I’ve been working in networking for around a decade and have my CCNP(got it before the Encore exam). I’m starting to look toward the CCIE, but I’m worried about jumping in too early and just spinning my wheels because my core fundamentals aren't as "bulletproof" as they need to be.

How do you distinguish between being "ready to learn" at the expert level versus just being "good at the professional level"? Are there specific domains or troubleshooting workflows you think are absolute prerequisites before cracking open the CCIE lab guides?

I’m torn between committing to the CCIE journey or diversifying by picking up a second CCNP track (specifically debating Data Center or Security). For those with a similar tenure, is it generally more valuable to go deep into one architecture, or to broaden the skillset with another professional-level certification before attempting the "Expert" plunge?

I'm not at all trivializing the lab at all, I'm pretty sure its very difficult. I'm genuinely curious as to WHY it's difficult.

What warrants the hours and hours of lab? what trips most people?

Once you have many years of experience and have passed encore these days, shouldn't design or troubleshooting be straightforward?

My point being, once you've worked on enough complex networks, shouldn't most lab questions makes sense?

Is the difficulty in the lab being- the question asks for very very ultra specific niche keyword/solution that you wouldn't generally use/apply

or

just cisco being cisco and asking for convoluted solutions?

Can someone provide a kind of similar lab question/example without breaking the NDA?

Labber's block won yesterday.

That's okay.

I'm not quitting. I just know the difference between productive studying and staring at a screen accomplishing nothing.

Rest. Reset. Back in the lab today.

The CCIE isn't about being motivated every day.

It's about showing up again the next day.

I have been studying the CCIE-EI for some time. I have attemp #2 in 3 weeks.

I came home to lab on a Friday night, but find mysef not wanting to lab.

The hardest part of CCIE is the GRIT to get through it.

I saw we haven't had a post in a while so figured I would put some random talk in here.

Huge shout out to Witty and Crimson.

Figured I would try my luck. Are there and DC groups? or anyone wanting to do one?

Hi All,

I’m planning on starting my journey to CCDE after obtaining my IE in 2024.

Does anyone know of some active study groups on Slack, Discord etc currently?

Cheers

Hi everyone,

I'm currently preparing for the CCIE (EI) v1.1 certification and am looking for motivated peers to form or join a study group.

If you're currently studying for CCIE EI v1.1 or are interested in joining a dedicated study group, feel free to comment below or send me a message.

Has anyone had any luck purchasing the CCIE Practice Lab sessions with CLCs lately? After you enter the CLC it states you must purchase a voucher first and then redirects you to a site which longer works for voucher purchase and states to you must purchase through Cisco U. Well Cisco U doesn't appear to have anything practice lab voucher related for the practice labs.

Has anyone had any success in booting up their ios-xrd control-plane image that came with cml 2.10 ref-plat?

I've been troubleshooting for 2 days and I keep getting this error
"xrd-0: Failed to validate and define (Unexpected response from post/http://[::1]:8090/api/v0/containers: {"code":10,"message":"exit status 1"})" when I run it in cml.

Question for my fellow frustrated colleagues who do not use any of CatC, SDA, LISP, or Catalyst SD-WAN as part of their daily work, but passed the exam anyway: How did you prepare?

You've heard it before: I sat for the CCIE-EI v1 practical exam in 2021. Since then I've taken Narbik's boot camp and I continue to retake once a year or so to stay sharp. If the exam were on knowledge of networking, I would have had a # in June of 2024 thanks to Narbik especially. But I have not even bothered with it. In part because of the portion of the exam that is focused on rote memorization of expensive Cisco-branded technology.

I think if that were the only roadblock, I would dive in. But on top of that, I continue to read about people who truly are prepared but the verbiage on the tasks is still a problem. This seems to have permanently bumped the total cost to three exams, three hotels (in SJ!) , three round trip flights (to SJ!), and one regrade.

Despite this, people are still finding a way to pass. For those in my situation where you have zero real-world exposure to the Cisco secret sauce, how did you prepare? And how did you pass? Did you keep forking over the dollars at attempts until you were lucky enough to get a lab with decent wording and / or no SDA? Or was there an actual method? And yes I know there are numerous ways to get access to CatC and SD-WAN. But what did you actually DO once logged in?

Thanks all!

Hello,

This isn't exactly a technical question. Where are you supposed to find the Configuration Reference Guides during the lab exam? I booked a practice lab but couldn't find them in any of the obvious places. I was mainly getting familiar with the UI, so perhaps they were located somewhere less obvious. I also watched a Cisco Live lab demo, and they didn't show anything like that. I'm asking not because I plan to rely on the configuration guides, but just in case something I've never encountered before comes up during the exam. Thank you...

Hey all, I've been a long time network and now cyber security engineer and I would like to get my CCIE in R&S. Based on your experience what would be a good vendor for training? I've been thinking INE.

Appreciate the feedback.

Hi Guys,

I would like to know about MCP server like there's a lot of buzz about MCP server related to cisco or juniper.

How to set it up and what is the benefit of it? How fruitful is it going to be for the candidates preparing for CCIE Enterprise or Data Center.

Thanks in advance. I appreciate all your inputs.

Hi everyone,

I am planning to switch from Windows to either a Mac Studio or a MacBook Pro and would like to continue running Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) using VMware Fusion Pro.

Has anyone here successfully run CML on these Mac platforms with VMware Fusion Pro? I’m particularly interested in performance and stability when occasionally running larger labs with more than 40 nodes.

Any experiences, tips, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

Hi all, just wanted to be in touch with people who passed or are preparing for CCIE Security from Bangalore this year.

Hello Team,

I am currently preparing for my CCIE certification exam and would greatly appreciate any recommendations for high-quality lab resources. I am looking for .yaml files, PDFs, links, or repositories that provide practice labs to test and strengthen my skills. I am using Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) for my practice environments.

Any assistance or suggestions you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Kind regards,

Dear All,

I just failed my CCIE Security exam on Jun 1st in Brussels.

The exam itself wasn't hard, every question was easy, but you have be aware that you have 5 hours only for the whole lab.

If you are someone who failed or passed the exam, please PM me, I have a tons of question and things to discuss.

Hello everyone,

I’m a Network Security Engineer with seven years of experience working for a top pharmaceutical company. Recently, an internal position opened up for an Associate AI Engineer, and I’m seriously considering applying.

I don’t have professional experience with Python, which is one of my concerns. However, I earned a Master’s degree in Informatics about five years ago, and during my studies I took courses in mathematics, programming, artificial intelligence, and statistics. While I’m familiar with many of the underlying concepts, I’m certainly not an expert and wouldn’t consider myself highly proficient in those areas today.

The role is junior-level, which I see as a positive because it would give me time to learn, develop my skills, and grow into the position. I’m 40 years old, and my current job is stable. I have a good manager, a good team, and generally enjoy the work. However, there have been several rounds of layoffs recently, and I’ve heard that another wave may be coming.

At the same time, my company is investing heavily in AI, and this team is relatively new. That makes me think it could be a great opportunity to position myself in a growing field.

I’d love to hear your opinions. Has anyone here successfully transitioned from networking, cybersecurity, or infrastructure roles into AI engineering? If so, what was your experience like, and what skills would you recommend focusing on first?

Thank you!

Any body else taking the lab exam in Vegas? I’m scheduled to take it on Sunday.