CCIE Flyer August 2009 Edition

Hot from the stove, the CCIE Flyer August 2009 Edition is out. Get it at http://www.ccieflyer.com and share it around!

Narbik Kocharians's Advanced CCIE Routing & Switching 2.0 Workbooks Update

If you are interested in Narbik Kocharians's Advanced CCIE Routing & Switching 2.0 workbooks like the millions of us, this is his latest update from GroupStudy (barely 10 minutes after he posted).

In Narbik's own words,

"It should be any day now, i am sorry, one thing i have not learned in 32 years is to delegate, and i hate to sell a product that i don't believe in, so i like to do my best in every product that i put my name on. So please hang in there another 2 - 3 days and hopefully it will all be done.

I just finished a Cisco Press Tech Editing project
I am working on my Class on Demand for R&S
I am working on my new 2.0 Boot Camp lab work book, which should be done before Oct (Surprise Surprise, you can only get this work book if you attend a boot camp).
I am working on the SP work book. etc etc etc etc NOT to mention teaching classes.......

The price for "*Advanced CCIE R&S 2.0*" will be $350. But i promise that it
will be the BEST of the BEST. This is a promise from me to all and you can
count on it.
The upgrade is ONLY available to our OLD STUDENTS, and NOT new ones and it
will cost the OLD students $175.

Thanks"

So there you have it folks. A little patience will go a long way :-)

Eman - CCIE Amnesty Update

An update on what Eman has been doing on the CCIE Amnesty Program.

CCIE Amnesty Update

Going into the second month of this effort to help CCIEs regain control of their numbers I am reminded of the old McDonalds when I was a kid. The sign that was a part of the original “Golden Arches” used to say “Thousands Served”, an indication that thousands of burgers had been purchased. Today the sign say “Millions and Millions Served”. I would like to hang up a sign for CCIE Amnesty saying hundreds saved! But the truth is only six CCIEs have had their numbers disassociated from channels because of the work Monica (my best friend at Cisco) and I have been doing. I have received several dozen requests for help or clarification about the associations of some CCIEs and I have even been called by competing recruiters who were poaching CCIEs from one channel for another. I am pleased that in the first month we have been able to help CCIEs internationally regain control of their numbers. The work and investment in earning a CCIE is an investment worth protecting.

The second month of the effort by Monica (my best friend at Cisco) and me we are hoping to spread the word even farther. There has been a lot of interest in this effort and some negative but the good work continues.

Here’s our plan, for the next 90 60 days I am asking any CCIE who is in a situation where their CCIE number is associated with a company they are not really working for to step forward and I will have their number released from that employer with no repercussions or penalties. The company will then have nine months to resolve their need and the CCIE will help another CCIE have a shot at a real job. Think about it, if you have your number associated with a company that needs the number you are taking a job away from another CCIE who needs a job.

How to proceed.

Send me an email eman@ccieflyer.com and I will call you to begin the process. I will keep you out of hot water and help the channel partner replace you with a real CCIE to join their staff. If you are the victim of a channel that is holding your number against your will I will help release your number also without reprisals to the channel partner in question.

I only asked for 90 days from Monica (my best friend at Cisco) if yopu have questions or want to discuss this effort I am always available to answer questions.

Thanks

Monica Cojocneanu leads Cisco’s Worldwide Certification Program and strategy that is widely recognized as leading the industry. More than 80 percent of Cisco products and services are sold through channel partners, systems integrators, value-added resellers, distributors, and others whose innovative solutions based on Cisco products and services extend the reach of Cisco’s sales and services organizations around the world. The Cisco certification program strategy is to increase profitable growth for partners and build partner capability to accelerate marketplace adoption of solutions based on Cisco advanced and emerging technologies. Monica is a 8 years Cisco veteran, previously worked in the Customer Advocacy where she was responsible for defining the first generation of Cisco Advanced Services.

Narbik Kocharians's Class-on-Demand Sample

Narbik Kocharians has just released a sample of his CoD via a link on GroupStudy recently (yes I know GS can be a clowning place at times). Now I have to say that after attending his CCIE bootcamp in June 2009, I was expecting the same ol' Narbik albeit in a digital form teaching us the technologies of the CCIE blueprint in the same sharp-witted and very easy-to-understand approach.

