Earlier this month I made an attempt at the Cisco CCIE R&S v5 Exam in Sydney. This was my first attempt at the newer v5 format of the lab exam. Once again I stayed up the road at Hotel Urban as this is only a short walk from the Cisco offices and the rooms are quiet and pleasant.
I arrived at Cisco around 7.45am, and the reception area was closed, due to open around 8am. After about 5 minutes a Cisco employee swiped me into the waiting area. He was also there to make an attempt on the CCIE DC Exam, his first CCIE attempt of any path. After the usual sign in process we wished each other luck, packed away our belongings and headed into the lab room.
Quite a bit has changed in the lab room since I attempted the R&S v4 exam. The workstations now feature Dual Monitors, and the K120 Logitech keyboard and mouse have been replaced with a basic Dell workstation keyboard and mouse. For me the feel of the Dell keyboard is very similar to the K120, so I’m sticking with that at home for my continued studies.