Story of Nooch

I studied the CCNP and CCIE track from March 05 until July 06.


Books
========

Routing
Routing / TCPIP Volumes 1 + 2- Ciscopress - Covers topics: Basic routing principals, TCP/IP, BGP, EIGRP, OSPF, Advanced Routing, Multicast, IPV6, and etc. Not a one stop shop but basically a bible for routing.

OSPF Command Reference - Ciscopress - Basically the DOC CD in printed form. Is a little older.

BGP Command Reference - Ciscopress - Basicall the DOC CD in printed form. Is a litle older.

Routing and Switching Written Certification Guide - Ciscopress - Very good book as it summarizes all topics in Routing / Tcpip in my opinion. Also covers all topics on written blueprint

Switching
Cisco Lan Switching - Ciscopress - A little outdated but the fundamentals still apply.

Multicast
Developing IP Multicast Networks - Ciscopress

IPV6
IPV6 - hxxp://www.ccbootcamp.com - their IPV6 book is very good. It is 40 pages of theory and about 60 pages of nothing but IPV6 labs. I liked it and learned all I needed to know from this book, and the DOCCD.

Lab Books
Internetwork Expert Practice labs
NLI / CCBOOTCAMP Practice labs
Netmasterclass Practice labs
and repeat... ;-)

Videos
Internetwork Expert Class on Demand - Priceless, they want you to learn the material and not just pass the lab.
CCIE R&S CBT Nuggets - It's like Diet Soda VS Regular, it comes up light. It is OK maybe for the first stages of CCIE training. Not informative enough.

The following from Knowledgenet:
BGP Module, Multicast Module, and a few others... I forget for now.

Classroom Training

Unitek - CCIE Written - 5 days intense lecture. I was prepared for the written before I went, but work covered it so it was a cool refresher. Passed written exam on site.

Unitek - CCIE Lab - 6 days intense configuring - lecture after each lab. There were 6 people in the class but the training itself was one-on-one. The labs were outdated and included ATM/ISDN so we had to take the time to edit that stuff out. Not impressed by it considering it was in May - 5 months after stuff was removed from the lab. The instructor however made up for it and was pretty good. His name was Rahim Roufi.


Aside from that I lived, ate, and breathed the DOC CD. The configuration guides and command references are priceless.