IPexpert R&S Lab Update Announcement
By Jared Scrivener:
Well, after much anticipation Cisco has announced their new blueprint v4.0 for the Routing and Switching lab exam. Wow. This is huge. There’s NEVER been a better time to become a CCIE, because here at IPexpert we’ll take you from zero to three IE’s almost effortlessly (well, actually with a lot of effort and dedication, but our products will make it a breeze). Let me explain how…
Firstly, nothing is removed from the existing V3.0 R&S blueprint from a software standpoint – anything you already have been studying you’ll be tested on plus the additions in IOS 12.4T. From a hardware standpoint, the switches will now all use 3560’s and the routers will be ISRs (1841’s and 3825’s) – it’s 2009 after all. This is great for those of you already using Proctorlabs – we’ve been using 2800 and 3800 series ISR’s in our pods for some time now, in our effort to ensure that new CCIE’s are trained on the latest hardware your lab requires. As such there’ll be no interruption to our rack rental service during upgrades, no cheap 2600 routers (or 2500 routers) and no price increase while we pay for equipment updates during these current economic times. In fact, to thank the CCIE community for its loyalty over the past few years for helping as graduate more CCIE’s than any other company we’re going to drop the cost of rack rental for our hardware and start allowing you to book 4-hour sessions as well as 8-hour sessions so that if you are preparing for the troubleshooting section of the lab (which will be 2 hours long) you can do so and save up the rest of your hours. To help you maximize every minute you can preload configuration for any lab onto your pod and save your working configuration in our database so that when you next need to use it you can continue seamlessly.
Add to that, the fact that it’s now cheaper to purchase 50 rack sessions which is almost 400 hours of rack time (more than I used as a student for any of the three CCIE tracks IPexpert prepared me for) for far less than the cost of one 3825 ISR or 3560 switch (probably 800 sessions if you pay Cisco’s MSRP) using Proctorlabs will become a no brainer. Oh, if the new troubleshooting section requires the knowledge and use of real hardware just like the real world (simulation of real world issues is the impetus for the R&S update), Dynamips cannot support that. If you can’t work out how to afford it, contact us – we’ll find a way, even if it involves payment in installments (we understand credit is tight), so please don’t waste your money and time on buying used equipment from eBay thus breaching Cisco’s terms of use and putting your CCIE in jeopardy.
So what’s new? Well, now the team at IPexpert gets to teach our R&S students about additional technologies from the Service Provider track including MPLS, MPLS Layer 3 VPNs, VRFs, more advanced BGP (including address families and Optimized Edge Routing) as well as topics from the new Security track including zone-based firewalls and router IPS. This will make you the most highly capable cohort of CCIEs yet produced. Yep, when you pass on the new track boast about it – then suggest to any CCIEs that you know that if they want their skills as honed as yours we’ll give them a seat in a boot camp for an exclusively low price as part of our commitment to ensuring that the standard of CCIE’s in the world is kept high both through our exemplary training products and our desire to help all CCIE’s maintain their knowledge.
To this end, we will have technology focused labs covering the new topics added to our R&S product THIS WEEK. Not June, October or 2010. This week. Here at IPexpert we don’t mess around – if you need labs, we’ll give you labs. OK, not give: We’ll sell you labs – at a price that’ll make your jaw drop. In fact, our instructor led training courses are already updated – just let us know when you book which version (v3 or v4) of the course you’d prefer and we’ll put you into that stream and provide you with BOTH manuals (one in soft copy) so that even when you pass on the current blueprint (as our students tend to if they follow our guidance) you’ll have the new information as a resource so that you can troubleshoot MPLS or configure a zone-based firewall if that’s what your job requires.
With respect to the rest of our self study products, our updates will be coming thick and fast. It’s hard for me to explain to you how good our new labs will be – the real lab will have a 2 hour troubleshooting section and a 6 hour configuration section. As always, our philosophy is borrowed from the National Guard (thanks to Larry Hadrava CCIE #12213 for his past service and for providing this quote): Train Like You Fight. To that end, our Volume 2 labs will include 4-8 hour complex troubleshooting labs and a configuration labs of the same caliber IPexpert is famous for: if you can do them in 8 hours you can pass your real lab in 6 (note, that’s not a guarantee – just my own personal experience from having passed every CCIE lab I’ve sat for and that of some of my students), because they are each 8-12 hours worth of TOUGH content – that’s why our Volume One product will also need some additions… Yep, for each Volume One technology focused lab we’ll be providing an accompanying troubleshooting lab, so that you learn each protocol inside and out and are ready to tackle IPexpert’s Mock Labs (which will all have walkthrough videos).
But wait – there’s more. Our Audio on Demand course will be completely reworked to help prepare you for both the written exam (and your CCNP if that’s an interim goal) and I’ll be recording a new Video on Demand course including the new content – I just hope you can put up with my Australian accent! Just in case you aren’t sure how good an opportunity this is, to get you used to the kind of service we provide here’s a bonus: IPexpert’s trademarked “Ask The Expert” sessions will run weekly with one of our instructors (cycling between each track) where an instructor, either myself or my colleagues, will walk you through one of our Technology Focused labs LIVE online (to be announced in our next newsletter). The only requirement to attend is that you own our Volume One labs so that you can follow along in your manual – yep, this is a FREE bonus for all customers. We’ll even do them in alternating time zones so that it doesn’t matter where on Earth you are (heck, if you’re working for NASA as an astronaut provided a CCIE helped setup the network so it stays up, we’ll train you).
Unlike other companies who were caught unaware of this update, our CEO, Wayne Lawson, predicted these changes to the blueprint perfectly April 23rd and hence IPexpert will have our new R&S material to you well before you need it – I’m so sure of that, that on October 18th I’ll be doing an Ask The Expert session to celebrate the new blueprint where I will provide my personal cell phone number to the WORLD to harass me if ANY part of the product is not at your fingertips when you ask for it. Can you name another Triple CCIE instructor whose phone number you know and can dial at any time? That’s how confident I am and if you don’t believe me please post an email to the mailing lists at OnlineStudyList.com and groupstudy.com to see if I give this out and answer my calls – I’m confident you’ll get concurrence from my boot camp students and those who needed it that I give it out only if you REALLY need it, but I do give it out…
I mentioned at the start going from zero to three CCIE’s – start with R&S now and as soon as you pass, one of our CCIE’s will tailor you a study program to move straight into Security (about 20% overlap with R&S) or Service Provider (which is now about 70% overlap with R&S) at a discounted rate (as IPexpert did for me when I came back for my second CCIE) if you want to take a quick route to a second or third CCIE, or if you want to join my study group as I study for my Voice track, our Voice instructors, Mark and Vik who are the best in the world will help get us over that line.
In case between, the labs, the hardware, the videos, the audio, the boot camps, the Ask The Expert sessions and our support list, OnlineStudyList.com which is supported by our instructors and support engineers (all IPexpert students who are now CCIE’s) you still need more incentive to get yourself a CCIE, here’s something to consider:
IPexpert’s v4.0 R&S Blended Learning Solution (Workbooks, Audio and VOD): $1999
Proctorlabs sessions to enable you to do 400 hours of rack time: $1400
IPexpert’s v4.0 R&S Instructor Led Boot Camp: $3000
CCIE Lab Exam: $1400
Average US CCIE Salary: $120,330 (Certification Magazine, salary survey, December 2008)
Knowing that you will be able to stay employed most likely on a six figure salary by having a Routing and Switching CCIE during the toughest economy in a century: Priceless.
Thanks
Larry H.
CCIE #12203 (R&S)
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