Passing the CCIE Collaboration Lab was really hard and a very nice and entertaining experience, which I feel very happy to say that I completed the challenge!!
I will be very short on this post and will make it technical and a bit emotional for the people out there that may benefit from it at all
How many times is enough? Well I started this year thinking that it was going to take as many times as it needed to take… Financially this could be brutal and indeed it is. But the reality is that you need to make everything possible to make it happen. Just make sure you will get it, no matter what! and put every effort possible to achieve the goal.
While my experience on my first attempt was not the brightest one because I failed, I was able to open my mind and think on endless possibilities and maybe potential recommendations. I hope this helps other with their studies and strategies.
Studying and Muscle Memory: Do you studying… I think many instructors across the globe could not stress this one enough… but its right, going into the Lab with just few practice is not enough, muscle memory plays and interesting role on your experience. The need to know your IOS commands without Context Sensitive help is key (this one got me very bad).
I promise this will be a very short one. This week I purchased 3 9971 with the camera in order to get ready for my rack rentals for CCIE Collaboration, well when I got them I noticed that the phones belonged to someone else(Duhhh!!).
I needed to do a factory reset on those guys, or at least be able to remove the ITL files.
My problem was that I could not do any of these because the Admin Settings was locked by a password. Of course you can remove this password but if only if your phone is able to get the SEP config from your CME (off course if you are using CME) - TCLSH procedure here http://collabengineer.com/2014/11/15/cisco-sip-phones-admin-password-removal-cme-tclsh-operation/
On this one I wanted to share a really nice way to remove the Admin password from Cisco SIP phones.
It really is annoying to type the Admin password every time you need to modify or at least take a look at the configuration on your phone.
As you may know when you configure a SIP phone on CME you need to give it a username and password, also SIP is kind enough to publish the SEPXXXXX.cnf.xml file to Flash
So with the introduction of Cisco Prime Collaboration Deployment, now upgrade any of your UC applications its easier and quicker than before. One of the big advantages that I see with this new product is that the product can have control of the overall infrastructure, starting from VMware all the way to the UC applications.
For a better understanding of this product you can use the following link: (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/pcdadmin/10_0_1/CUCM_BK_U9C58CB1_00_pcd-administration-guide-1001.html) - The previous is the one for version 10.x – I don’t see too many changes from version to version.
In order to organize myself for my lab preparation I need to work on my speed and accuracy, so I created quick and very general Lab outlines, which will be covering CUCM as of now. I created them so that I can guide myself and know where to begin, where to stop and don’t burn myself (hoping this strategy to work!!)
I know I’m missing lots and lots of information and study domains, such as QoS and yes, QoS… Infrastructure and Multicast… I do feel confident with the Network infrastructure configuration, but need more work on QoS and Multicast, if you know of good QoS labs let me know… enjoy!
Just for curiosity, I would like to know how is the people on this group preparing for the CCIE Collaboraiton Lab, right now here is my preparation and roadmap:
I have completed a lab in order to be able to study most of the technologies included in the blueprint, here is what I have:
3 Cisco 2811 64 PVDM2 1 Cisco 2821 128 PVDM2 1 Cisco 3750G 24 Port 1 Poweredge 1950 III 32GB - 2 TB HD - 2 XeonQuadCore E5240 2.4Ghz 5 Cisco 7961 2 Cisco 7965
Here is my lab
About the Author: Andres Sarmiento, CCIE # 53520 (Collaboration) With more than 13 years of experience, Andres is specialized in the Unified Communications and Collaboration technologies. Consulted for several companies in South Florida, also Financial Institutions on behalf of Cisco Systems. Andres has been involved in high-profile implementations including Cisco technologies; such as Data Center, UC & Collaboration, Contact Center Express, Routing & Switching, Security and Hosted IPT Service provider infrastructures.