I was not disappointed. The sample was on OSPF filtering and if you have never attended any of his bootcamps, there is a possibility you will find that OSPF filtering is confusing and perhaps difficult. Now Narbik does not don his 007 suit and explain to you in a vague way or in a too jokeful manner. Instead he explains it in a very concise, straight-forward and best of all in simple English.

I will not describe on how he taught in this sample video because my words alone will not do any justice to this outstanding video sample but please do yourself a favour. Again, as in previous blog entries, if you are dead serious on earning your CCIE certification and if the opportunity arises, have Narbik's materials/bootcamp on top of your list.

I have included the link here after getting permission from the man himself, so please feel free to download it and comment here if you like :-). It's in mp4 by the way and VLC plays it just fine.

http://systemwise.eu/Section-1.mp4.7z

You will probably need 7-Zip if you don't have it already installed on your system. You can get 7-Zip at http://www.7-zip.org.

If you have already seen this sample video, then you will see how Narbik makes it ridiculously easy for you when it comes to OSPF filtering. I know it's easy because I have it at the back of my hand now ;-).

CCIE Amnesty Program Updated

There seems to be some 'drama' happening at NetworkWorld where Brad Reese has openly declared that there is no such thing as a CCIE Amnesty program. The page which can be found at http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/44131 with 4 pages of comments at this point of writing shows to how a big organization such as Cisco can have multiple news.

Now if you have been following the drama, or if you have been following my blog, you know I write for the CCIE Flyer so some of you might say that "Nickelby is now an attention whore and he will definitely support Eman bla bla bla". Let me tell you this straight in the face. I am a person of my own opinion. In other words, I do not let people and especially the media sway me away from my own opinions. Period.

What I can say is this. I have seen the response from Cisco (ok part of Cisco since John Chambers for some reason refuses to answer my mail to play 'PONG' on the Internet ;-)) clearly states that there is a CCIE Amnesty Program existing. Eman started this initiative because he knew from experiences that a lot of CCIEs were not aware of making the mistake of renting out their certs to 'employers' whom they are not working with for various reasons. Those reasons can simply be that their current employers do not need CCIEs like yours truly ;-).

For those who are bashing Eman simply for this effort, ask yourselves this. If you were ignorant enough to rent out your cert to a third party only to realise that mistake later and found out that if Cisco catches you doing so, you will be banned and stripped off your CCIE title, how would you feel? You would feel that you need a second chance right? The CCIE Amnesty Program is just that. A second chance. A second life for those who makes mistakes in the CCIE world. Do not come BS-ing to me saying that you will not be that stupid to make such a mistake. We are all humans. At one point of time, we will make a mistake and during that time, the words "Please Give Me A Chance" will start appearing in your mind.

For those of you who works in big organizations and when I mean big I really do mean big, you will know that certain projects especially sensitive ones or still in a "proof-of-concept" stage that happens will not be official until you can get the whole board of directors to sanction it. PR on the other hand always tries to do a good job by masking sensitive stuff until it is proven to be beneficial and/or profitable to the organization. Admit it PR people, that's your job. Brad gotten his news from the PR department of Cisco. It is true that the PR's job is to secure and protect Cisco's assets and in this case, the CCIE comes in play.

But ask yourselves this, ask a PR about the workings of EIGRP and he will tell you that it's a Cisco propriety protocol, bla, bla, bla. Ask an engineer about EIGRP and he will go about how to configure it, optimize it, bla, bla, bla. Ask a sales person about EIGRP and he will go, it is the fastest protocol and it will make your network fast, bla, bla, bla. Ask me and I will say it stands for Eh I Got Round Penis.

Moral of the story? Everyone has an opinion about something. Everyone has facts and proof on something (ok maybe I don't have a round penis but we'll leave that to another day). The thing is Eman is coming from a different direction working with Monica on this CCIE Amnesty program. I have seen this response and I can vouch that it is real. Brad on the other hand just fires an email to PR asking whether such a thing exists and of course, PR not knowing anything about it yet will probably do the smart thing which is to deny.

Eman started something to help the CCIEs out of their predicament. Brad refuses to acknowledge that and instead put up a blog post on how 'untrue' this is. If you were a CCIE candidate or a CCIE, who will you prefer to be on your side. Someone who cares and tries to protect your hard-earned CCIE from being killed just because you did something that you were not aware of OR someone who questions your intellectual ability when you make mistakes? You decide which pill you want to take.

