The Journey of CCIE(EI)

 I have not written any long articles for many years, especially after starting my career a long time ago. Most of the time, we just write simple emails with a few paragraphs. As far as I can recall, the last time I had written a long article was during my dissertation for my master’s degree in University.

        However, upon Lecturer Yang’s request, I had to bite the bullet and write something, partially to record the hard work I have put in for the past several months, but mainly to express gratitude towards people who have been helping me along the way. I would like to thank Lecturer Jin and Yang for their thorough explanations in every technical domains, modules, and topics, which are required for CCIE(EI). Whenever I have any queries or doubts, they are always willing to spend time to clear my doubts and queries.

        Besides lecturer Jin and Yang, I would also like to say thank you to a few classmates, for the friendship that we have, this was something I did not expect before joining the Wolf-lab class. Wu,  my currently colleague, together with me, we did a small project just before joining the class.However, at the beginning I was not sure if it was  him as I was worried there are duplicated names in China. Wu is my senior in Wolf-lab class and he shared with me all the information required and things to take note. This made me settle down quickly and focus in class. Zhu, who was my desk-mate,  shared the same server rack for the practice in the beginning. I am lucky to meet him as he had provided me the jump host for the practice of the SDN portion, which requires GUI access. Without his jump host, it was almost impossible to do it because of the internet lag between China and Singapore.

        It was seventeen or eighteen years ago, when I first graduated from NTU, I tried the CCIE routing and switching. At that time, I did not know there were such training classes so all I did was self-study diligently. Despite the hard work I have put into studying the course, I did not manage to pass. It is probably the only exam that I have failed and given up halfway in my life. Due to many other reasons, I did not choose to retake, hence I regretted since then. Luckily, I am now working for Cisco Systems, the exams are free of charge for staffs, and the company also provides other incentives for us to get CCIE certified. Without further hesitation, I restarted this journey again and joined Wolf-Lab for the preparation.

        As time gets closer to the date of the examination , I practiced almost 5-6 hours every day, including weekends, I sat in my chair to practise for a long hours without rest . I felt very confident and could not wait to for the day of the examination . On 23 May 2022, I went to office early in the morning, at one of the corner on the 26th floor, which I have never been to even after working in Cisco for 3 years. The air-conditioning was freezing-cold. Despite me wearing my jacket, my hands were shivering  partially due to the nervousness as well. The first 3 hours is for design theory, as expected. It was pretty easy as I had was well prepared. In less than one hour, I have completed the test. Before starting the Lab Practical, I started to do some preparation work and refresh my mind and going to the washroom. I then settled down to focus on my Lab Practical. It was pretty smooth in the beginning for Lab Practical. However when I started to do question 2.1, I am stuck! I could not push the tacacs configuration from DNAC to the branch switches. After struggling for some time, I decided to give up and move on to the remaining questions. Thanks god, the remaining parts were Software Defined Network which is related to my work recently, so it is not difficult and I completed them smoothly. Now the tough question came, I have almost 2 hours before the end of the exam, should I redo the question 2.1? If I screw up 2.1, it may affect what I have done for remaining question. But if I don’t it, I would not get any marks for this question. After some hesitation, I decided to give up, because I’m pretty confident that I have enough marks to pass the exam. I submitted the exam and left the site joyfully and made a phone call to report to Mr Jin

        While waiting for the email announcement of the exam result with anticipation, I was quite confident that I would pass the exam. However, at 11+pm, I was shocked that I failed !!! After discussing with Mr Jin and Yang, we agreed that I’m at the border line between pass and fail, some question could have been given some marks but obviously it’s not the case. Without hesitation, I paid $1000 USD for a re-read of the exam paper.

        Two weeks of waiting time for the re-read result was nerve-wrecking but this time, I am more mentally prepared to accept failure, as post discussion with Jin and Yang shows that there are some questions can be further tuned and optimized, however I was still hoping for a miracle to happen, but the fact is, it did not happen. They informed me that the result is same after re-read.

        On 13 July 2022, with thicker jacket, with better food.I prepared myself instead of taking the food from proctor which was really unpalatable). Most importantly. With better preparation, I sit in to try again. However, this time round, question 2.1 was solved without any problem. Two hours before the exam ends, I walk out the lab room and I 100% believe that I will have a pass. The email later came in at 1am to give me the final confirmation.

        As classmate Liu mentioned to me, unlike young people, the CCIE cert will give them some advantage in the career path, at the age like us (40 over), we are more of completing an unfinished story and accomplishing an achievement with no regrets.

 This is not the end of my story; I will be challenging the CCIE Security. See you soon!

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