I've been getting a lot of emails recently asking when our updated CCIE Service Provider Version 3.0 Workbooks and Rack Rentals are going to be released.  And the answer is... soon :)  In fact sooner than ever.  We're looking at somewhere around the end of March for the release of both the updated Workbook and Rack Rentals.  The updated Workbook will be broken down into two sections, Technology Labs and Full Scale Labs.  Essentially this will be the merging of the previous Volume 1 and Volume 2 workbooks into a single workbook that has two parts.  A sample of the Technology Labs section of the CCIE SPv3 Workbook can be found here.

The technology labs closely follow the flow of our CCIE Service Provider Version 3.0 Advanced Technologies Class-on-Demand.  The idea being that you will be able to watch the videos and then follow along with the hands-on portion of the technology based labs, or do the technology based labs and then fall back to the videos for sections that you don't fully understand.

As for the hardware requirements of the Workbook everything that is regular IOS based will be able to be configured on Dynamips/GNS3, however as there is not yet a public virtualization solution for IOS XR this means that you'll need hands-on experience with real IOS XR routers.  You will be able to do this through our rack rentals, or the racks of several other vendors that will be compatible with our topology.

More information will be made available as the final release of the Workbooks and Rack Rentals approach.

Happy Labbing!