By the way, from the Internet, I look up on the word amnesty and from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amnesty

–noun

1.	a general pardon for offenses, esp. political offenses, against a government, often granted before any trial or conviction.

2.	Law. an act of forgiveness for past offenses, esp. to a class of persons as a whole.

3.	a forgetting or overlooking of any past offense.

There are THREE definitions to it so it can be any one of them. So why is someone yapping about the word amnesty referring to the definition "An undertaking by the authorities to take no action against specified offenses or offenders." ? That definition is one of the many definitions I believe he saw on the dictionary. You need to look at the entire context before making a claim. I rest my case.

CCIE Flyer July 2009 "Swimsuit Edition"

The CCIE Flyer July 2009 "Swimsuit Edition" is out now at http://www.ccieflyer.com. I have wrote an article about my recent trip to the Kelantan state in Malaysia, a state which is governed by the opposition political party known as PAS which practices Islamic law and are very conservative people at times (or most of the times).

Kelantan is sort of a backward-place if you asked me since there isn't really much to see here. So why write an article on it? Kelantan may be a boring place to some but it does houses some of the largest Buddhist statues in the whole of South East Asia especially the very well-known Sleeping Buddha, Sitting Buddha and even the Standing Buddha. Look at my article in the CCIE Flyer for some pictures.

Now CCIE-wise, what have I been up to? Well to help me study, I recently purchased iFlipr for my iPhone. iFlipr is basically a flash-card application where you can download tonnes and tonnes of flashcards on a very wide broad of subjects which is actively maintained by its members. Thankfully, there are some great CCIE flash cards out there :-). At one point, I may begin to write my own flash cards :P.

Apart from that, I have been hitting Narbik's labs almost on a daily basis and will rent a month's worth of rack time in August with another CCIE candidate, Navfett. So August will be the month of 'racking' ;-).

I am currently trying to schedule for the CCIE 4.0 R&S Beta written exam but I have yet to see it on PearsonVUE's website. The only thing showing is a CCIE Beta Lab and it costs USD$99 so I don't think that's the one. Damn! I should have done the written earlier and schedule a cheap lab. Serves me right for always putting off the written :-)

CCIE Amnesty Program

What does amnesty mean? Well it has been years since I thumbed through my Funk and Wagnalls dictionary so I could not actually find it! Instead I hopped on-line and looked it up.

Noun1.amnesty - a period during which offenders are exempt from punishment
Verb1.amnesty - grant a pardon to (a group of people)

If you have not been informed there are many ways to use your CCIE number. A few of these methods are frowned upon by Cisco and can even cost you that hard earned number. Yes, recently I personally witnessed the revoking of a pair of CCIEs who had associated their numbers to a channel they did not work for. This is strictly forbidden by Cisco and can result in severe penalties to the Channel and the CCIE. (see http://www.itworld.com/networking/69359/innocuous-or-unethical )

I felt pretty badly about the CCIEs losing their certifications and wanted to help prevent this as much as I can. So I called Monica (my best friend at Cisco) and we put our heads together to come up with a solution. From this chat the CCIE Amnesty program was born.

The rules are very clear about CCIEs whose numbers are used to help advance channel partners reseller status. The CCIE must work and live where the company is located. Number associations have been done in some creative ways both with and without the CCIE’s participation. As I described in February on my blog http://www.ccieagent.com/ in the story , “CCIE Hostage Stand-Off”, sometimes unsuspecting CCIEs are fooled by a company simply to get them to associate their number. The company in this story after passing the Cisco Audit put the CCIEs on unpaid leave. In other cases the CCIE simply succumbs to the temptation to associate their number because their real employer has no use for it. So they get a small fee for the number and are never utilized by the company, I call this a Rent-A-Cert. This is a name used by a company acting as a recruiting company but in actuality putting certified individuals in harm’s way.

Here’s our plan, for the next 90 days I am asking any CCIE who is in a situation where their CCIE number is associated with a company they are not really working for to step forward and I will have their number released from that employer with no repercussions or penalties. The company will then have nine months to resolve their need and the CCIE will help another CCIE have a shot at a real job. Think about it, if you have your number associated with a company that needs the number you are taking a job away from another CCIE who needs a job.

