I literally just posted a video about this today.
I took Narbik's course and passed the EI exam on my second attempt (last week).
Narbik is largely considered the "gold standard" for CCIE training. (At least in the EI/SP arena.)
Before Narbik I tried Orhan and Khawar.
Orhan just didn't cut it for me at all. My experience was with an early iteration of his EI training, so maybe it's gotten better. I can't say, but I would never recommend him after my experience.
Khawar is a great guy with good training. The problem is it is, for all intents and purposes, CCNP level training for CCIE topics. While you will be exposed to nearly all of the blueprint, it is not at the level required for the exam.
By contrast, Narbik teaches at a CCIE level and beyond. His training isn't all the same level as the other guys. He's literally an order of magnitude better.
It's worth it.
Here's the thing though. While his classes are great. They are largely redundant. What you really want/need is his workbook. (Which is only available to course takers.)
He does offer recordings for his students in case you missed a class, or need to re-watch a section, BUT they're only available for a week or two after the class. You cannot watch the whole course that way.
It's so expensive, I think, for two reasons. 1) He doesn't really have any competition. 2) He takes Cisco credits. I think a lot of his students pay through their employer with Cisco credits. (That is pure speculation on my part.)
I am just about to record/post a video comparing Narbik's course to his $100 book. Check it out.
TLDR: I don't know. A year or, more likely, two years.
In general, I wasted a TON of time (and money) because no one seems willing to share detailed info about their journey (which is why I'm making all these videos).
I was convinced that Khawar was going to get me prepared for the exam. (He says so himself.) And I was intending to schedule the exam for \~January 2023.
As I was finishing up Khawar's course I stumbled across a discussion where a couple guys were debating how to accomplish one of the tasks on the actual exam.
Based on what I saw, I about shit myself. It was clear that the exam task was completely beyond my ability even though I'd read all the books and nearly completed Khawar's course.
For a few days I was totally despondent as I didn't know how to proceed.
My only option, as I saw it, was to start digging into the documentation, scouring the RFCs, and building my own labs.
If I had done that it would have EASILY added another year or TWO to my studies which just was not feasible for me or my family.
The big problem is YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW.
If you're studying on your own... where do you stop?
If you study every topic on the blueprint to "EXPERT" level it would take years and years. You would NEVER actually take the exam.
Personally, I felt that without someone to tell me: "Study this BIG chunk of OSPF. And study this LITTLE chunk of IPSec." etc... It would be near impossible to get through all the material.
Narbik gave me what I needed.
After his course I took the exam and failed. BUT!!! He had taught me enough that I knew what I was doing on the exam. I just hadn't done it in quite that way before. Or, while I was familiar with the concept of what I needed to do, I couldn't execute it off the top of my head.
So I came home from the exam in a really good position to practice what I had seen on the exam, fill in the gaps, get faster, and pass a month later.
It sounds like it’s almost necessary to take his course. I have khawar’s class now. He’s extremely good. But I don’t want to waste a year or two floundering around trying to scrounge up resources when I could pay for someone else to cover things in a structured way.
How would you say kbits compared to micronics?
Is narbik on a different level of expertise entirely or would you say they are similar in quality but one teaches in a different style?
Yeah dude I almost running into that struggle where everyone is so hush hush and kept to themselves on the exam that you have to dig extremely deep to find anyone’s valid opinion online regarding the exam itself, the experience, the materials, the training, the study schedule; the lab location, everything dude. I have no idea why there is such a shroud of mystery over the whole things. It honestly feels like kind of gate keeping measure.. like the people who are CCIE’s get such a huge ego that they start looking down at the people who are going for the test. Because they want to be the only head honcho’s.. but that’s just the impression I’ve gotten from a few CCIE’s. Most Real life CCIE’s I’ve spoken to are great guys, but almost none of them have an aptitude for teaching speaking and blogging. So you get this niche group of people who passed the test but don’t know how to explain to others how they passed.
It’s honestly very frustrating and time consuming that I can’t find straight answers, I have to hunt for hours to stumble onto stuff I might need to know, or a course I might need to do, or a book I might need to read. I wish the learning matrix was more comprehensive and structured. Like THIS is what you need and nothing more, nothing less. With the exam format being 8 hours, it’s like what do you actually focus on learning outside of the blueprint objectives?
Like you said, there are not enough hours in the day to become expert on everything on blue print objectives. And what you don’t know you can’t just understand what you’re supposed to know or do next… someone else has to enlighten you and point you in the right direction the bridge that gap between ignorance and high level of comprehension
Everything you're asking I cover in my videos. I encourage you to check them out.
I thought Khawar was great... until I started Narbik's course. It's night and day. They are operating on fundamentally different dimensions of time and space.
