The goals and study plan for the CCIE lab exam

So it's always best to have a goal, or a plan, for studying. So I will break it down into 12 months with the end goal being taking the lab exam a year from now.

Month 1 will start on 1st August (2013).

So where am I now?

I finished up my CCNP Switch and TShoot exams and have started collecting study resources, books and buying equipment, and generally having a little break. I have just started with the Wendell Odom book CCIE Routing and Switching Certification Guide (4th Edition). Which really should be the first book you start reading - for obvious reasons, the clue is in the title!

I have got some of the practice labs from different vendors and will start to segment them into the varying topics and do those portions of the labs as I progress through the Odom book.

Clearly there are topics that will need a bit of a refresh, and many that will be completely new to me. But then who doesn't like a challenge. If I didn't like a challenge then I wouldn't be doing this exam...

The Odom book above has 20 chapters. 20 divided by 12 is 1.7 (rounded up). So lets call it a minimum of 2 chapters a month. That gives 10 months for reading and learning and two months of solid practice. I could perhaps clear it in a quicker time, but I also want to balance my time between my wife and children and my studies.

I will continue to use this blog to solidify my knowledge as the best way to learn something is through repetition, and hopefully others will benefit as well. At the end of every month will be an update with current progress and it will serve to (hopefully) keep me on track.

So so far - Chapter 1 is done and I have a week left before the clock starts. I will be in sunny Spain next week, so hopefully will be able to finish a large part of the book.

Anyway, enough talking, got to start on chapter 2...