How to proceed.

Send me an email eman@ccieflyer.com and I will call you to begin the process. I will keep you out of hot water and help the channel partner replace you with a real CCIE to join their staff. If you are the victim of a channel that is holding your number against your will I will help release your number also without reprisals to the channel partner in question.

Tell your friends tell your coworkers but most of all tell the man in the mirror (ala Michael Jackson) it’s wrong so let’s clean it up! There is an effort to identify the fraudulent associations so please take advantage of this amnesty before you get a letter from Cisco about your CCIE number being revoked!

Peace!

Updates on Narbik Kocharians and the Cisco 360 Program

Narbik Kocharians and the Cisco 360 program can be found at Steve Rossen's blog which is located at http://steverossen.com/2009/07/06/narbik-cisco-360/ . Seems like we will still have free retakes :-).

Narbik on Steroids! - An Interview by Emmanuel Conde

THE BEST OF THE BEST

(Narbik on Steroids!)

The whole world is going nuts and the best way to distinguish yourself from the herd during this crazy time is by raising the bar on your own accomplishments every day. I do it and it keeps me fresh and in demand as the CCIE Agent™. Those around me that I associate professionally with do it too, like M and Jack Taylor my team. We hustle every day and try to take care of our network of clients and CCIEs as we navigate the muck and mire.

Training material for CCIEs is another area of distinction for some authors. I have personally seen some very good ones out there and distinguishing themselves becomes difficult for some of the authors. CCIE training material is written and published all the time by various sources and authors. I have heard of some plagiarized products out there from several of my network members. I speak with one author regularly, Narbik who recently called while I was in Jamaica (did you know only one CCIE lives in Jamaica?) talking to him about his new 2.0 Boot Camp. I get excited about CCIE stuff so I was excited to help spread the word about this news.

So when I landed back in the states I called Narbik back and asked him to answer a few questions about his latest work and activities on behalf of CCIEs around the world. What follows is my best effort to capture that call.

Q: Narbik why do I go on vacation to get away from work just to end up taking your calls? Is it the love of what we do or are we both nuts?

A: Eman I think we are both nuts driven by a passion that is based upon our love of helping others. What we do is not all for money we both spend so much time helping others and we are lucky we get paid for what we do and love. Vacation is for people who are stressed out every day and need a break. We are kindred spirits in that way and we don’t need a relief from stress, just more time with family that is less interrupted! I know you took my call because it was me. How many calls did you not take?

Q: Narbik I am asking the questions here. Yes I took your call because it was you but I also took a few others. I actually added two new clients while on vacation since they called out of the blue and rekindled an old relationship with another channel partner. The call from Dubai was a good one since some of my CCIE network will have a chance there to get submitted for new roles. But in all I did avoid a few callers and M was instrumental in keeping everyone happy for me.

Tell me what’s new with you? I know you have been working on new training materials and had a few calls with Cisco lately.

A: As of Aug, who ever attends my book camp, they will get “THE BEST OF THE BEST” the reason I call it the best of the best is because the students get my ALL NEW 2.0 boot camp which is by far the best, and they also get another best which is Cisco’s CCIE training called “The 360 program”.

Q: Whoa! You are now offering the 360⁰ Learning Program?

A: Only select Cisco Learning Partners are invited to deliver the Cisco 360 Learning Program, and I am proud to be a company that is recognized by Cisco. BTW, I am also a Master instructor.

Q: How did you come to the conclusion that combining your efforts with Cisco was a good idea?

A: I have been thinking about this for the longest time and I had to come up with a program that best serves MY students, a program that provides a passing rate of 80 percent, and I mean that, therefore, I wrote the all new foundation called “Foundation 2.0”, “Advanced CCIE R&S 2.0” and “The ALL NEW Boot Camp 2.0”. We are also coming up with an “Advanced Troubleshooting 2.0” which is 10 rigorous Mock labs, basically you load the initial configuration file and start going from task to task and resolve one problem after another, you see I never cared for 8 hour mock labs, NEVER, but this is very interesting and actually teaches the students to troubleshoot one task after another, and let me tell you, they are pretty tough, as a matter of fact very tough BUT RELEVENT.

