It’s been just under a year since I passed the SP lab, I’ve been concentrating on my career and work rather than studies and things have been moving along very nicely, having just started a new job. The technology is much more leading edge, specifically using Cisco’s IOS-XR which runs on the platforms CRS/ASR9k/GSR.
I spent a few months after the lab teaching myself Perl, which for any network engineer is a very powerful tool. Personally I think things like UNIX & scripting skills are what set good network engineers apart. I would strongly recommend the book by O’Reily “Learning Perl”. The author is so easy to follow and makes the whole thing very easy, this is on a par with the 642-642 QoS book which I also really liked.
Moving on to the point of this post, I’ve decided to start on my CCIE R&S! I don’t predict this being a huge task because I believe the course overlap is around 70%. I’m starting off with the book “Cisco Press – CCIE R&S Exam Certification Guide, 4th Edition”.
The plan is pretty much read that, sit written and start on the full scale labs by Internetwork Expert before hitting up the lab exam. I think I can knock this over in around six months after which I might start looking at CCDP/CCDE.