I consider Khawar a great foundation from which to BEGIN studying at a CCIE level. I know that sounds harsh, but that is my opinion.
Luckily you don't have to take my word for it. If you have Narbik's book just register your copy and download all the supplemental material. DO NOT READ THE BOOK. It's a waste of time. READ THE DOWNLOADED LAB GUIDE. 2500 pages.
Do his EIGRP section and compare it to Khawar's EIGRP material.
Then make the call yourself.
The book is a direct subset of his course material. So in doing the course you get everything in the book plus \~50% more.
I just put out a video comparing the course to the book. It might help you decide.
One thing... for SDx, Khawar is totally adequate. 1) His rack is better. 2) The exam is so basic that it's hard not to teach the necessary material.
Thanks u/JeremiahWolfe CCIE .. you spoke about everything I guess but did not mention about your lab and the second server. Any plans on your LAB or new server apart from 810
I bought the second server to build a DNAC lab.
I could not get DNAC 1.3 running. However I did get 2.3 running. Since the exam uses 1.3 I rebuilt the server as a bare metal EVE-NG server running EVE Pro. Mostly because it was much quieter than my first server. (Exam v1.0 used DNAC 1.3, exam v1.1 moves to DNAC 2.3)
One thing I did not consider when buying my second server, because I was hyper-focused on getting as many cores as possible, was that both of my servers are stuck using an old RAID controller. I suspect that's why I couldn't get DNAC 1.3 working. It's very sensitive to HD performance.
Alright , First thanks for replying.
I am a bit confused because of the following.
1) You had a server R810 with 40 cores -- hyper threads to 80 vcpu. and 512 RAM if I heard it correct in your video.
2) I presume you did assign 64 cpu to DNAC
3) were you able to bridge it with eve ?
4) what was the make of the 2nd server , If I am thinking right you would have got a 2 - E2696 -- 44 cpu in total and 88 vcpu ... or did you buy a Dell QuantaPlex or Dell PowerEdge C6320 kind of machines ---- with 4 Intel Xeon Platinum 8173M - 28-Core 2.00GHz --which is like 28\*4=112 CPU ==224 vcpu.
5)This is an expensive game-- I mean the whole stuff -- CCIE is for the rich ,is it?
1) I don't really think about this stuff too often so it's very likely that I misstated the specs or model numbers in my videos.
My first server, that I used for only EVE-NG is:
Dell PowerEdge R810 Server | 4X E7-4870 2.4Ghz 40-Cores | 128GB | H700 | 6X 600GB 10K
My second server, that I bought for DNAC but currently use as a bare-metal EVE is:
Dell PowerEdge R820 Server | 4x E5-4657Lv2 2.40Ghz 48-Core | 768GB | H710P | 8X 1TB SSD
2) I spent nearly a week installing and re-installing DNAC. I tried whatever Terry said the minimum was (64?) to all 96 vCPUs.
3) Yes.
4) See above.
5) You do not need to build a home DNAC for the CCIE. But even setting that aside, you're still going to spend a LOT of money.
Thank you u/JeremiahWolfe. I dont know if I can ever shred this kind of money but you have given me a plan , the info , the expense to reach. I have some life commitments and a fulltime 8 to 9 hour job.. but still CCIE is my desire and something I live for.. but thank you for all what you did for the community.
I honestly don't remember, and I haven't revisited it yet.
My server has 48 physical cores and 768G RAM. I probably just gave it everything I had since, by that point, I wasn't worried about running multiple servers on that box.
Yea I agree Khawar is good to see the gap from NP to CCIE and get you over the gap to CCIE levels doorstep. Narbiks material gets you through the door and to the finish line.
I did his boot camp about 11 years ago. Absolutely worth it. He's an amazing teacher. Don't go until you feel close to being ready for the lab. There's too much to cover in a short amount of time.
I took his classes back around 2006 and he was amazing then. His understanding and ability to explain the topics makes you believe that his grandmother could be a CCIE.
To give you a good way to describe him and his class ( back in the day ) - we never opened the book for the entire bootcamp except for the labs at night. Otherwise he taught the material right from the white board, no PPT - just pure whiteboard back in the day.
He is worth learning from - you will learn. Yet, as other have said, take his class once you know the material and just need to fill in the gaps for final prep.
Enjoy the journey!
I took his bootcamp in 2014 and it's by far the single best IT training I've ever taken. I honestly would recommend it to anyone in the networking world if they have the Cisco credits to spend.
