One of the most challenging aspects when studying for the CCDE practical is to find scenarios to practice with. It’s difficult to find a scenario that has enough background information, requirements and constraints to emulate the experience of the real practical. Writing a full scale scenario is very time consuming and challenging. You have to find a good story, make it believable and challenging enough. The scenario must also be somewhat realistic.
I’m happy to announce that my friend Martin Duggan has released a new scenario for the CCDE practical. Martin and I studied for the CCDE together and passed on the same day. Martin is well known in the industry and holds a CCIE in RS and works as a network architect at AT&T. He is a Cisco Press author and has authored the CCIE RS Practice Labs Bundle. I have been a technical reviewer for this scenario and based on my experience this is one of the best quality scenarios I’ve seen.
These are some of the things that I think Martin has done really well to make this scenario as realistic as possible.
Background information – The scenario contains more background information than some of the other scenarios. This better emulates the real practical where you need to be able to read a relevantly large portion of text and find what is important, what is a requirement, what is a constraint and so on.
Network diagrams – The network diagrams are very nicely done. Clear and with enough information to be able to see what is going on.
Implementation questions – The implementation questions are very challenging. If you do well on this scenario on these questions you are likely to do well on the real practical.
Progress bar – There is a progress bar that roughly shows you how far you are into the scenario. This is good to be able to manage your time properly.
E-mails – There are a lot of incoming e-mails, just like in the real thing. You need to be able to read these and find relevant information and identify what you already know from previous information.
Size – Some of the other full scale scenarios aren’t really comparable to the size of the real practical. This one definitely is though. If you can finish this one within 2h then you have a good chance of finishing a real scenario within the time constraint as well.
The absolutely best thing about this scenario though is that the debrief is spot on. Martin explains why something is correct or wrong. Why is one answer optimal and the other suboptimal? If you grade your scenario and end there the learning experience won’t be enough to make you pass the practical. You need to learn from every question why some answers are better than others. This debrief is very high quality and something that really makes it worth to get this scenario.
This scenario is normally priced at a suggested price of 93.75$ including tax and a minimum price of 75$ but readers of Lostintransit will get a discount so the book is priced at 62.50$ Follow this link to get the scenario at a special price.
Martin is planning on writing additional scenarios in the future so keep an eye out for those.
Good luck with your studies!
Can i get your email address?