Q: With all this did you feel you would be diluting your offerings?

A: The last thing that I wanted to add to this program was another program, and who better than CISCO or I should say who better than Bruce and Val’s program.

Q: Do you think this separates you from your competitors?

A: I don’t have to brag about our boot camps, but if you thought the old boot camp was great, you have not seen anything yet. Come and see the difference in philosophy. This program is what I had BUT on Steroids. I honestly believe that this is by far the BEST of the BEST.

Q: Ok. You are getting all worked up again and I can’t keep up. Give me a real run down.

A: Some of the new offerings are as follows:

• Ciers-1 PLUS my 2.0 boot camp:

This providers 60 percent lecture and 40 percent hands on.

• Ciers-2 PLUS my 2.0 boot camp material.

This provides 5 days of intense MOCK labs + lectures.

• Once again, my retake policy is still in place, you can retake any one of these classes any number of times. As a matter of fact, I RECOMMEND it.

• Micronics has a total of 24 R&S racks and these racks can be rented by our students for a price of $450 per month.

• Soup-to-Nuts on special for $50

• The new “Advanced CCIE R&S 2.0” for $395.

Q: Will this affect your delivery? I mean come on, the colored markers and white boards are a hallmark of your teaching style.

A: I will NEVER change the style of teaching, because if I do, I will be another vendor offering boot camps. When I tell everyone that my philosophy is different, some vendors get upset but, hey… my philosophy is different, my philosophy is to “TEACH” and NOT “LECTURE”. I have combined the two courses so my students get the BEST, I have added another 5 hours to my lectures, and if you have been to any of my boot camps you know that I DO NOT COVER FAT, I cover the MEAT of the subject.

Always remember it is NOT the company that the students should look for, it’s the instructor, I do not care if the company has been around since Rocky Marciano days, the company is NOT the one teaching the class, it’s the instructor. In real estate there is a saying and I quote “Location, Location, Location”, in CCIE or any training for that matter, the saying is “Instructor, Instructor, Instructor”.

CCIE Flyer 2009 June Edition + Itsy Bitsy Updates

Just a short and quick update. CCIE Flyer 2009 June Edition is out at http://www.ccieflyer.com. Get it while it's hot! You can see a lot of interesting articles there with this month focusing on 'learning'.

On my end of things, I have been working on the workbooks from Narbik. I am still on switching. Reason why it is taking so long when we can actually do the whole lab book in 3 days? Simple. I want to understand what I am doing and why I am doing it and what will happen when I do it. Hence I am not even half or rather quarter of the book yet :-). Slow progress but still not stalled ....

This week my mum is in town for a week's visit so it will be interesting to see how many hours of studying I can cramped in this week! You NEVER say no to mum ... not even the CCIE allows you to do that ;-).

Narbik Kocharians CCIE Bootcamp Day 5 and more ...

Day 5. The final day. This is the day where Narbik shows you how mighty RIPv2 is. He will show you how to have RIPv2 advertisements never expire using Multicast RIP and RSPAN RIP. He will speak about RIPv2 updates, how do we optimize RIPv2, all the way to default-gateway and advance scenarios. Narbik will let us know that only prefix-lists will work with the 'gateway' command (not to be confused with the 'ip default-gateway' command) in RIPv2.

One great thing Narbik thought us about RIPv2 is that in RIPv2 authentication, it is found that a router with a higher key will allow incoming routes from a router with a lower key even though the keys do not match each other. This is of course not the case the other way around. Narbik has a lab on this and I will be eager to start work on this particular lab since this will enlighten my RIPv2 knowledge in a whole new perspective. As Ethan Banks of CCIE Candidate (http://www.cciecandidate.com) has told me earlier on Twitter, I will learn a few new things about RIPv2 from Narbik. Guess what? I did and again I was humbled by Narbik's teaching on RIPv2.

Narbik had us took a short break at around 1045hrs (this is the exact that Narbik usually have us take a break to prevent us from CCIE overburn ;-)) and then continued with his studying tips for the CCIE lab exam. I am not going to be a spoiler for those who have already committed to joining his bootcamp in the next few weeks/months but all I can say is that although his tips are simple and places importance on certain topics within the CCIE lab blueprint, the tips are VERY valid and plays a very important rule in a very structured way of studying for the CCIE exam.

