CCIE - Internetwork Expert's Online Community

Hello

My company has very kindly sponsered me to complete the training required to attain my CCIE. I have just received the following books from IE: Lab Workbooks volume 1 to 3 plus a Lab Solutions book volume 2. I also have 900 credits towards rack rental plus I have a fully assembled IE lab in my home office.

My question is, what is the best way to tackle the IE Lab Workbooks? Obviously I start at volume 1 but what other training material do I need at hand apart from the appropriate Cisco press book? Do I just work my way through the book and complete all the steps as required? Do each of the exercises build on each other so that I do not repeat unnessesary work?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. 

If you want to start with a Lab Workbook as preparation - I would do it this way. Look at a task from the workbook - let's say it is trunking on the Catalyst switches. I would then use the DOC-CD and your texts to study this topic. When you feel you are up to speed on these technologies, then rent some rack time and just spend it on trunking! Complete the trunking tasks from the lab and check your solutions - then erase and do it again trying to build speed, then erase and do it again using different settings. 

Many students will tell you - just doing all the labs straight-through is not typically enough. And it is NOT what we intended for you to do with these products. 

The advanced technologies Class on Demand is also a great way of gaining fundamental knowledge that is needed for the labs

The CoD is great if you can get/have them, I would suggest doing those first.

Kind of on the same thought as Anthony, is lately I have been picking out sections from various labs and doing them back to back.

For example, my QoS has been hurting, so I have been going through each lab and doing just the QoS, studying what I miss and really focusing on the one topic, and I find it works termendously.  After a week straight of that, I don't even flinch at silly QoS :P