Two Types Of Troubleshooting

By Author: liuhan
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There are two types of troubleshooting that you'll run into on the

href="http://www.cathayschool.com">ccie lab:
1. The Proctor is Evil Troubleshooting
2. The Self-Induced Troubleshooting

The latter type is by far the more time-consuming but also the most important. Basically you

messed something up, therefore you have to fix it! (At least if you want the points) The reason it

is the most time-consuming is because it could be ANY silly mistake or combination of silly

mistakes along the way, and there is no predicting what kinds of things can be done to mess with

your own head!

The most important rule with this kind of troubleshooting is time management. Set a time limit of

15 minutes. If you can't figure something out in 15 minutes (no, I don't care how close you

think you are!) go do something else. Whether this involves a bathroom break, a soda/snack break,

standing on your head on the high-quality lab chairs or simply moving on to another service or

security task of your ccie routing and switching lab ...
... makes no difference. The idea is to separate your

brain from staring at the same thing over and over.

The longer you stare at something, the more you see what you want and not what's really there.

Most self-induced errors are really small, and fairly inane. You know. Those DUH! moments once

we figure it out. But time management is the consequence we suffer due to silly mistakes. Avoid

it!

Anyway on to the more exciting things. The unpredictable nature of the Proctor is Evil

Troubleshooting. Having started my training career specializing in the old CIT (Cisco Internetwork

Troubleshooting) class, I can greatly appreciate some of the humorous things that MAY get thrown

into lab exams. The question becomes, if I don't know what they are and there are many different

things that could go wrong What the heck do I do about it?!?!

We've had many different posts and blogs about the things you should be doing in your lab exam.

You know The stuff about reading your exam, re-drawing your diagrams, L2 diagramming, etc. Been

there, done that. But then there's troubleshooting. Some things are easy to spot. Others are not!

Some things may obvious, others are just plain obnoxious.

The one thing to remember is that during the lab exam, you are there for your proctor's

entertainment. As long as this goes through your head, you'll understand why some things are

done. It's all in good fun! And once you pass the ccie r&s lab training, it's much easier to laugh

about it all!