From: David C Prall (dcp@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 18:54:17 GMT-3
> On both of my CCIE lab attempts, I've heard people attack the format of =
> the lab. They usually go like this:
>
> "I think the whole thing is a crock! No network would ever be set up =
> that way and you wouldn't have all those restrictions. If I had enough =
> time and didn't have the restrictions I could get everything working."
>
> Yes, it's true that anyone, with enough time and no restrictions, could =
> get everything to work. However, this isn't called the Cisco Certified =
> PROFESSIONAL Lab--it's an EXPERT lab. That means you can take a bunch of =
> routers and make them do whatever is required, no matter how many =
> restrictions are placed upon you or how ugly the situation gets.
>
> Anyone can get routers to work, only experts can make them dance.
>
> Tony Olzak, CCIE #6689
>
I work heavily with agencies within the Federal government. Lets take the
Dept. of Labor for an example. There are a number of organizations within
the DOL that run their own networks, with their own equipment.
Unfortunately, all of DOL must have access to their Time and Attendance
system. Therefore all of these organizations were required to interconnect
their networks. Some are pure Cisco and running EIGRP, one was pure 3com and
running OSPF, another was running RIPv2. In order to bring everyone together
a new network was built and all of these organizations connected to it via a
Catalyst 5500 with RSM and VIP. This core device has OSPF, RIP, EIGRP
running on it. All of these protocols are redistributed into each other so
that the organizations now have an internal transit network between each
other in order to bypass the Internet. They have organizations connecting
via 10BaseFL, 100BaseFX, 10/100BaseT, T-1, and ATM. So anyone that tells me
the CCIE Lab is not a real world network, has never had to interconnect
multiple organizations in to a single network infrastructure. At least on
the Internet everyone has decided to use BGP.
David C Prall dcp@dcptech.com http://dcp.dcptech.com
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