Ok I had been going back and forth with choosing which date to actually book for my lab. According to my employer I have to at least sit for the lab no later than 4th Quarter 2009. With that in mind I was planning on taking the lab in November, November 23 to be exact. After thinking about where I am at with my subject knowledge, I quickly changed my mind and settled on December 21, 2009. Now here’s the deal. I will be attending IPexpert’s CCIE Voice boot camp out in San Jose, CA. They have two dates that I have been considering, October 19 – 30, 2009 and November 30 – December 11, 2009.
I know that these boot camps fill up rather quick so I said to myself, “Self, let’s be smart about how we schedule these events!” So I came up with this solution. Schedule the boot camp for October 19 – 30, 2009, work my arse off to make sure I am ready for it by at least September or early October. If not, then reschedule the boot camp for November 30 – December 11, 2009 and keep my lab date of December 21. However, if I am ready for the boot camp and I do well during the boot camp in October, then reschedule my lab date for November.
All I have to do now is keep an eye out for good plane tickets, right now they’re $243 round-trip from Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) to San Jose (SJC). If you guys here of some good deals or websites that typically have good deals on plane tickets, let me know. Until next update, keep studying people…
It’s been a couple of days since I last wrote about getting back on the horse. I have had to recommit my mind, heart, and efforts to this journey. I’ve also had to refocus on a structured approach to my studies. I have somewhere around 136 days before I go to IPexperts boot camp in San Jose, CA, and about 169 days before I sit for the lab. I figure if I can get a MINIMUM of 5 hours of focused studying in per day everyday, that will put around 685 hours of studying by the time I go to boot camp.
IPexpert has a recommended approach to using their BLS program; it’s broken down into 3 steps.
- Video on Demand: Watch the video on demand series beginning with Chapter 1 and follow through with the Video on Demand Exercises for Chapter 1. Then work through the corresponding chapters in the Volume 1 Workbook.
- Move on to Volume 1 Technology-Focused labs. Work through all 16 chapters. DO NOT leave one chapter for the next until you have successfully completed the exercises and you FULLY understand them.
- Move on to Volume 3 (Mock Labs). Work through each of the labs individually; and DO NOT move on to the next lab until you can complete the lab you are on in 6 hours.
So I have started all over with the BLS Video on Demand videos.
Infrastructure:
2.3 VLANs and Trunking
2.4 DHCP
2.5 VTP
UCM Basics:
3.1 UCM Basics
5.0 Calling Search Spaces and Partitions
3.2 Calling Search Spaces and Partitions ( Exercise Walkthrough)
I am in the process of building a functional lab, as best I can anyway. The lab sessions with Proctor Labs are 8 hour sessions and so far for the month of June, all filled up until next Saturday (June 13, 2009). I need all of the hands on practice that I can possibly get. My plan in the mean time is to watch the videos, watch the corresponding exercise walkthrough, and read or reread about the sections in either the SRND or one of the many books that I have.
Tonight it’s all about Calling Search Spaces and Partitions. I will watch the videos a few times, take notes each time, and read the chapter about the Calling Search Spaces and Partitions in Cisco CallManager Fundamentals and the CUCM 7.x SRND.
Well that’s all for now people, time to press play.
