What Can We Learn from an Octuple CCIE?
I never thought I would see the day when I’d use the world octuple but here we are.
Meet Neil Moore, who passed his CCIE RS in 2002 and in 2014 he passed his eighth CCIE lab exam – the CCIE Collaboration. He was previously a cloud architect for HP but now works as Principal Technologist-Key Accounts for Seagate. I haven’t spoken to him directly but what I have done is to look into his methods and strategies and come up with a few learning points we can all take on board. Take note of the parts you think will help you achieve your study goals.
Consistency
You can see that Neil is passing a CCIE exam roughly every 2-3 years. The average study time for a CCIE lab is around 18 months plus the theory exam study time. This of course factors in work time, family stuff and sleep. It's much better to do a little every day than marathon sessions on the weekends.
Chunk it Down
Neil broke all the exam objectives down into tiny chunks. Instead of saying for the week “I’m going to learn OSPF” he would say “I’m going to learn about OSPF LSA types.” This prevents the feelings of overwhelm we can all experience when we consider the mammoth task ahead of us.
Use the Matrix
Instead of looking at what the packet was doing on the network he would imagine he was the packet. He visualized his different fields changing as it traversed the network. As the packet was processed, he would see QoS markings added (for example) and see where they went and the effect they had.
Invest in Yourself
Whenever possible, Neil bought his own home lab equipment so he could continually re-cable and even see how the airflow works in different vendor’s equipment. For every vendor, he knows where to find the console port that helps when a customer is watching you work!
His home power bills were huge as you can imagine but unlike many IT students, he was the money he was spending as an investment, not an expense.
Don’t Quit / No Excuses
Over 90% of students who start out studying for an IT exam end up quitting. Never quit. Neil took all of his CCIE exams while working long hours and raising kids with his wife. His kids used to run around him as he was doing his labs at home. He figured that if he could concentrate while that was happening then the exam environment would seem easy compared to that.
Don’t Get Stuck on One Vendor
Neil would configure various labs on his home network and then see if he could do the same with another vendor device. So he would configure BGP for example, using a Cisco router and then swap it out for a HP router. He would also try out high and low-end models and note the differences. This gave him the ability to work in a multi-vendor environment as well as recommend the best solution to his customers based on personal experience.
Blend Your Learning
You need to attack your brain from all angles. Listen to podcasts, watch videos, read books, take practice exams and do labs. If you stick to just one learning method you simply won’t retain the information as well as you could do and you will also miss out on vital learning points as well as take much longer to pass the exam.
Write it Out
As you learn a topic, write out the important learning points and commands. Use different pen colors and try using mind mapping software or just write out your mind maps. If you want an entire course on IT exam study tips that really work then check out my Ace Your IT Exam course.
Don’t Study Multiple Vendor Exams Simultaneously
I’ve blogged about this myself in the past, but it seemed to have fallen upon deaf ears. I still see students asking me if they can take a NetApp, Microsoft and Cisco course at the same time!
Neil says stick to one vendor exam at a time and even then, keep it a specific as possible so don’t mix say a Cisco Voice exam with a Cisco routing exam. Even that will be too confusing and take far longer than it would if you did one after another.
Everybody Fails
Although he has passed eight CCIE exams, NONE of them was on the first attempt. Learn the lessons you have to learn about the lack of knowledge or exam preparation and take it again. If you keep going, you can consider yourself a winner. Quitting lasts a lifetime.
Enjoy the Journey
People tend to see passing the exam as the final objective but remember to enjoy the journey. Others will pass more exams than you and do it all faster but every day you learn something new and take a step towards your certification is a success. Strive to pass the technology, not the exam. Passing the exam proves you knew enough on the day but if you concentrate on actually mastering the technology and protocols you will be a winner.
Don’t Look at the Books Too Early
If you get stuck on a lab, do your best to work out the answer for yourself. It will dramatically improve your self-reliance and fault finding skills. You are far more likely to retain the information if you work out the answer for yourself.
Be Methodical
When it comes to studying the most consistent person will always triumph over the smart person. Neil says he isn’t the most gifted network engineer, but he is very, very methodical when it comes to organizing his study sessions.
Learn Wireshark
With the sheer amount of voice, video, QoS, virtualization and various wrappers working over modern networks it’s vital to know how to dig into what is happening. Say, for example, a company is experiencing a slow network you may well not find the answer with any configuration issues, network debugs or shows commands on routers and switches. You may end up digging into the packet level to see what traffic is passing on the network. This means using a packet capture tool.
