CCIE Collaboration Training Vendor Reviews

**Update 6/12/16**

Since iPexpert closed and no products are available from them I would completely disregard that section. INE still has yet to release Collaboration workbooks and only has videos. If you are in the market for CCIE Collaboration training you should definitely go to CollabCert!

**End Update 6/12/16**

In this post I will discuss my experience with the CCIE Collaboration training providers I used during my studies. Providers include iPexpert, INE, and CollabCert. This post is purely my views and I plan to write only about my experience with them. Hopefully this post will help people which vendor will fit them best.

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INE | Products used (Bootcamp, Workbooks, Videos, Rack Rental)

Overview:

I\’ve been studying voice for awhile starting back a couple years with CCNA Voice. I used Mark Snow at INE for this training and watched all the way through CCIE Voice and now the Collaboration videos. It was training like this that drove me to purchase a Collaboration voucher for a bootcamp of future date. With that purchase came their All Access Pass, Workbooks, and included some rack rental tokens.

Videos:

The videos with INE are great and cover every topic very well. After watching them several times I feel like I was covered on technology but still confused as to how to put everything together.

Rack Rental:

I had used rack rentals on other technologies like Route/Switch and Voice which was another reason I chose INE. The ability to load specific technology labs in my opinion is a pretty critical piece to studying for the exact topic you\’re on. My favorite thing about INE is they use a token system where you can use the tokens on any racks you want! The rack rentals for Collaboration were pretty fast to access and scheduling gear on the fly is great! L2VPN was great and I never had an issue with the connection. The biggest downfall here is there are no labs to load on their gear. The reason for this comes into play in the \”Workbooks\” section.

Workbooks:

There is currently one workbook available for Collaboration from INE. The downfall is they call it the bootcamp workbook and feels very incomplete. Because of this it really shows through the rack rentals! There\’s no way to load any specific labs so you get a blank canvas every time. Sure you can copy/paste configs and import on CUCM but that\’s time I\’m taking out of my study window.

Bootcamp:

At the time I chose to take the bootcamp the instructor Mark Snow was no longer with INE. There was a huge question as to who would teach the class. INE was able to contract Vik Malhi to teach this class in a pinch and he was a great instructor. The bootcamp on the other hand was very less than desirable. Each pod goes to two students, meaning you will only work on one CUCM side and not the other. You both have to share the CME site and it\’s just a pain to coordinate. I understand the thinking on this as there are limited resources but it really reflects poorly on the student experience. My other big complaint here was the weekend break between the 10 days. During the weekend they didn\’t have the room reserved at the hotel and had to take everything down meaning no phones to do testing with for the weekend. It was at that point I decided to leave the bootcamp as I wasn\’t getting what I needed out of it.

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iPexpert | Products used (Workbooks, Bootcamp, CCIE Written Bootcamp)

Overview:

Full Disclosure – I won the lab bootcamp and workbooks through the iPexpert CCIE Scholarship.

Written Bootcamp/Videos:

The written bootcamp was great to experience live as it was an introduction to their new instructor, Andy Vassar. I watched it a couple times on the portal as well for some review. Other than this I didn\’t have much access to their videos but the samples and YouTube videos Andy put out seemed really good.

Rack Rental:

The panel for controlling the rack is great and the gear seems very solid! The biggest downfall for me was scheduling as they have set time periods that you can schedule a block of 4 hours. At the time of my studies the only time slot where I could maximize my time was the 3-7AM slot. I also had some spotty usage while on their racks with various things like connectivity. iPexpert support were always great if I sent in a note to support they would credit my account for the session immediately. I had a ton of vouchers left over as I purchased a ton and they expired. Support was going to let me transfer to any track but Data Center since it\’s in high demand.

Workbooks:

At the time of my studies, iPexpert only had the technology workbook available. This was what I followed for most of my lab journey. The before/after configurations were able to be loaded into the racks which is a great way for the student to check their configuration. The DSG was thorough and very helpful for those hard to do tasks.

Bootcamp:

I attended the bootcamp very early in my studies for CCIE. It was very apparent to me on the second day that I was in over my head! I stayed late every night and did that days lab multiple times to ensure I wouldn\’t be behind the next day. This worked out well for me to drink from the firehose as it really kickstarted my studying. If you can afford to take both bootcamps separately I would highly encourage it! Andy is a great instructor and stayed in communication with our class for quite some time and was always very responsive. I\’m very thankful that I won this bootcamp from iPexpert that laid my CCIE foundation.

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CollabCert | Products Used (Bootcamp, Rack Rental, Workbooks)

Videos:

I didn\’t list videos as a product I used during my studies but I have seen Vik\’s material. It is always spot on and delivered without all the fluff. I have many people that I work with that are currently using his videos with great success!

Rack Rental:

The rack rental was extremely fast especially in the classroom as it\’s literally in the next room over. I found myself spoiled by this during the actual lab as I felt like I was always waiting for the screen to load. At the time I used the rack rentals there was no way to load specific labs but at this point it didn\’t matter as I was only doing 8 hour lab sessions. The only downfall I could see with CollabCert is if an individual plans on doing multiple CCIEs. The other two training vendors have content for most CCIEs available and your membership pass entitles you to be able to view all their videos.

Workbooks:

The workbooks were like the videos, spot on without the fluff. The solution guides were extremely accurate and helped explain why you should be doing things a certain way. The labs Vik has will cover any technology you could be tested on and are very thorough. The labs were also very much like what you would experience during the real exam in terms of what you may be expected to accomplish given a set amount of time.

Bootcamp:

The teaching style of the bootcamp was great and very engaging. Vik knew the answer to literally every question the class threw at him. We went through the labs in class and he would show multiple ways to satisfy the same question and how to tell which way would provide the best outcome for the specific scenario. I also learned some really good strategy for attacking the lab and would definitely not have passed the lab without this bootcamp!