Nobody in yet in the door so I waited in the car until I noticed someone else just arrived and the door was opened, then sat in the lobby to wait for the proctor, a few guys were there, 2 voice, bunch of RS and another guy packing his luggage entered last, he was taking Security too. Got in, explained the rules, I’m putting attention although I’ve already hear it 4 times before, the RS bunch got routed to their seats first to let them take the first part of the exam, then the Voice and last the two Security guys. I started reading my lab, not that different from what I had seen in the other two, but still different, fair I’d say, so I start hitting it, this time I drew no diagrams and no table to keep my points, time table.

In 15 minutes I was almost done with the first task, and the problem arises, I cannot connect to the IPS to configure it through IDM, that’s trouble, check the routing, it’s ok, check the ASA, traffic is passing by it, but when I hit anything from IE I see no traffic coming in, I talk to the proctor about it explaining the problem, he doesn’t get it, it’s your config he says; no wonder why many people fail and end up blaming them, he did not put any attention to my troubleshooting, I said ping works ok, back and ford, only http traffic gets redirected somewhere else, I suspect your webfilter is not letting me in the IDM I insist. He asks me to do something else while he takes a look at it, I go back, start working on stuff from the VPN section, ACS, and all in the middle that I could get done, in the next hour I am done with the Firewall, section and jump around the advanced security and network attacks to keep myself busy, but in reality there’s nothing left that can be done and well verified unless I get the browser working.

I try to get to the VPN concentrator through the web, same behavior, I go back at the proctor insisting the problem is still there, he’s been checking for an hour and I am running out of things to do without configuring my IPS section, he then stands up, goes to my workstation, logs in with administrative access and as he removed the web proxy/filter from the browser config and tested, there they were, both VPN and IPS web pages displayed immediately. He asks me again to keep doing things that do not depend on it but I insist I cannot continue without it, really, he then takes a stab at it while I keep trying to find out what can be done here and there without fixing the IPS section first, not much can be done and I’m already starting to feel like he is making me loose time. He comes back after 10 minutes and confirms everything is fine now, apologises for the inconvenience and leaves, it’s about 10am already and I hit it hard, and by lunch time I am done with sections 1-4, Firewall, VPN, IPS and ACS, we go to their cool cafeteria and there was a sweet plate in the gourmet area that I couldn’t resist, I was quick to choose it, get some soda and sat down to eat.

We talked about my travel from PR to SJ, it’s a long journey, particularly cause I wanted it to be cheap and ended up buying 3 stop tickets, so we all have a laugh about it, someone asks about the Wireless track, which lab seemed to be in beta yet and only available to Cisco employees for the moment, others just seem to be stressed, but mainly the RS guys that seem to be there for the first time just like one of the Voice dudes, the rest of us were vets with couple of times already at the same place, this was my 5th visit to a lab, the stress is gone at this point, I feel like home. We get back to the lab, I hit my rack again and finish sections 5 and 6 by 1.30pm, at this point I need to relax, take the speed I’m thinking and acting at half the pace, it’s time to review all the work I’ve done so far, I go back, take one of the sheets of paper for the first time and draw a table with the sections and went one by one, checking the requirement, verifying and testing my answer. I found small mistakes in all my sections, about 20 points worth of stupid mistakes, I fix everything until it works exactly as it’s asked on the exam, finished verifying and correcting those at about 3pm.

I was done with all correcting but it was time to figure out 2 IPS tasks that I found difficult to tackle, so I take a crack at it without the stress of worrying for the rest of my 92 points, I am already 100% sure I got those, euphoria takes me over for a minute when I realize I will finally pass the exam, I stopped took a bathroom break, picked up a bottle of water and came back to work on the IPS tasks, I figure out the first one but I don’t like my answer, so I take a crack at the second, it’s already 4.30pm and I am not done with either, but a light shined and I figured a more decent response to the first one, so I fix it and clean up the mess, focus on the second one, oh wait, it’s the proctor saying save and leave, 10 minutes before the end, and I’m already thinking dude you owe me 30 minutes at least for your webfilter stunt, but I don’t dwell on it too much, keep trying and testing, changing settings on the signature to make it work, I am unsure of what to do, but guessing it’s not going to hurt anyone, right? I end up making the task work as required within 1 minute of the final let’s get out of here message from the proctor. I pickup my jacket, which I never needed, took a bathroom break and left to the airport, gave a ride to the other Security guy, already IE in RS but looking to get his Security.