Exam Profile: CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Lab Exam

Date: Oct 2, 2014

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This article describes the new CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Lab Exam, including the objectives, preparation hints, and study resources.

The CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Lab exam is the culmination of successfully passing the written qualifying exam (400-101) and, within 18 months, making the first attempt at passing the Lab exam to obtain your CCIE numbers.

In 1999, I had the pleasure of taking my first CCIE Routing and Switching Lab exam. The technology sets were significantly different from today’s lab exam. We can sit and debate for hours about which exam was/is more difficult, but that won’t help anyone in preparing for their lab! The current CCIE Lab Exam represents a 20-plus year stretch of setting the de facto standard for the industry about what an expert-level certification entails.

The CCIE Routing and Switching exam series (Written and Lab) have recently been revised to v5.0. The exam covers Layer 2 Technologies, Layer 3 Technologies, VPN Technologies, Infrastructure Security, and Infrastructure Services. There are many details within each of those broad topic areas, and of course, being an expert-level exam, the level of detail can be extreme. The only part that exists in the written exam but not the lab is Network Principles. The weighting of percentages also shifts from the written to the lab exam.

There is more than 20 years of “experience” in the CCIE lab development. Version 5 is a significant jump over previous versions in many different areas. These can all affect your approach to studying and certainly to the strategies you will use when taking the lab. Remember that anything is fair game, at least within the blueprint topics listed.

Exam Details

The Troubleshooting section is presented as a form of trouble tickets on a preconfigured network. You need to isolate the problem within a large topology and identify and fix the issue at hand. There may be 30+ devices within the network topology and 10 to 12 trouble tickets to work with.

The Diagnostic section is presented as issues with a lot of exhibit (reading/reference) material and questions to isolate your thought process. There is no actual configuration during this section, merely actions of what you see, what you believe, and what you would do next.

The configuration section has instructions that generally follow the high-level blueprint outline, although may select any number of detail items within. If you have to sit the CCIE Lab more than once, your exams may be completely different from one another.

A new time limit was set on exam retakes.

# of Times Failed

Delay Until Next Attempt

1

30 days

2

90 days

3

90 days

4

90 days

5

180 days

6+

180 days

This new policy is designed to not only deal with some of the backlog in the CCIE Lab testing, but also to give candidates some required “back to the books” time between attempts. Brute force hacking is not a method to passing the CCIE Lab!

Strategy and Trouble Spots

Strategy and Trouble Spots

Keep in mind that this IS an expert-level exam, so there are certain expectations of a candidate’s preparedness that are made by test creators. You need to start with time management. Even more so than the written exam, with 8 fun-filled hours, you need to remain in control.

First, you get hit with Troubleshooting, which can be from 1.5 to 2.5 hours in length. (Two hours as the established target.) You will have roughly 10-ish trouble tickets to manage. It will be a large (30+ device) topology. So your time will be reviewing the ticket, quickly looking at the topology, and hazarding a starting point to look through the devices. Know your show commands! Show run may be helpful but likely will not magically solve things for you. Also remember that the results are based on FIXING a problem, not avoiding or removing it!

With the Diagnostic section, that is a fixed timeframe, so you have 30 minutes to read through things and determine your troubleshooting prowess and next-step information. Do not rush this because the time is fixed. Relax, gather your thoughts, and visualize what you would do if this were a real-world problem. Use this time to clear your brain as well. Even if you didn’t do as well as you liked in the Troubleshooting section, put it behind you. No distractions are needed.

When you get to the Configuration section, again, time management is important. It is geared to be a 5.5-hour exam section. You may have anywhere from 5 to 6 hours depending on how your Troubleshooting portion went! The baseline configuration is already done, so you are adding things in. Read the entire exam first! Before you type ANYTHING! Get the network in your head, as well as a plan for how to get through things. There is no prescribed order of attack, so if the first task on paper is something you don’t know very well.... Well.... Don’t do it! No sense starting out hurting!

Do things you know first. Do things you think you know second. Do things you don’t know as well last. Again, there will be a large topology to play with. This should be easier to isolate issues than in previous versions of the CCIE R&S Lab exam. Use this to your advantage, and think through each task and what the effect will be.

Use your show and/or debug commands to test AS YOU GO. Do NOT wait until there is only 15 minutes left to discover you have a basic routing issue that causes your entire lab to not function. (Or you’ll be back! ☺)

Also, when something isn’t working correctly, set a time limit on your troubleshooting: 1015 minutes tops. Then move on to something else and come back to it. Stepping away, taking a break, and clearing your mind will work wonders on your ability to see basic problems and fix them. Take breaks as well! Quick ones, but a meaningful respite from staring at the screen hour after hour!

Grading is results-based, so your testing step-by-step will be valuable in obtaining your points.

Preparation Hints

Preparation Hints

From an overall preparation and strategy point of view, you need to look at the VAST overlap between the CCIEv5 Written Blueprint and Lab Blueprint. This is not a coincidence. This means that you should keep this in mind as you prepare. Prepare for both exams at the same time.

A good study plan will involve a mixture of modalities (methods of information input) such as reading, watching videos, taking courses, and doing hands-on work. The hands-on part is obviously more critical to the Lab Exam preparation, but if your Written Exam question contains output from a show command that you have never even heard of, it may become difficult to answer.

In Experiential Learning, the adage of See One, Do One, Teach One may well help in preparation for these exams. They are expert-level exams, and although you will be taking your test individually, I would recommend having a study partner or study group to maximize your efficiency of studying. Although you don’t need to be a formal classroom instructor to teach, the idea of presenting a subject to others is equally valuable. It may take that pressure/exposure to realize whether you truly know a subject.

The IOS documentation on Cisco.com will be available to you during the exam. I would highly recommend using this as part of your studying because quickly finding the material is important in your time management. With this in mind, as you study, one good method for the documentation is to take an entire lab that you have already done (so you know the answers already), and pretend that you don’t know any of the answers and have to look things up.

This can force you to look things up and become familiar with the docs. Because you’ve already completed whatever lab you are working on, and know the answers, you will know when you finally find the right section of the docs that you would need. This will be a slow method, so it may be frustrating, but it is valuable time spent.

Use the newly expanded blueprint as a technology checklist in your studying. Keep a notebook to track your progress and new and exciting things you have learned in your studies. Take time to transpose your notebook into a computer file. It is important to keep a written log and a tech-based one. (For example, don’t take notes on your iPad!) The method of repetition and different parts of your brain that are engaged in each of these can help cement the information in your head. And if your handwriting is anything like mine, you won’t be able to read it for long anyway!

When starting, learn technology by technology. THEN look at putting things together and studying the interaction. There is no race. When I was preparing for my first CCIE, it took the better part of a year, and with enough hours to rival that of a full-time job. (Of course, it was on top of my full-time job that I had to work things in!)

Recommended Study Resources

Recommended Study Resources

I recommend the following books for reference:

CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide Library, 5th Edition (contains Volume 1 and Volume 2) by Narbik Kocharians, Peter Paluch, and Terry Vinson

Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1 (2nd Edition) by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll

Routing TCP/IP, Volume 2 by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll

Internet Routing Architectures, 2nd Edition by Sam Halabi

Additional things to look at and participate in:

Cisco Cisco Learning Network and the many forums inside

Cisco Ask the Expert forum discussions

Cisco IOS Documentation online, as you’ll see in the lab

For proper training for CCIE, look at

The Cisco 360 Learning Program as the authorized CCIE training

CBT Nuggets for technology-based learning and demonstrations of the entire blueprint

IPexpert CCIE R&S Bootcamp and training

INE CCIE R&S Bootcamp and training

Exam Objectives

Exam Objectives

The exam has tight security and no outside reference materials are allowed. The following topics are general guidelines for the content that is likely to be included on the practical exam. However, other related topics may also appear on any specific delivery of the exam. To better reflect the contents of the exam and for clarity purposes, the following guidelines may change at any time without notice.

The following list provides general guidelines for the content most likely to be included on the exam. In any given exam, it may not contain questions representative of every subpoint. They are all possible, however.

1.0 Layer2 Technologies 20%

1.0 Layer2 Technologies 20%

1.1 LAN switching technologies

1.2 Layer 2 Multicast

1.3 Layer 2 WAN circuit technologies

1.4 Troubleshooting Layer 2 technologies

2.0 Layer3 Technologies 40%

2.0 Layer3 Technologies 40%

2.1 Addressing technologies

2.2 Layer 3 Multicast

2.3 Fundamental routing concepts

2.4 RIP v2

2.5 EIGRP [for IPv4 and IPv6]

2.6 OSPF [v2 and v3]

2.7 BGP

2.8 Troubleshooting Layer 3 technologies

3.0 VPN Technologies 20%

3.0 VPN Technologies 20%

3.1 Tunneling

3.2 Encryption

3.3 Troubleshooting VPN technologies

4.0 Infrastructure Security 5%

4.0 Infrastructure Security 5%

4.1 Device security

4.2 Network security

4.3 Troubleshooting infrastructure security

5.0 Infrastructure Services 15%

5.0 Infrastructure Services 15%

5.1 System management

5.2 Quality of service

5.3 Network services

5.4 Network optimization

5.5 Troubleshooting infrastructure services

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