From: Jay Hennigan (jay@xxxxxxxx)
Date: Mon Aug 13 2001 - 17:54:05 GMT-3
On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Donahue, Gary wrote:
> I was under the impression that one could only swap a lab date with someone
> from the same company (not sure where I heard that), yet I see lab swap
> requests all the time on this list. It would appear I am mistaken.
Things have changed in this regard.
> Can someone either point me to the right place or explain to me how a lab
> swap works?
I'll try to do both.
First, there's a separate Groupstudy forum just for lab swaps. The lab
swap requests here are hurting the signal-to-noise ratio of this study list.
Try: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/list.php?f=5
The old procedure was for both parties wanting to swap to contact the
CCIE co-ordinator at Cisco who would make the changes in the database.
Lab date requests are now done online. There isn't a "swap" option per
se, but swaps are handled by both parties releasing their dates at the
same time, then immediately signing up for the other's newly released
date. There's an element of trust involved here, as there isn't a way
to verify that the person you're working with indeed has the date claimed.
So, if you agree to trade dates with someone and that person doesn't have
the date you want, once you release yours and they take it, you won't
see the opening for the date you want. There's also a remote but non-zero
chance that a third party could claim the date seconds before you do, as
the released dates can't be "directed" to another person, but can only be
made available to all takers. There are also some anomalies in the system
in terms of whether or not you have paid for the lab yet. look through
the archives and on CCO. ISTR that if you have paid it complicates the
process.
Having said that, I would expect that some time Real Soon Now you should
see many openings in the schedule immediately after 1 October 2001. These
dates were for the most part booked for a two-day duration. With the change
in format, all of those second-day reservations become moot, and should be
returned to the "available" pool. This should result in a lot of shifting
as those with later dates move into those slots.
> I'm suddenly being pressured to be certified months before my lab date in
> Feb.
You could try a phone call to inquire about the no-longer-needed "second
day" reservations in October and bryond. See if they have been placed in
the pool of available dates yet.
Or just hammer the online form in search of an earlier date. In fact
with a little scripting...
Another possibility would be to consider traveling to a lab with earlier
availability.
Don't rush it too much, getting a lab date is not by any means an assurance
of passing.
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/ WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323 **Please read:http://www.groupstudy.com/list/posting.html
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