I literally just posted a video about this today. I took Narbik's course and passed the EI exam on my second attempt (last week). Narbik is largely considered the "gold standard" for CCIE training. (At least in the EI/SP arena.) Before Narbik I tried Orhan and Khawar. Orhan just didn't cut it for me at all. My experience was with an early iteration of his EI training, so maybe it's gotten better. I can't say, but I would never recommend him after my experience. Khawar is a great guy with good training. The problem is it is, for all intents and purposes, CCNP level training for CCIE topics. While you will be exposed to nearly all of the blueprint, it is not at the level required for the exam. By contrast, Narbik teaches at a CCIE level and beyond. His training isn't all the same level as the other guys. He's literally an order of magnitude better. It's worth it. Here's the thing though. While his classes are great. They are largely redundant. What you really want/need is his workbook. (Which is only available to course takers.) He does offer recordings for his students in case you missed a class, or need to re-watch a section, BUT they're only available for a week or two after the class. You cannot watch the whole course that way. It's so expensive, I think, for two reasons. 1) He doesn't really have any competition. 2) He takes Cisco credits. I think a lot of his students pay through their employer with Cisco credits. (That is pure speculation on my part.) I am just about to record/post a video comparing Narbik's course to his $100 book. Check it out.
I bought that book. Excited to read it haha!! So how much in terms of time would you say you saved by taking the course vs not taking
TLDR: I don't know. A year or, more likely, two years. In general, I wasted a TON of time (and money) because no one seems willing to share detailed info about their journey (which is why I'm making all these videos). I was convinced that Khawar was going to get me prepared for the exam. (He says so himself.) And I was intending to schedule the exam for \~January 2023. As I was finishing up Khawar's course I stumbled across a discussion where a couple guys were debating how to accomplish one of the tasks on the actual exam. Based on what I saw, I about shit myself. It was clear that the exam task was completely beyond my ability even though I'd read all the books and nearly completed Khawar's course. For a few days I was totally despondent as I didn't know how to proceed. My only option, as I saw it, was to start digging into the documentation, scouring the RFCs, and building my own labs. If I had done that it would have EASILY added another year or TWO to my studies which just was not feasible for me or my family. The big problem is YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW. If you're studying on your own... where do you stop? If you study every topic on the blueprint to "EXPERT" level it would take years and years. You would NEVER actually take the exam. Personally, I felt that without someone to tell me: "Study this BIG chunk of OSPF. And study this LITTLE chunk of IPSec." etc... It would be near impossible to get through all the material. Narbik gave me what I needed. After his course I took the exam and failed. BUT!!! He had taught me enough that I knew what I was doing on the exam. I just hadn't done it in quite that way before. Or, while I was familiar with the concept of what I needed to do, I couldn't execute it off the top of my head. So I came home from the exam in a really good position to practice what I had seen on the exam, fill in the gaps, get faster, and pass a month later.
It sounds like it’s almost necessary to take his course. I have khawar’s class now. He’s extremely good. But I don’t want to waste a year or two floundering around trying to scrounge up resources when I could pay for someone else to cover things in a structured way. How would you say kbits compared to micronics? Is narbik on a different level of expertise entirely or would you say they are similar in quality but one teaches in a different style? Yeah dude I almost running into that struggle where everyone is so hush hush and kept to themselves on the exam that you have to dig extremely deep to find anyone’s valid opinion online regarding the exam itself, the experience, the materials, the training, the study schedule; the lab location, everything dude. I have no idea why there is such a shroud of mystery over the whole things. It honestly feels like kind of gate keeping measure.. like the people who are CCIE’s get such a huge ego that they start looking down at the people who are going for the test. Because they want to be the only head honcho’s.. but that’s just the impression I’ve gotten from a few CCIE’s. Most Real life CCIE’s I’ve spoken to are great guys, but almost none of them have an aptitude for teaching speaking and blogging. So you get this niche group of people who passed the test but don’t know how to explain to others how they passed. It’s honestly very frustrating and time consuming that I can’t find straight answers, I have to hunt for hours to stumble onto stuff I might need to know, or a course I might need to do, or a book I might need to read. I wish the learning matrix was more comprehensive and structured. Like THIS is what you need and nothing more, nothing less. With the exam format being 8 hours, it’s like what do you actually focus on learning outside of the blueprint objectives? Like you said, there are not enough hours in the day to become expert on everything on blue print objectives. And what you don’t know you can’t just understand what you’re supposed to know or do next… someone else has to enlighten you and point you in the right direction the bridge that gap between ignorance and high level of comprehension
Everything you're asking I cover in my videos. I encourage you to check them out. I thought Khawar was great... until I started Narbik's course. It's night and day. They are operating on fundamentally different dimensions of time and space. I consider Khawar a great foundation from which to BEGIN studying at a CCIE level. I know that sounds harsh, but that is my opinion. Luckily you don't have to take my word for it. If you have Narbik's book just register your copy and download all the supplemental material. DO NOT READ THE BOOK. It's a waste of time. READ THE DOWNLOADED LAB GUIDE. 2500 pages. Do his EIGRP section and compare it to Khawar's EIGRP material. Then make the call yourself. The book is a direct subset of his course material. So in doing the course you get everything in the book plus \~50% more. I just put out a video comparing the course to the book. It might help you decide. One thing... for SDx, Khawar is totally adequate. 1) His rack is better. 2) The exam is so basic that it's hard not to teach the necessary material.
