workbook, so that I could continually retest my knowledge throughout my studies. This helped in multiple ways. First, just the process of creating a lab exercise, writing the prompt, writing the solution, and explaining the solution, was a very useful study tool. If I can't explain how it works, then I don't understand it. Second, I could then easily go back to these lab exercises and quickly refresh my memory. My schedule would be something like this: Monday through Saturday I would work on a new topic and write labs on that topic. On Sunday, I would spend the day on a topic I went over previously and redo those labs.
This idea originally came from this:
I actually began my CCIE-SP studies by going through INE's training for the old RSv5. I felt that I should get a very solid foundation on the IGPs, BGP, etc, before delving deep into more specific SP technologies. So for six months, I pretended like I was going for the old RSv5 exam.
Towards the end of my RSv5 studies, I used the Anki flashcard deck, which is mentioned in the link above. This flashcard deki was simply composed of one card per lab exercise. I did ~10 new cards per day, so I ended up doing maybe 10-20 cards every day. (Each day you see new cards, and also review old cards based on spaced repetition). I found this to be an amazing experience. Let's say there are 300 lab exercises in that workbook. Just doing each one of those a single time will teach you something, but you likely will not retain it. Going through these labs repeatedly, and focusing on the labs you are struggling with (which happens naturally based on Anki's spaced repetition), solidified those exercises for me. After maybe 2-3 months of drilling those labs, I may have done each one 10 times over. Not only did this help me retain knowledge, but it also naturally teached me how to complete these with speed. I didn't want to spend 4+ hours doing these every day, so I naturally started speeding up as I completed the exercises. Once I was done drilling the workbook exercises, I did a few of INE's mock RSv5 full scale labs, and then moved onto SP studies.
At the beginning of my CCIE-SP study phase, I quickly found that there was no good SP workbook. INE had an SPv4 workbook, but it was extremely minimal compared to their RSv5 workbook. Many of the tasks were a little too easy for me as well. (Simply enabling the IGP, enabling LDP, etc, was not super challenging). However, I did spend maybe a month starting with that workbook. The exercises were still worth doing, but not even close to being enough for the SPv5.1 exam.
Russo's SPv4 workbook is a goldmine. However, the way he is walking you through his lab was not as useful for me as the INE style, where there is a prompt and you must answer it on your own. Łukasz's workbook is also like this too. However, his workbook has the benefit that it is updated for SPv5. But I still didn't feel like it was enough. Therefore, I decided to just create my own lab exercises, using the INE style of: prompt, answer, and explanation. I felt that active study (actively solving lab tasks) was a much better use of time than passive study (reading and following along with someone else's lab).
I should mention that many of these exercises are quite difficult. Don't expect that you will know how to solve every lab at first glance. It may be that you simply want to "walk through" the labs at first to get a feel for them. Later you can come back and actually try to solve them on your own, to see what you retain. It also could be the case that the prompts are not clear enough. If so, I appologize, and I wouldn't be too surprised, as these were created only for myself, so I "knew what I meant" on some of these prompts. I welcome any suggestions to make edits to these. You can reach out to me on Linkedin here:
Although, it very well could be the case that you can learn these topics primarily through this workbook. For example, the SR section is quite thorough and explains SR practically from the ground up. But I think you will find that the explanations in this workbook may not fully make sense without understanding the topic beforehand. I tried to make my explanations somewhat brief, because I was using this as a review tool, so I tried to make it as time-efficient as possible to review.
I also have a few full-scale lab exercises that I created during this process. I'm not sure how much use this workbook will get, so I have not bothered posting them here. It would be quite a bit of additional work. If there is enough interest, I'll consider posting them. But you will need to use the official practice labs from Cisco anyways before sitting for the lab. I would suggest doing the official practice lab tasks, and then letting that influence you in creating your own full scale practice labs during your final preparation.
I also may consider creating some short video answers to selected workbook exercises in the future. But again, only if there is enough interest.
I sincerely hope that others find these lab exercises useful for their own studies.
I would not suggest using these labs as a primary resource for learning the topics. I would use them to test your knowledge once you've learned a topic, or as "homework" while learning a topic. The resources mentioned here is a great starting point for general SPv5.1 studies: