Our Congratulations go out to Sorin Platon, who recently passed the CCIE R&S Lab Exam! Here's what Sorin had to say about his preparation:

I finally finished my journey on May 9th in San Jose

I started on September 2009 with the CCIE 2.0 program

I used it to pass my written and study for my lab, I remember when I pass the written I wasn’t reliefed just happy I can finally start on VOL1

I exclusively used the graded labs for Vol1 this gave me a feeling of real equipment behaviour and also I had a precise studying schedule

I did vol1 and took good notes, something that you can revise quickly, then I went for week 1 of the bootcamp in August is Chicago, Brian was our teacher and it was a good experience, we revise and cemented a lot of key concepts.

Then I went and I tackled VOL2, I used both GNS3 for its flexibility and the graded labs, the experience gained in Vol1 was invaluable for this portion of the preparation.

The vol2 is a great tool, the key is how you use it, in the beginning I used to look at the solution but that wasn’t the best way to do it, IEOC was always helpful when I had a question of a solution I used and why is not the SG solution or if is right or not.

I took first graded lab and I did horribly but it was a useful experience to take the full 8hrs and just do the complete lab, usually I was spreading a Vol2 lab over a few days, but is not the same experience.

To change the pace I used vol3 that taught me how to be faster in my IGP and BGP.

Vol4 was the hardest one but it was a good revision tool

In February I went to the week 2 mock labs of the bootcamp in Chicago and that was an eye opener, Petr new mock labs are one of the best preparation tools out there

The mock days lab are getting your brain trained to concentrate for 8 hours and how fast those hours fly and how soft your brain gets in the last 2 hours

I went for my first try in March and it was a failure, I knew that my stress was way too high and I can do it if I use all the knowledge and all the ‘how to” that I’ve learned. The next day after I got my score I went and schedule my next attempt.

On my second attempt I was calmer, cooler and my attitude was a positive one without being a forced positive, after I did the troubleshooting I knew I had a real chance of passing it.

The last hour of the lab was the hardest but I’m sure if I didn’t step it up during that hour I wouldn’t be writing this right now.

I got my result 35 minutes after the lab and I took me forever to have the courage and log in, when I saw pass I couldn’t believe it and I checked and recked, the joy was taking all my energy left i barely could talk to my wife

Thank you INE for the training, thank you to all my family and friends for the support

Sorin Platon CCIE #28841