Narbik ended today's class at around 1145hrs and if you have been reading my blog posts, you will notice that Narbik does not cover certain topics like ip services, security (access-lists) and redistribution. You CANNOT cover all the topics in the CCIE lab blueprint in 5 days with the depth of information and lab examples that Narbik has given us. If he had done the same amount of labs as those in his workbooks for each and every topic on the CCIE lab blueprint, it is almost impossible to finish it in 5 days unless he have us all turned to sleepless zombies working hard on his labs 24 hours per day for 5 days. That is probably a possibility but count me out man. I wouldn't want to be the first CCIE-certified zombie ;-). Narbik also does not touch on TCL scripting as to me, if you do TCL scripting, you may have to worry about not doing a correct TCL script. He however firmly suggest that we do what is most comfortable to us meaning if we are comfortable with TCL scripts, then we should continue using TCL scripts. We did not start the discussion on macros/aliases yet ;-).

After Narbik's class, we received our attendance certificate from TrainPro Academy (http://www.trainpro.com.my). Yap Chee Yuen whom I have been addressing as Yap (I should be calling the dude Mr. Yap since he's older than me), a person whom I really respect for never giving up until he has gotten his CCIE, who also happens to be the big boss of TrainPro Academy, prepared our attendance certificates and having Narbik handing them to us with our pictures taken at the same time. We also had a photo session whereby most of us had our pictures taken with Narbik individually. You see, the class intend to make Narbik feel like a superstar. We felt Narbik was pretty pissed with those little men with big ears in Cisco who screw things up especially when it came to multicasting AF calculation ;-).

After saying our goodbyes and well wishes, Narbik left us at around 12.15hrs. It will be another four more months before Narbik makes a possible return here to have another R&S bootcamp. I have told him that rest assured I will be there to attend. My immediate goal is not to pass the CCIE lab. That's my mid-term goal. We need to be realistic here based on my current knowledge and preparation ;-). My immediate goal is to understand what Narbik has taught me throughout the last 5 days. My immediate goal is to understand the technologies so well that the next time he is in town, he will say to himself "hey ... this guy improved a lot from the last time I saw him". Those are my immediate goals.

With that, thus ends my 5 days CCIE bootcamp journey with Narbik Kocharians. As he has said earlier in the bootcamp, my relationship with him begins. I will turn to him should I have any problems with his labs or do not understand a technology but not before I have exhausted every single possible option. Narbik, if ever you are reading this blog post man, thank you so much for coming down here to deliver a bootcamp. You have my deepest gratitude and thanks for spending so much effort and time to deliver what you have delivered to us in the last 5 days.

To those who followed my blog and is considering joining Narbik's bootcamp, this is my take. If I had only USD $2,500.00 will I spend it on Narbik's bootcamp? The answer is YES. No matter how many times you ask me, I'll still say the answer is YES. If I don't have USD $2,500.00 but am willing to keep saving until I do, will I spend it all on Narbik's bootcamp. Again my answer is YES and again no matter how many times you ask me, the answer is still YES. I don't usually advocate a person but his bootcamp now sits on top of my list of CCIE bootcamp recommendations. Sit through one and you tell me whether I am just a Narbik-fanboy or whether what I wrote here is the pure truth. Just don't let Narbik drink scottish whisky...

Just in case you are wondering, Narbik did not force me nor did he gave me some kind of incentive to write nice stuff about him (Narbik again if you are reading this ... a quarter million US dollars sounds nice *grins*).

For those of you who are in Malaysia or have friends in Malaysia that wants to join a CCIE bootcamp or maybe even go for other Cisco certifications, I would strongly recommend TrainPro Academy. They are an authorized Pearson VUE centre so you can take your Cisco exams here including the CCIE written. What impresses me is the way they have organized Narbik to travel to Malaysian soil for his bootcamp up to taking care of our daily snacks (yes we have excellent snacks during the last 5 days people). I am giving them two thumbs up (I only have two thumbs so go figure ;-)) for this commitment and dedication. They can be located at http://www.trainpro.com.my and if you are lazy to surf the web, give them a call at +603 2287 5009 / 6009. Just tell them you came across Nickelby's blog and they might give you a free notepad when you register for a course ;-).