Keep Laughing
Nobody died while taking an IT exam. Have fun and if you fail or make a mistake then laugh it off. You will still have your family, your job and your health so be grateful and keep smiling.
I hope it helps.
Keep Smiling
Paul Browning
For each new CCIE Neil acquired, did it auto re-certify his previous ccie?
Thanks Paul for keeping the drive going. At 51 I am starting over in a new career and got an AAS degree in networking technology 5 years ago and put off getting my CCNA since I wasn’t ready to make the change yet but the time has come. It is so easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of material one needs to learn but eventually it all starts making sense. I can understand why 90% of the people don’t finish but I was determined to not be part of that statistic. I have my exam scheduled for 9/11/15 so this journey will end and the next will begin after with studying for my CCNP.
Kevin Maldonado
This is a great article! Very inspiring!
Great news Kevin.
Regards
Paul
Yes but you only need pass the theory exam every year to recertify also.
Regards
Paul
Passing the CCIE Lab or the Written re-certed me if I was in the zone to need one. The recert window is based off your first CCIE pass.
Only thing I would add to above (and I covered it a bit in the packet pushers blog) was I picked a song for each subject and then stayed with that type though the whole exam(Looped for an hour). On Youtube a LEGO Millennium Falcon was rendered to the music from Parov Stelars’ Chambermaid Swing and that introduced Deep House to my CCIE Datacenter studies.
Hey Neil,
many thanks for the post. Keep on trucking.
Paul Browning
First of all,
Thank you Neil and Paul for this account of your daily lives.
I experience the “Kids around ” bit myself but that’s life.
This article demonstrates how tough IT is, it is like being a professional athlete. Knowledge has to be maintained and improved on a daily basis.
Looking forward to reading your next article.
Kind regards,
Jimmy
thanks, great article,
but
8 CCIE and none of them in first attempt ?
Let us know when you pass your CCIE first attempt.
Regards
Paul
Great article Paul.
I registered for your 60 day CCNA challenge and passed my exam on July 9th 2015. The great thing about it was the daily chunks I was required to work on and afterwards the revision sessions. Checked your site to post my success but haven’t been able to. Currently planning to embark on CCNP this month and waiting for my lab kit before commencing. I will surely follow the advice in the article.
Thanks
Congrats man, quite an accomplishment. Can you explain what you mean about looped music?
These are great tips Neil, thank you for sharing.
“Chunk it down” is definitely my favorite and speaks directly to me as my son runs around while I am working on a lab. I never thought about that being a good distraction for the exam but makes perfect sense. I used to get lost with a technology by configuring the minimum and never really asking about all of the options. I am now starting-over as a packet!
failed twice on R&S V4 and never tried again,
I mean how much energy Neil have and how determined he is.
Congrats. Please drop a review on Amazon if you can.
Regards
Paul
Same song plays over and over.
Regards
Paul
Great but I have only one curious question in my mind #########Why He Has not done CCDE and CCAr########### WHY..
Passed my CCNA cert so now onto the next challenge. Thanks for everything.
Congrats man,
send a photo of you holding your certificate when it arrives.
Regards
Paul
He said in an interview it doesn’t interest him.
Regards
Paul
I thought I would update the blog a little 🙂 I passed the CCDE Practical on 5/17/2016, the final key for me to pass was to change my mindset from engineer to architect and find people that can coach me and/or train me to think and react in a way that makes me compatible mentally, with the CCDE exam. For example, if you know the technology already, a coach is more valuable than a trainer, and sometimes you can find it in the same person, sometimes not.
I adopted this methodology from my observations from training in martial arts over the years.
Good luck on everyone’s exams, whatever they may be, and thanks for the kind words.
-Neil
I saw the news release Neil,
Well done indeed. Amazing achievement. I hope you took time to celebrate. There can’t be much left for you to pass now 😉
Regards
Paul
Thanks for sharing. I totally agree with you. Passing CCIE lab is not my only objective. I enjoy the journey to learn each new technologies introduce in each blue print change. I failed three times in CCIE R&S lab exam, but i learned a lot more about R&S than if i passed on my first attempt. I enjoy the benefit from the knowledge that i got from learning.
This is a great article. Nice One..
Paul it is definitely a great achievement, I am from India and here in India all certifications are not available, I have just started my CCNA journey, any advise on this will be really helpful and any book that you’d like to recommend. I am currently studying Todd Lammle, so is it fine if I study from one book or would you recommend looking into video and other resources.
Thanks