Last month was a bit crazy so I didn’t have time to blog, I was away at Hacking at Random in the Netherlands where I gave a talk (I never appreciated how much time it takes preparing a talk). The network guys there created something I think many of us will appreciate, for outside distribution facilities they turn portaloos containing switching equipment to allow for ethernet to the tent door! See the picture below its probably more reliable than some data centers I have been in…

I was also away on my annual holiday, and I took across the audio lectures from my IPX BLS to watch by the pool and on the beach so I could go over some points as my girlfriend prohibited me from taking text books with me

I also gave a lighting talk at another networking event in the UK into my bit of research into routing protocol CPU utilisation.

Anyway I have now finally booked my lab date sometime next year and working out what study methods work for me lab wise and I should have some sort of schedule in about a week or so and will be back blogging regularly until I pass the lab.

Unfortunately work and some other commitments are going to hit me pretty hard this month, I am going to be giving a talk at HAR2009 and am spending a bit of time preparing for that.

I also have a weeks vacation and am then scheduled to give a lightening talk on a separate subject almost immediately after that. So I have pushed the Cisco studies back by a couple of weeks and don’t intend on giving any updates until roughly the 14th of September.

As it has been well documented Cisco is changing the Routing & Switching exam to version 4.0 on the 18th of October 2009, its 4 months away so I should be able to pass before then as I was almost ready for the written late last year.

There are no materials released for the 4.0 blueprint yet  https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-4604 but I will be using the 3rd edition of the CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide, the InformIT quick reference sheets, DocCD, and blogging just to keep my thoughts together.

I have booked a date for the written in August which is going to be a busy month with a trip to the Netherlands for har2009,  so time will be tight. If I don’t pass first time which is likely I will just retake a couple of weeks later.

Beta tests for the new written exam will be going on July & August, but I am considering giving it a go just to get a feel so I know what to expect if I get delayed and had to take the 4.0 track, at $50 you cant go wrong.

I picked up a free voucher to complete a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist exam and I didn’t have any immediate study plans for Cisco exams so I decided to give it a punt. I flicked through the MCTS exams they offer and the MCTS for Windows Server 2008, Configuring Network Infrastructure caught my eye. I deal with quite a few sites which have Windows Servers to handle things like DHCP, & DNS so I thought this would be the ideal Microsoft Certification to complement my existing Cisco qualifications.

I used a free trial of Amazon prime to get free next day delivery and ordered this book MCTS 70-642 Exam Cram: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring (Exam Cram (Que)) I have seen a few exam cram books sitting on some peoples desks and heard good things about them. The content was pretty good and it skipped alot of the basic details which might not benefit the inexperienced reader, but the book desperately needed to be proof read there were lots of errors in it. It was an easy read so I was able to cover around 80 pages each evening without much difficulty.

The voucher had a short lifetime and the furthest date I could find a testing center date in the vouchers validity was 9 days away, which gave me 8 days to prepare from when I received the book. I used the exam cram book as the method of study and had a couple of Sever 2008 VMs running using Virtual Box.

I was really disappointed in the quality of the exam, I don’t wish to break the NDA so wont discuss the contents but it was entirely multiple choice there were no simulation or drag and drop type questions.  There were 50 questions and you would have to practically take a nap to run out of time, I finished with around 50 minutes to spare. The exam was easy and even with only a week to prepare I managed to get 833 out of 700.

One of the reasons why I value my Cisco certifications is that it takes real time and commitment to study for them and pass, also Cisco works hard to make the test difficult to pass without real understanding. In my eyes this test doesn’t carry any weight and I wouldn’t recommend it unless your looking for an extra line on your CV or get hold of a free voucher.

As you might have noticed its been a bit quiet around here, since after I went on holiday.

When I went away I decided that I would complete my honours degree which meant I would not have enough time to continue studying for my CCIE, so the Cisco studies were moved to the backburner.  I’m pleased to say the degree has been completed and I am in a position to start studying again.

My dissertation involved analysing if BGP-4 was fit for the purpose of Internet routing, I also performed an analysis of the CPU requirements for BGP & OSPF with some very interesting results, I will post snippets of my research up here soon.

I also have a great new job and work in computer security for a UK ISP, but wont be working with routing & switching on a daily basis anymore which has worried me slightly but I still want to achieve my CCIE as its a lifetime goal.

It hasn’t been announced publicly yet but I will be giving a talk in August 2009 on “Securing Networks from an ISP Perspective” at a large computer security event called Hacking at Random, the last event in the series 4 years ago was called “What the Hack”.  If your attending please give me a shout.

I’m going to put a timetable for my studies online in the next week or so and continue to use this blog as a study tool to keep me motivated and all my notes in one place. But I wont be ramping the study time from manageable to crazy until after Hacking at Random.

Just to let you all know that there wont be any updates or comment approvals on this site until I return from holiday on the 14th of September 2008.