Hi Otuoze: I was also in the same boat, I think this was about 2 or 3 years ago when Cisco decided to change the CCNA/CCNET exam, and ONLY have the one big exam 200-301? sorry if I got the number wrong, every Exam number keeps changing, I still have the old CCENT/CCNA Material and might pursue it again, this guy in this video seems to be around my age, but has one major advantage over me, "Experience" he works at a major computer distributor, I don't think you this level of certification, maybe the CompTIA A+ or Network+ Certification but not the CCIE level. great video anyways.

I'm glad this video can be of help to you. Good luck on your lab exam.

@@RichTechGuy Thanks!!

Thank you!

Hi Daniel: are you still working the IT Field?

@@danloyer6241 Yes I am

Good luck with your studies. Experience helps, but studying and lab time are the biggest factors to getting a CCIE.

I devoted about 3-4 hours a day studying for the written exam. After I passed that, my boss understood the importance of getting the CCIE and allocated time during work hours for study, which allowed me to study 6-7 hours a day for the lab. This is why I talk about the importance of having a support network, also as a result that support network, I was able to build my own lab using equipment at work. Everybody's sitution is different, study what you can when you can.

@@RichTechGuy Thanks for responding and for the advice. I see in your video from start to finish you took 18 months, including 3 exam attempts with 4 months in between each try. That means you took your first exam after 10 months, and in that time you also studied and passed the written - that's a very short timeframe!

You can check out my video on how I use Cisco Labs for free. You won't get a full CCIE lab, but you can practice elements of the lab for the CCIE. Also, for $200, you can get a Cisco Modeling Labs license which allows you to build virtual labs. Otherwise, you can look at companies like INE for CCIE lab rentals.

Yes, you can do EVE-ng which is virtual but you can still do it that way.

I passed the CCIE DC when it was Version 1 and there weren't many books for that program. What I did was, I pulled the list of exam topics, which Cisco posts on their website and then I went through each topic and subtopic and found Cisco support documents that covered each topic, revied them and where possible practiced them in a lab. I also attended 2 in-person classes hosted by Cisco Advanced Services on the CCIE DC cirriculum, one class covered Nexus & MDS switching and the other was around UCS computing. Each class was a deep dive on the topics and we could practice using Cisco Advanced Services own lab setup. Unfortunatly, these classes are no longer offered. They were also a few thousand dollars each, which my company paid for. With all of that information, lab access was key, but even when I couldn't do that, I would test myself by writing configs into a text editor (notepad++ or vim) and then copy when I had the lab access. For example, I would test myself on something like how to configure FCoE and zoning on a Nexus 7K, write up the commands in the text editor and then later I would run through what I'd written in a lab.

The DevNet Associate exam topics and links to study material are listed here: developer.cisco.com/certification/exam-topic-associate/ 15% of the DevNet Associate is Network fundamentals, which is covered by the CCNA. Python is the main language referenced in the DevNet Associate so you will need to know it, but you can study Python as part of studying for the DevNet Associate.

@@RichTechGuy ok thank you so much 👊🏾

CCIE shirts can be ordered at shop.cisco.com. You need to provide Cisco with your CCIE credentials, which they will verify before processing the order.

@@RichTechGuy Thanks a lot.

The CCIE Routing & Switching written exam (400-101) was retired in February 2020. The current prerequisite exam for the CCIE Enterprise lab is the ENCOR (350-401), which is also the core exam for the CCNP Enterprise.