Thursday, March 8, 2007

$499 Damage in my pocket for Preparation for my CCIE lab

After weighing the user feedbacks and product marketing, I've decided to get the IPExpert workbook to help prepare me for my CCIE Security Lab.

I ordered the workbook last Thursday and it arrived Monday. Not bad considering it came all the way from Tennessee and I'm here in Asia. Upon opening the FedEx package,I see this Spiral-binded book and I was like, " Is this all the US$499 (excluding shipping) I paid for???". Even the printing quality and paper used is not impressive. It has 220 pages, comprising of 11 technology-focused exercises and 7 Multiprotocol Lab Challenges. The book doesn't include the solutions. The final configs have to be downloaded from the website along with the initial configurations.

As far as content is concerned though, I still have to go through the exercises and challenge lab before I can comment. What made me considered buying this is because it was written by Multiple CCIEs Scott Morris and Marvin Greenlee. So my hope is high. It is also reassuring that there is a CCIE Security WB support forum in CertificationTalk.com so that I can post questions if I need help.

And besides, the real indicator that will determine if my investment is worth it is after I take the Lab exam itself. I didn't mean that if I fail the lab ( WHICH I WON'T !!!), I would blame it on the workbook. After seeing the CCIE lab scenario, then I can judge if the challenges in the workbook adequately prepared me for the level of complexity of the real thing.

Now that I got the workbook, I will now be shopping for rack rentals.