Is the CCIE Lab Exam Hard?

The CCIE is genuinely tough.

I took the CCIE R&S v5 twice. I failed the LAB exam each time. The current “lab” exam has three sections, troubleshooting section, diagnostic section, and configuration section.

I troubleshoot networks as well as networking devices, and yet I found the troubleshooting section to be too much difficulty, with nothing but a Network and some questions. I was able to crack it out, only when I got acquainted with the courses, provided by the SPOTO Club. 

I faced many problems in all configuration issues, localized, and that to not due to an upstream change or failure. As someone who does little configuration, this made it quite hard, and the time limit killed me. No matter how I went about, I simply felt too much disturbed to even think. I ended up timing out after chewing up some of my configuration time.

The diagnostic section was timed separately at 30 minutes and that made it difficult, but it seemed to be the easiest section to me. It was a lot of reading to do in 30 minutes and the system felt also felt a bit laggy, but otherwise, it was OK. Time was once again the main problem but is a type of written exam, it was not too bad though.

The configuration section was crazy. It had MPLS just to make routing protocols hurt, it had DMVPN, it had both styles of OSPF as well as EIGRP. It was everything it was supposed to be. I was prepared though. I had also just finished configuring a complete national network using DMVPN with authenticated 32bit EIGRP etc. I had upped my game with MP-BPG, I felt confident and flopped. The time limit again. The first time, I didn’t read that some of the configurations were done for me, and I also copy and pasted configuration to the wrong device multiple times. The next time I had a router that would not play fair with OSPF and instead of just putting in a static route and moving on as my exam training had told me, I hooked in there and set it and ran out of time.

It is an 8-hour exam. You couldn’t use your notes you probably have on your laptop, or Google, etc. You aren’t part of a team. And I needed 12 hours and then some.

I missed out, and maybe I’ll go back again. I learned a new respect for those who have acquired their CCIE. Also, after clearing the exam in the third attempt, I realize that I have there’s no way that any candidate would be able to crack this exam, in a single attempt, just by doing self-study. I have learned that there were many things which I missed out during my study sessions, which I gained easily through the study dumps, which were provided to me by the SPOTO Club.

So, yes the CCIE Lab exam is too much hard and it becomes extra difficult if pursued through the self-study model. Also, gaining a better study dumps is much more concerning. I have come across lots and lots of training provider, which provided the study dumps, but they were all useless. I even tried out the free study dumps, in my second attempt, but they were much worse than the other study dumps and none of them helped me. 

I came across the SPOTO Club, and it changed my perspective towards the study dumps. They have a team of experts, which helped me from the very beginning until the end, where I finally became a CCIE Professional. So, I would highly recommend everyone to gain the study dumps, of SPOTO Club and clear the exam in the first attempt.

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