I’m Juliana, a new CCIE Voice
Juliana Xu
Jan 27, 2010, on my way home from RTP, I was very nervous and was thinking whether I made it this time or not, what else I could do if I failed. Finally all these nerves ended when I saw that magic word – pass.
Hi all, I’m Juliana, a new CCIE Voice, as per Eman’s request, I’m pleased to share my journey here and hope it will be helpful for those that are pursuing or planning to pursue CCIE.
First off, let me give myself a brief introduction. I was a system engineer in China, designed and implemented real-time monitoring and control systems for China Telecom and China Mobile, which heavily depended on the telecommunication methods provided by China Telecom and China Mobile, such as DDN, PDH/SDH, E1 and intranet. While I was working there, as a matter of fact, most of time I was working with on-site engineers of equipment providers, for instance, Alcatel, AT&T, Erricson etc, to test and troubleshoot communications between remote sites and central office, which had lots of fun and challenges, and I studied a lot about SS7, X.25, frame-relay, TCP/IP. In 2001, I went to France and majored in telecommunication engineering, where I learned voip, h.323 and sip first time, and started from then, I told myself that this was what I wanted to do and this would be my career.
In 2003, I came into Canada with my Master’s degree and ambitions, however, the economy was not good at that time. To make matters worse, I didn’t have North American experience, neither did a North American diploma, I couldn’t even find a professional job during the first 2 years. Fortunately, I found cisco certifications which finally helped me open the door of my professional career in Canada. I pass the CCNA exam after one month’s self-study and got my first professional job, worked as 3COM’s VoIP TAC. I should say that TAC job was the quickest way to learn and understand new technologies, the knowledge that I acquired there even helped me to answered one core knowledge question in my CCIE lab exam. After finishing my CCVP while working in TAC, I moved to another company where I had more responsibilities, in charge of not only the VoIP system but also the r&s and security.
In 2009, finally I decided to go for CCIE Voice, I spent 3 months on reviewing all CCVP books and reading the majority of the books listed on Cisco website and passed the written exam in May. Then, I started preparing Lab exam, since I studied always by myself, I chose to study by myself again this time. I bought self-study material from IPExpert and setup a simple lab by using vmware, dynamips and 2 cisco7960g IP phones.
The first 2 months was the most tough time, everyday I did lots of research, troubleshooting and read lots of articles, blogs, no social life, no TV at all, the only break time was 2 times per week to go to gym. In August, after finishing IPExpert’s workbook volume 1 - 13 labs, I moved to the workbook volume 2. At that time, IPExpert released only 2 mock labs for blueprint V3, so I went back to their old material for blueprint V2, and went through the old workbook volume 1 and 2. Starting from September until December, I practiced again and again the 15 mock labs by using proctor labs and softphones: 5 for blueprint V3, 10 for version 2, I adapted those 10 old mock labs to new hardware environment. Plus, I read again all CCVP books, SRND, CUCM features and CME administrator Guider and tested all features on CUCM and CME as well. I practiced my speed from the 1st day of the preparation since many people said that the main reason of their failure was time management. So before my first attempt, I could finish most of the mock labs in 4 hours.
Finally, my big day came and I chose a good day to leave – first snow storm in Toronto. The exam was easier than I had expected, but I made a fatal mistake which caused my failure and I figured it out several weeks later. When I got the score report, I was astonished, I failed! I lost points for the sections that I had confidence, I couldn’t understand at all, I tested several times for those sections – they were working! I asked myself what I should do, book another exam? It didn’t make sense because I didn’t know what I missed and what proctors expected. So I decided to attend a bootcamp and to get help from experienced instructors.
After doing some research, I attended Faisal Khan’s bootcamp, where I practiced on a dedicated rack with hard phones for another month and was thinking hard everyday why I lost points for working sections. One week before my second attempt, I figured out most of my mistakes, and finally had a happy ending of my journey on Jan 26th, 2010.
Conclusions: the followings are the lessons that I learned from the journey:
Lesson 1: You do need some study partners and different opinions to prove the way you’re doing is the right way.
Lesson 2: “Working doesn’t mean getting points”, Pay close attention to detailed things during your preparation and lab time. These teeny-weeny things will cost you $1400.
Lesson 3: Never ever skip any words in the lab, read requirements word by word.