Dear Vendors, Why hast thou forsaken SP?

By Barooq
I am over the initial euphoria of passing the R/S lab and thinking about the future.
I am getting married in March, so before that, I can muster up some time. And since last year studying was all I did, I don’t know what would I do for the next 5 months if not study  .
Browsing the web about the SP materials, I realized, service provider track is the most neglected of all by the vendors. And that only leads to confusion as I don’t know, which vendor to choose for SP prep, specially considering that 5 months is all I have to start and finish the prep and financial constraints make it impossible for me to gather all prep materials.

Lets Look at IPexpert. The offer Blended Learning Solutions for R/S, Voice and Security, and one track they ignore is…. Yes, the service provider track. According to support, it may take 3 months or more before BLS is out, time I don’t have. Let’s look at their free V-seminars. They offer 9 different seminars for Voice and R/S and only 1 for Service Provider.

InternetworkExpert was supposed to upgrade the SP workbook but that’s long overdue as well. Also, from what I’ve heard the workbook solutions offer NO explanation or verification whatsoever. I’ve heard that dynamips version of same workbook does offer some explanations, but for a guy like me, who is not great comfortable with MPLS at all, the topics that dynamips doesn’t cover will not be available in dynamips workbook and will be problematic. Also, priced at 395 apiece, I cannot afford to buy both dynamips and regular workbook, when they are 90% the same. Due to financial constraints, the COD is out of question for me already. In fact, before my company agreed to finance the bootcamp, all I could buy was first 10 IE labs only. Also their technology labs as I hear need upgrading as well. IE is upgrading R/S technology labs and doing a wonderful job, but again Service Provider track is neglected.

IEMentor earned a good reputation for Service Provider track 3 years back. But they were supposed to release an upgraded version in October 07 and one year after the due date, it’s still not released.

Narbik is making his SP workbooks but those won’t be ready till January next year anyway.

Also, I am unable to find good unbiased reviews of products on the blogsphere.

Anyway, I’d appreciate if anyone has good SP experience and can recommend a particular product.

I have to make a decision soon and start studying again. It almost feels weird when I return to home from office and have nothing to study, which basically means I am getting bored as hell? 

Also, I have to ask Ethan if I can post topics regarding SP prep etc here or not. In any case, I write at http://ccie-chronicles.blogspot.com as well. And whatever I write here, is there as well. If Ethan allows me to continue writing here, I will be writing about my SP prep here as well. Until then, I am waiting to hear from readers about the SP prep.
 

10 comments so far.

  1. Anonymous September 24, 2008 at 9:34 AM
    I hear ya. I am still working through my R&S but I have been talking to Narbik about his SP bootcamp. According to him it will be MPLS focussed and was suppose to release it this month. I guess he is running late :) Have you thought about Voice?
  2. Barooq September 24, 2008 at 9:52 AM
    As I mentioned I have only 5 months to study.
    So SP seems the only track I can complete in the time frame. Also SP can be done totally on dynamips, and voice is something I never worked on :S
    So, that limits my option only to SP.
  3. Anonymous September 24, 2008 at 11:06 AM
    That's true. I have never worked with dynamips since I have a full rack for my R&S so it would be nice if you do a write-up once you have things rolling :)
  4. Barooq September 24, 2008 at 12:42 PM
    I extensively used dynamips for CCIE R/S anyway.
    Its not bigie, i used IE .net file and installed dynamips on my ubuntu box using tutorial from blindhog.net.
    To modify topologies, i just modified the .net file.:S
  5. Anonymous October 30, 2008 at 12:19 PM
    How are you coming along with your SP prep?
  6. Anonymous November 27, 2008 at 6:07 PM
    why you dont ask brians for free stuff like u did for r&s?
    everyone not rich and we make do so stip your whinning
  7. Anonymous April 15, 2009 at 10:46 AM
    Barooq

    You are right .

    plz email me as soon as possible

    CCIE2O1O@YAHOO.COM (copy paste it )

    regards
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