Just a quick note to announce that our newest Volume 1 Lab Workbooks for R&S(covering the 4.0 lab) and Voice (covering the 3.0 lab) are finished and will begin shipping this Friday (June 26th).  I’m extremely impressed with these new products and am confident that our clients will also be VERY satisfied and impressed.  The R&S Workbook is updated with 50% more content covering the latest topics (recently announced by Cisco) and the Voice Workbook is absolutely amazing covering all of the topics on the new 3.0 blueprint.  Our new and completed Security Lab Workbook (Volume 1 for blueprint 3.0) will also be shipping within the next 3 weeks).  Existing customers will have these sections / books added to their members area and additional details about these products, Volume 2 Workbook release dates and Video / Audio on Demand release dates will be published on our website soon.

Regards,  Wayne"

Pretty good news if you ask me.  After hearing the excitement from not only our developers, but, Wayne himself, these new products should blow the "competition" right out of the water! 

Approximately 1 year ago when we began internal preparation meetings for what we knew would become the new v3 Voice blueprint, we knew that the older 7960 phone models wouldn’t do. In fact, they are largely incapable of performing (and thus testing) approximately 25-30% of the newer functions listed in the blueprint for the v3 Voice Lab Exam (Even much more so on the SIP side of phones, but SCCP has quite a few large features as well that can’t be tested without newer model phones) (For only a partial list, take a look at the CUCM SRND pg 819). 30% is an overall huge percentage of things for you to not be able to study and test for, before reaching your actual lab exam. It’s much more than a failing percentage. So it quickly becomes obvious that this is simply an unacceptable amount of testable content for us not to cover. We would be much more than remiss in not providing you with a test platform for such testable topics, we would be dreadfully in violation of our duties to fully prepare you for the CCIE Voice 3.0 Exam. It should be noted that to date (as of this penning), none of the other vendors claiming to teach or develop for the new v3.0 Voice Lab Exam has anything except 7960 phones in their online racks and in their classrooms. We simply don’t understand how they are claiming to prepare people. The simple fact is that they are leaving out this 25-30% in their self-study workbooks and in their classroom instruction.

To that end, we decided upon, and procured long ago, newer 7962 model phones for our classrooms. We decided on 7962’s vs 7961’s simply for the fact that they can perform one additional feature that the 7961 models could not, and could be tested.

All of that brings me to this statement, for all future development IPexpert does, and all future workbooks or labs to be released (including the remainder of Volume 1 next week!!), we will focus all of our labs and testing around the 7962 phone primarily. This allows us as developers to test everything in hardware instead of software, ensuring that 100% like-functionality will occur from our labs and solutions to your actual experience sitting the CCIE Voice Lab Exam.

So the good news is two-fold:

So for item #1: IPBlue now (in this next week actually) supports the 7962 phone type! However, while that is great news, they only supports the SCCP protocol, and from the blueprint we easily see at the top that we will need to know and be able to test both the SCCP and SIP protocols for both the CUCM and CUCME cluster types.

So our layout for the 5 phones that you will need to own either in hardware or in softphone fashion to test our self-study products with are:

• (Qty 1) Cisco 7960 IP Phone (or any other model above a 7960 for that matter) running the SCCP protocol load is needed for your PSTN site. An IPBlue VTGO-Lite softphone will suffice in the case that you don’t have a hardware phone available to you.
• (Qty 1) Cisco 7962 IP Phone running the SIP protocol load is needed for your HQ site Phone 2 (Phone 1 is physically located back at our Proctor Labs Data Center). A Cisco CIPC softphone will suffice in the case that you don’t have a hardware phone available to you.
• (Qty 2) Cisco 7962 IP Phones running the SCCP protocol load are needed for your BR1 site Phone 2, and BR2 site Phone 3 (BR1 Phone 1 and BR2 Phone 1 & 2 are all physically located back at our Proctor Labs Data Center. IPBlue VTGO-Lite softphones will suffice in the case that you don’t have hardware phones available to you.
• (Qty 1) Cisco 7960 IP Phone (or any other model above a 7960 for that matter) running the SIP protocol load is needed for your BR2 site Phone 4. A Couterpath X-Lite softphone will suffice in the case that you don’t have a hardware phone available to you.
• By the way, if you can’t procure hardware 7962 phone models, 7961’s should suffice quite well. The only thing they can’t test is the G722 protocol - which shouldn’t be too big of a problem. They do support all of the other needed features necessary to prepare you for the actual lab exam.