Last but not least, here are the must-have pics of the day with comments of course.
TrainPro Academy (http://www.trainpro.com.my), the training centre that Narbik held his Malaysia bootcamp. TrainPro is the only centre that is partnering with Narbik to deliver his bootcamp in the South East Asia region as far as I know.
Narbik teaching us about last minute study strategies for the CCIE exam. Moments ago, he was teaching us on RIPv2 and if you see the whiteboard behind him, he has some pretty mad arse CCIE skills. I am going to start calling him the CCIE-nator ;-)
Yap Chee Yuen, the owner of TrainPro Academy. Yap is a CCIE himself and it's thanks to him that I had the opportunity to participate and attend Narbik's bootcamp. Once again, thanks a lot Yap for believing that I am a good choice to attend Narbik's bootcamp.
Khaled (the dude with the beard) flew all the way from Saudi Arabia to attend Narbik's bootcamp even though there will be one in Dubai sometime soon. That tells you how good Narbik's bootcamp is that some people could not wait but instead fly down to a faraway place just for the bootcamp. Khaled is taking his lab in August 2009. Beside him is Sai, a Mynmarese who currently works in Singapore. He spent quite a sum to just come and attend Narbik's bootcamp. Another testimony of Narbik's bootcamp's superb quality. Besides Sai is of course me. Yes I notice I am getting fatter and have messy hair (I had a hair cut today after the missus complained a lot ;-)).
Narbik and Yap. They might not be the twin towers of the NBA or NFL or NBL for the record but they are probably the best team combination to offer CCIE bootcamp classes in Malaysia.
Narbik signing all the attendance certificates for those who are new to his bootcamp.
Narbik handing me my CCIE bootcamp attendance certificate. I know it would be nice if the cert would instead be a CCIE certification in Routing and Switching ;-)
The CCIE June 2009 (June 1 to June 5 2009) bootcamp students. Some are reattendees, some are lecturers and some or rather one is a nice Japanese-food loving dude. Guess who.

That's it for now. The next time that I will blog about Narbik and his bootcamp would have to be in October 2009 where he plans to return back here to give us a R&S/SP bootcamp and also to gobble "hot and spicy food" as much as he can.

Narbik Kocharians CCIE Bootcamp Day 4

Day 4. This is sounding like those 'Survivor' series :-). Today Narbik's plan is to finish teaching us Multicast and then we go on to another big topic, QoS and no ... it does not mean Queen on Steroids. Where do you people come up with this kind of stuff???

I got up early. Again the same toothache problem. I suddenly realized that I finished the paracetamol tablets I have with me but the pain was still bearable. Went and had breakfast with my wife and after that it's off to TrainPro Academy (http://www.trainpro.com.my) for today's class with Narbik. Thank God Yap had some paracetamol pills.

Narbik started today's class with a refresh of yesterday's RPF lab. Now after we did a short refresh of yesterday's RPF lab, we got online with Emmanuel Conde, the CCIE agent (http://www.ccieflyer.com) fondly known as Eman to speak with us, the bootcamp students, via Skype on my laptop. We had a very good conversation where the candidates here asked about the prospects of finding work for a fresh CCIE, the tying of your CCIE number to vendors and what are the current overall market for a CCIE. Eman joked with us that Narbik isn't good looking but I let you girls do the analysis yourselves ;-). Eman was kind enough to share with us a few tips as well as saying that Narbik is the best when it comes to a CCIE routing and switching bootcamp. Now as a student of his class, I couldn't agree more. Cheap price, free retake policy, excellent teacher, excellent labs, you tell me what else is missing. Narbik also has an excellent sense of humour except when he downs three bottles of scottish whisky but that's another story for another day ;-).

Now after the chat with Eman, Narbik finished up the remaining topics on Multicast from manipulating multicast traffic all the way to UDP helper map. Man ... I tell you this was the game people. Narbik gave us countless of Multicast scenarios today to prove every single thing there is to know about multicast and more. Now when I mean Narbik teaches you every single thing you need to know, I do not mean he teaches you for the CCIE lab. Narbik teaches you to be a very good Cisco engineer which is the foundation of a good CCIE. Narbik DOES NOT teach you to just pass the CCIE lab as Eman says. Cool huh? ;-). If you guys do not believe, attend one of his bootcamps and if I am wrong, I am prepared to be flamed :-). One example that I can give straight off my memory as I write this is that Narbik says that we should not think of sub-optimal routing when it comes to RP in Multicast. What he says, what he writes on the whiteboard and what he proves are all in his labs in his workbooks.

