CCIE Routing and Switching Practice Labs (Digital Short Cut)

Well... good news! I was reading through cciepursuit blog (just GREAT Blog, I read it daily!) and found an article about the new CCIE Routing and Switching Practice Labs (Digital Short Cut) from Cisco Press, ok! That´s good! I do like digital editions due to two things...:

1 - Shiping to Brazil is too expensive;

2 - As far as the product is downloadable, I do not have to pay "taxes" to get it! It doesn´t goes through brazillian customs, so that´s great (believe me, taxes here are HUGE, almost 100% of the product);

Would I like better to get it in a "normal" printed book format?! Yes, off course! It would be MUCH better... But due to the facts explained, it´s my best option (for everything!).

I´ve just took a look at the chapters, it seens the topology used is the same one of Cisco´s CCIE R&S Assessor LAB, version B. It also suggest if you don´t have 6 Routers and 4 Switches, that you can use the Assessor Lab for it, loading the configs in the Appendix! Off course I´ll pay $279 for a 4 hours Rack Rental, to use it! :) I preffer to stick with my Dynamips for this one! Maybe some Rack Vendor will soon have at least one rack with this topology (or similar to it), otherwise, Dynamips!!!

I´ve also was too curious about the Ask the Proctor section in the eBook, those are cool! It has 10 Q&A for Practice Lab 1 and more 8 Q&A for Practice Lab 2. Ok, I´ve always saw posts on how to ask Proctors questions that they can either answer a simple YES or NO (like binary method, 1 or 0, hahaha), but this Ask the Proctor section give us some good examples. You may ask if those Q&A included in the eBook essential to pass the exam?! Absolutely not! It´ll only give you a few examples on questions to ask the Proctor, so you can start thinking on "how" to ask them based on the examples!

Lab Debrief section works like "Lab Breakdown" you usually see from the Workbooks. It´s pretty cool also, with explanations about the scenario, the configuration needed to achieve the task results, and some commands to check! Really good material!

In fact it seens to be a good tool for all of us preparing for the CCIE R&S Lab, but I just looked through the book really fast to kill my curiosity about it. In the next few days I´ll check it with closer attention and I´ll blog some more about!

One other thing, is if Cisco is releasing new material to the CCIE R&S Lab exam, we should not expect changes to the lab (at least not soon) like Internetwork Expert said in their CCIE Blog few days ago!

Oh yeah! An piece of advice, if you have any Cisco Press book, register it under your account to receive a 35% discount coupon code so you can use to order it, that way, instead of paying $79.99 you´ll get it for $51.99, it´s not cheap, but at least much better!