Intensifying the Study

Beyond the basics, and in parallel with your acquisition of practical hands-on experience, you must begin building a deep understanding of the internetworking protocols. At a minimum, you should read the RFCs recommended in this book. Ideally, read as many relevant RFCs as you can. They are available from many sites on the Internet; just do a Web search on "RFC." One of the best sites is http://www.ietf.com.

Of course, not all internetworking protocols are described in RFCs. Look for advanced books, white papers, and tutorials on the non-IP protocols such as SNA, AppleTalk, IPX, and Banyan VINES. You should also study Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, and WAN protocols such as T-1, ISDN, X.25, Frame Relay, and ATM. You'll find a wealth of publicly available information at http://www.cisco.com.

A very useful study tool, incorporating both theory and practical knowledge, is the Cisco newsgroup at comp.dcom.sys.cisco . Copy particularly challenging questions and problems posted to the newsgroup and find your own answer. Then watch for the answers posted from CCIEs and Cisco engineers and see whether you are right. If not, determine why.

Post questions to the Cisco newsgroup, too. Most regular participants are friendly and willing to share their expertise. Another good source of information, if you are a registered user on Cisco's CCO, is the Open Forum at http://www.cisco.com/openf/openproj.shtml.

Finally, if you have associates with the same goals, form a study group . Within International Network Services, CCIE study groups have been very effective and have produced many CCIEs.