We had lunch at about 1300hrs today after spending time on all the Multicast labs before then. We had lunch at a dine-in restaurant which during this time I took the opportunity to network with some of the guys whom I did not really had the chance to speak and talk with them. Lunch was good, we took some pictures, Narbik fixed his glasses, Yap and two of his trainers joined us, life was good with laughter and then *ringgggg*!!! Time to get back to reality!

Once we are back in class, we tackled one of the most dreaded topics in the CCIE lab blueprint at least for me namely QoS. This is also covered heavily in ONT of the CCNP track so if you guys feel you need a basic introduction to QoS, the ONT track in the CCNP is a good choice. In QoS, Narbik covered PQ, CQ, classification, double-somersault triple punch, marking, LLQ and others including shaping and compression. Now this is layer 3 QoS. We also did cover layer 2 QoS to wrap the whole QoS topics. During the QoS session, Narbik taught us a few new things at least to me which includes a very easy way to calculate the AF number. He also taught us traffic shaping with a lot of cool tricks that can be done including changing the outgoing information table. We were also taught on DSCP value rewriting. Narbik also introduced his own way of calculation which I am sure you will find it very worthwhile to listen if you attend his bootcamp and understand what he means.

Class ended up at about 2115hrs. Narbik and I together with two CCIE candidates who will be going for the CCIE lab exams next week in Singapore (mobile lab). We had a good dinner at Madam Kwan and again I saw Narbik devouring the chillies like nobody's business. You got to admit it. This man means serious business when it comes to chillies/hot/spicy food. We had a lot of joke telling and some serious CCIE discussions especially Narbik giving advice to the candidates and motivating them. This my friends is a very good quality in a teacher. He guides you. As Narbik says, our relationship does not end when his class ends. Instead the relationship begins.

After dinner, I went back home, saw my sleeping wife, I took a bath, did some labs, wrote this post, did some more labs and then hit the bed. I am very excited and interested to see what will Narbik teach us tomorrow since it will be RIPv2. Knowing how simple-to-understand RIP can get and knowing what person Narbik is, I am sure he will whip our asses, pulls a few carnivous rabbits out his hat and show us things we have never seen before with RIPv2. I hope I don't dream of murderous RIPv2 labs tonight ...

Note: I have received a few e-mails asking me for a copy of Narbik's materials or anything I can share. My philosophy is simple. If I am allowed to share, I will, but it must be with the concern of the author. I also don't think it's fair for people to pirate Narbik's work (please consider the amount of time and effort he has spent on his workbooks. He is a one-man army and he write labs even during break sessions during our bootcamp and also at nights when he is supposed to be enjoying a warm bath and watch TV). I don't agree as well to sharing my personal copy of his workbooks to people since I been saving up for quite some time (after all I spent all my entire life savings on two CCIE products from Internetwork Expert and IPExpert :-) so I had to start from scratch) paying to get the workbooks myself. Please people I do not own a money-printing machine and even if there is a one in a gazillioni chance that I own one, the next question is would you like it if someone pirated your hard work and make profits out of it and you did not get anything at all for your work? Go figure.

Also, my strong message is this, if you are damn serious in getting your CCIE, you should attend Narbik's bootcamp. Buying and going through his workbooks is NOT enough. You need to speak with Narbik, ask him questions CCIE questions and finally ask Narbik if you are ready after Day 3 or Day 4 of his bootcamp. Believe me. Narbik is honest :-). That my fellow candidates and friends is not something you can get by pirating ;-).

This is the labs on QoS and Switches that I worked on before and after typing this post and before going to bed. Note that this is still in beta and the final version will have a lot more labs according to Narbik.

A little teaser for those who are joining Narbik's bootcamp and for those who are planning to join Narbik's bootcamp. There will be a BIG surprise coming soon and I mean it's BIG. I have seen it so it's no vapourware and I have 'tasted' it so it's not fake either. Wait for it guys and girls ... you'll be freakin impressed ;-).