Bahman,
You will need to spend quiet some study time for the written and lab exam. I would advise people who are already married to be prepared for a "stay away from wife" period during your road trip to CCIE. Its very important to make sure that your partner understands the need and value of a CCIE certification, and that it would be difficult for a CCIE candidate to spend enough time with family considering that you have to work 8-12 hours a day and then go back home and study. I owe my CCIE to my much beloved wife, as with out her, this wouldnt have been possible.
It took me about 9 months of studying for the written and lab exam. I started off with finishing my CCVP last year end (2005). CCVP helped in preparing for my CCIE voice a lot. May be that approach will help you too. My first lab attempt was in September 2006 which i failed horribly. Went back at it, Oct 2006 and was succesful this time. You will need to procure a lot of gear (if you work for a Cisco partner you do get NFR kits that you can use to build your lab). Cisco has not officially published a lab topology, but you can refer to training partners such as IPExpert or similar for sample diagrams which are similar to the actual lab exam. I did attend a Bootcamp from IPexpert before my first lab attempt, which did help me tremendously with putting together an effective strategy, time management, tips etc.
HTH
Sankar
PS: please remember to rate posts!
Sankar Nair
UC Solutions Architect
Pacific Northwest | CDW
CCIE Collaboration #17135 Emeritus
