Study Update
This is just an update on the Written Exam studying. Although I am involved in an ad-hoc study group at work, most of the studying that you will be doing for the written is individual by its nature. Only YOU can read that book. Only YOU can learn each technology. And the only real feedback you can give each other is if your efforts were worth the time.
Out of my previous long list of study resources, here is some feedback:
CCIE Security Secrets to Acing the Exam - OMG so very not worth the paper it's printed on. The book was incoherent. It was like it was written in another language and translated through Google. None of the information in it (what you could piece together) was beyond what is on the Cisco site for the exam prep. Your time is better spent looking at the official Cisco site and reading their recommendations for preparation. And the "secrets" for getting a job look like they were lifted from various Monster.com articles. It is a rip-off.
All-in-One Guide - that one is pretty good. Not very meaty, but is more like an outline of the material. This is something you should read at the start and end of your studies. It will refresh your memory and point you to key areas of information. I haven't followed any of the links in the material, but you may want to...
IP Expert's VoD - I haven't gone back to this. I went through about half of it a while ago and never went back. It was a waste of my money. The instructor is very smart. People I look up to know him and say he is very nice and one of the smartest guys in the field. However, his very thick accent is a distractor and it is difficult to follow along. For someone who can deal with that, this would be fine - since it is the only video series that specifically targets the CCIE Security Written.
The Live Lessons videos on Safari are good, but are aimed at specific topics and do not cover the entire scope of the exam. I will work them into my study regime as I cover those topics.
One of the things I hadn't considered (until I did it) was the wealth of material in the INE Advanced Technologies videos. Of course, it's 69.5 hours of video, but it is very meaty. It fills in the information outlined in the All-in-One guide. And it preps you for the second step of the lab at the same time. Each technology is covered in a systematic way and Brian is very understandable. Each section explains something and then gives an example at the command line. This seems to be working for me so I'm sticking with it. [Whatever works for you, just do it. Everyone learns differently, so you really have to find your own way.]
Some notes of encouragement... No training is ever wasted. One of the places I worked gave us an on-site ASA class. The material was good, the instructor was good, and there were accompanying labs for practice. However, I did not get to immediately put much of it to use and it was frustrating that much of that training was forgotten. But I found recently that it wasn't really forgotten. It just needed a little reminder/refreshing. As I'm going through some of the INE videos, I'm remembering doing these things in the previous lab... And perhaps because I _have_ heard it before, this time it's coming together more easily. So my point is: no training is ever wasted. Even if it looks like you will "never" get to use some training (perhaps training for a higher version than you currently use) - jump into every free (to you) training class that is offered to you. Because training is very expensive.
Speaking of expensive... I've been looking at the cost of this on the horizon. The Written Exam is now $400 (previously $350). And the lab exam has gone from $1500 (the last time I sat for the R/S lab) to $1600. So basically just the cost of testing is $2000. Granted, you will probably make that back very quickly once you have your number, but the point is that it will probably constantly increase. So put time aside sooner rather than later to get this done. [Also note that Version 4.1 of the Written Exam is coming in the summer of 2016.]
One of the things to keep an eye out for are bargains. Granted, you can use GNS3 to work some of the labs, but at some point you will need rack time. As long as I have been studying, INE has run specials at the end of the year. Cisco Press has also run specials at the end of the year. Use them. You know you will eventually need some of these books or rack rental tokens. You may not need them right now, but you buy them at the year end at a discount so you have them when you do need them. A few years ago (when I first started studying for my R/S CCIE) I nailed the year end Cisco Press special and bought the entire recommended list of Cisco books. I was still working on my CCNP at the time - but got the whole list for half price! Most of those books are still on the recommended reading list. And I have to admit - there are times that I referred to those books for certain tricky issues at work. And yes, I read them all. It took a long time but I did read them. And when they arrived, I stacked them and measured - it was almost 3 feet of combined books. So keep your eyes peeled for year end deals. This year I jumped on the INE 50% off on rack rental tokens. I already have AAP and the R/S and Security Workbooks, but there are deals on those bundles. And the workbooks never expire. Once you buy a workbook, you get the most current version available (and a version or two behind). That is awesome. So it's really worth it to get those workbooks.
And this year I tried to buy enough tokens to last me for 2016. I plan to use tokens for the Advanced Technologies exercises and the Practice Labs. I'm not sure how many I will use, but they never expire so it will not be wasted. The best deal is the 1000 tokens for $372.50. If you have to buy tokens 100 at a time, you will pay $1 per token. But is 1000 tokens enough? Since the Security rack is 8 tokens per hour (yeah, that went up too) - that gives you 125 hours of rack time. Somehow that did not seem like enough. So I nailed another batch of 1000 tokens. I will update when I run out of tokens.