What are the prerequisites for the CCIE lab exam?

Most folks who pursue a CCNA certification find that it quite a time-consuming process. If you do it completely via self-study, a CCNA is needed to be taking the exam you months to achieve. The Professional-level Cisco certifications, and some of the specializations like the CQS certifications, are going to take longer because more exams are involved, and the general level of difficulty is higher. Of course, you are going to earning certifications and can take you to a lot less time from start to finish if you can take courses or a boot camp. But for most folks who are chasing an Expert-level certification, such courses are only limited for getting help in the get-me-there-faster sense. There's simply so much that you need to know and master to pass the CCIE exams and the forthcoming CCDE exams that you're in for a heave either way. Cisco has long stated that the average number of lab exam attempts to reach a CCIE is about 2 and 3, but my experience by talking with many candidates over a long period of time is that the average attempts are like more than four attempts.

But how long is it going to take, start to finish, earning a CCIE? I think that's worth a look, especially for candidates who are near the beginning of the path, because it's valuable to help you set the expectations for yourself. Most folks who are highly motivated--and let's keep it at that level since if you weren't highly motivated, you probably would never be going to achieve a CCIE would measure their CCIE journey in years. That is, once you can set the CCIE as a goal, with enough foundational understanding of what would be required to have a grasp on what it will take you to get there; you could count on quite a long journey.

To that point, the goal-setting would be becoming a key part of the CCIE pursuit. So does the project management; any large project that is needed to be broken into smaller segments, put in an order with well-defined goals and timelines are at each stage and tracked to completion. Without acquiring both of these skills in your bag, your journey is likely to be longer and harder than it should be.

CCIE Pre-requisites:

Well, talking about pre-requisites, there are actually none of them. Though, Cisco does recommend you have at least 3 years hands-on experience with Cisco hardware and would have an in-depth understanding of routing protocols, routers, switches, and security devices.

To get CCIE certification, you would have to first pass the CCIE written exam. After you have passed the written exam, you are going to be qualified to schedule and take the corresponding, one-day lab exam on-site at one of the ten lab locations of Cisco CCIE. The hands-on lab exam is going to test the Cisco equipment command knowledge and network troubleshooting skills.

I would, however, suggest that you do not endeavor the CCIE without first obtaining some other Cisco Certifications. CCNA, CCNP, CCSP etc.

These qualifications would be giving you a good grounding in networking theory and concepts and make your journey to the CCIE Lab exam a lot easier. As first, you have stated in this post there are no CCIE Prerequisites, but this does not mean to say you would just jump in at the deep end, prepare well and remember this is a going to be a marathon and not just as a sprint!

So, if you need to gain this certification, you should gain some good training, which you could gain by joining the SPOTO Club.