For item #2: Here are simple directions on how you can easily use Cisco Hardware IP Phones with your Cisco Software IPSec VPN Client:

1. When you have a rack session (or if you simply want to test your VPN - you can use our Demo Voice vRack), using your Cisco IPSec VPN Soft Client - connect to Proctor Labs via your wireless network interface, and simply ensure that VPN works properly (that you have it setup properly - btw we give you a PCF file to import when you log into any vRack including the demo vRack), and that you can ping what you should be able to ping.
2. Setup ICS so that your Ethernet shares your WiFi connection. Your WiFi NIC will be the one connected to the internet and thus where your Cisco VPN Client will connect to Proctor Labs through. Your Ethernet will attach either to a 802.3af powered switch which has connected to it all of your hardware phones (all in one VLAN for ease of setup); or else if you don’t have a 802.3af switch then you can connect one of the phones’ “Switch” ethernet ports directly to your laptop/desktop Ethernet port, and then daisy-chain all of the other hardware phones that you have together - making sure that phone 2’s “Switch” port connects to phone 1’s ”PC” port, and so on and so on. These can all be straight-through ethernet cables that you use. Then you will need to power all 5 phones with individual power cubes, bearing in mind that any 7960 phones (PSTN and BR2 Phone 2) only need 6.3W of juice, but that the 7962 phones will need 15.4W, so your power cube size may vary.  (Link to setup ICS on a Mac running 10.5) (Link to setup ICS on Windows Vista) (Link to setup ICS on Windows XP)
3. From the Settings Button: Set all of your phones to Static IP Addressing, making sure that they are all on the same IP Subnet as your Mac/PC Ethernet port is statically set to, set your Default Gateway to the IP Address statically assigned to your Mac/PC Ethernet port, and then statically point TFTP to the following addresses (you do not need to turn on “Alternate TFTP” since that is only when you are running DHCP, and here you are not): Regardless of vRack (Pod) that you rent from Proctor Labs - For the 2 phones (HQ Ph2 & BR1 Ph2) pointed to the CUCM Cluster: TFTP = 10.10.210.10 ; For the 2 phones (BR2 Ph3 & BR2 Ph4) pointed to the CUCME Cluster: TFTP = 10.10.110.3 ; For the 1 phone (7960 PSTN) pointed to the PSTN Cluster: TFTP = 10.10.100.2.

That should be it. When you have your vRack session, and you have connected your Cisco VPN Client to the Proctor Labs vRack, and you have taken care of any necessary infrastructure configuration/troubleshooting steps, as well as phone configuration/MAC address changes/TFTP/CCM Services activated and running - all pointed out to you by your Lab scenario, you will now be able to register those hardware phones to your CUCM, CUCME, and PSTN CUCME respectively - no switch needed!

We hope that this blog post has been informative, and certainly welcome any comments related to either of these two topics!

Cheers,

Mark"

Well, I posted on TWITTER and my Facebook the other day that I would have some tentative dates for some onsite instructor led boot camps.  Well, after going through the schedule and such, I have come up with 2 to start with – A Voice boot camp in Europe and a R&S boot camp in New York City (Possibly Malaysia as well) --- 

If you are interested, PLEASE EMAIL ME and in the subject line put I AM INTERESTED IN ONE OF YOUR ONSITES MIKE! 