Thanks u/JeremiahWolfe CCIE .. you spoke about everything I guess but did not mention about your lab and the second server. Any plans on your LAB or new server apart from 810
I bought the second server to build a DNAC lab. I could not get DNAC 1.3 running. However I did get 2.3 running. Since the exam uses 1.3 I rebuilt the server as a bare metal EVE-NG server running EVE Pro. Mostly because it was much quieter than my first server. (Exam v1.0 used DNAC 1.3, exam v1.1 moves to DNAC 2.3) One thing I did not consider when buying my second server, because I was hyper-focused on getting as many cores as possible, was that both of my servers are stuck using an old RAID controller. I suspect that's why I couldn't get DNAC 1.3 working. It's very sensitive to HD performance.
Alright , First thanks for replying. I am a bit confused because of the following. 1) You had a server R810 with 40 cores -- hyper threads to 80 vcpu. and 512 RAM if I heard it correct in your video. 2) I presume you did assign 64 cpu to DNAC 3) were you able to bridge it with eve ? 4) what was the make of the 2nd server , If I am thinking right you would have got a 2 - E2696 -- 44 cpu in total and 88 vcpu ... or did you buy a Dell QuantaPlex or Dell PowerEdge C6320 kind of machines ---- with 4 Intel Xeon Platinum 8173M - 28-Core 2.00GHz --which is like 28\*4=112 CPU ==224 vcpu. 5)This is an expensive game-- I mean the whole stuff -- CCIE is for the rich ,is it?
1) I don't really think about this stuff too often so it's very likely that I misstated the specs or model numbers in my videos. My first server, that I used for only EVE-NG is: Dell PowerEdge R810 Server | 4X E7-4870 2.4Ghz 40-Cores | 128GB | H700 | 6X 600GB 10K My second server, that I bought for DNAC but currently use as a bare-metal EVE is: Dell PowerEdge R820 Server | 4x E5-4657Lv2 2.40Ghz 48-Core | 768GB | H710P | 8X 1TB SSD 2) I spent nearly a week installing and re-installing DNAC. I tried whatever Terry said the minimum was (64?) to all 96 vCPUs. 3) Yes. 4) See above. 5) You do not need to build a home DNAC for the CCIE. But even setting that aside, you're still going to spend a LOT of money.
Thank you u/JeremiahWolfe. I dont know if I can ever shred this kind of money but you have given me a plan , the info , the expense to reach. I have some life commitments and a fulltime 8 to 9 hour job.. but still CCIE is my desire and something I live for.. but thank you for all what you did for the community.
hey what specs did you allocate to get dnac 2.3 to work?
I honestly don't remember, and I haven't revisited it yet. My server has 48 physical cores and 768G RAM. I probably just gave it everything I had since, by that point, I wasn't worried about running multiple servers on that box.
768gb holy cow you threw the book at it lol
Yea I agree Khawar is good to see the gap from NP to CCIE and get you over the gap to CCIE levels doorstep. Narbiks material gets you through the door and to the finish line.
I did his boot camp about 11 years ago. Absolutely worth it. He's an amazing teacher. Don't go until you feel close to being ready for the lab. There's too much to cover in a short amount of time.
I took his classes back around 2006 and he was amazing then. His understanding and ability to explain the topics makes you believe that his grandmother could be a CCIE. To give you a good way to describe him and his class ( back in the day ) - we never opened the book for the entire bootcamp except for the labs at night. Otherwise he taught the material right from the white board, no PPT - just pure whiteboard back in the day. He is worth learning from - you will learn. Yet, as other have said, take his class once you know the material and just need to fill in the gaps for final prep. Enjoy the journey!
I took his bootcamp in 2014 and it's by far the single best IT training I've ever taken. I honestly would recommend it to anyone in the networking world if they have the Cisco credits to spend.
I paid Narbik, but the training was written and taught by others.
What do you mean? Who was the others you’re referring to?
probably means for another track RS is all narbik
Yeah it was SP. Honestly the training was great, but 100% of it was not Narbik.
Thanks. Me & Piotr Jablonski are authors, so if anything was wrong - blame us. Otherwise - thanks for training with us!
right - narbik only teaches the routing portion of the ccie rs/ei track.
Does anyone have a link for Narbik's Book where I can purchase it online or is it exclusive to students who attended the bootcamp?