CCIE Voice 5 Day Instructor Led Boot Camp 

London, England --- September 28 – October 2, 2009 

Details:

• 5 Days of intense training with an IPexpert instructor
• Voice courseware
• Voice Blended Learning Solution 

For pricing information, please CONTACT ME directly. Pricing will vary with the amount of people that do attend.  So, if you have friends or co-workers, get them in the class for a cheaper price!   

Keep in mind – this is a TENATIVE DATE – Class will run only if we have enough people.  I will be updating everyone AS IT HAPPENS.  So far there is a ton of talk of people wanting this to go – so, pass this on to everyone – post it everywhere! 

CCIE R&S 5 Day Instructor Led Boot Camp 

New York City, New York --- August 31 – September 4, 2009 

Details:

• 5 Days of intense training with CCIE x 3 Instructor Jared Scrivener
• R&S courseware
• R&S Blended Learning Solution 

For pricing information, please CONTACT ME directly. Pricing will vary with the amount of people that do attend.  So, if you have friends or co-workers, get them in the class for a cheaper price!   

Keep in mind – this is a TENATIVE DATE – Class will run only if we have enough people.  I will be updating everyone AS IT HAPPENS.  So far there is a ton of talk of people wanting this to go – so, pass this on to everyone – post it everywhere! 

If you have any questions at all or are interested in another location, please let me know!  

Hey all, 

It was a popular feature on my old blog so I decided to bring it to my new blog.  Each week (hopefully) I will feature a new CCIE candidate who is trying to conquer the beast just like most of you.  This weeks CCIE Candidate Spotlight Feature is on Jo Knight.  You may know him from his BLOG - I have had the pleasure of working with him through his  R&S CCIE and now through his journey to beat the Voice lab.  So, do you want to know more about Jo?  

Here's the tale of the tape: 

Name: Jo Knight                                            

Age: 33 

Company:                                                

City/State/Country: Doha, Qatar but originally from London, England

Certifications Completed: CCIE R&S - #22262 

Certifications Currently Studying: CCIE Voice

How long have you been studying for current certification? On and off for the last six months, but in reality more off than on due to being too busy at work. Now its time to get serious about it and get going.

Lab Date(s): Aiming for Sometime in early 2010 - hopefully March/April 

Lab Attempts: 0 

Blog/Website: http://ccielab.wordpress.com

What Company(s) are you using for studies if any? IPexpert and ccbootcamp

What products have you used from these companies: IPexpert Voice BLS for the Lab and ccbootcamp CCIE Voice Written Study Guide for the...er...Written 

Do you own your own rack equipment? No - Proctor Labs all the way....

Hours per day you study? Currently 1-2 a day for the written exam, will try to get 4-5 when Im doing labs in the near future.

Have you or would you attend any boot camps? I would like to check out the IPexpert Voice bootcamps - Vik and Mark seem to be the best out there based on what I am hearing.

Do you plan on going after another certification?  

I'm not sure I could deal with being a triple CCIE at any time in my life - my wife wouldnt allow it anyway. Lets get number two out of the way first before thinking of any others... SP would be the next one if I was pushed into it.

Tell me what you like to do when you are NOT studying or working:  

Ive recently moved out to the Middle East for a different way of life, summer is pretty much going to be spent indoors due to the heat, but I like going out into the desert in the 4x4 and quad biking, BBQ'ing when we can. Of course spending time with my wife is high up on the list too

What could the vendors do to make studying easier/better?  

I find the video walkthroughs to labs very helpful along with the main VoD lessons. I am good at learning by doing, and if I see someone else doing it first, seem to pick it up a lot easier. So more high quality video training please would suit me to the ground - (hint and updated v3 voice videos on the BLS)

 

Do you want to be featured on the next edition of CCIE Candidate Spotlight?  If so, please contact me! Thank you Jo!  Don't forget to go to his blog and leave comments and add him to your blog rolls!