From: Tom Larus (tlarus@cox.net)
Date: Sun Mar 09 2003 - 14:16:41 GMT-3
Sorry for responding to the list generally, but I think certain points need
to be made for the benefit of many people here.
The reality is that if you can get the CCIE by practicing on routers in a
lab environment you will have learned some things that many people with
several years of experience as network engineers have not learned. That
does NOT mean that you will be better than them at solving problems in a
production network, but you could be very helpful on a team with those
people. I have worked with people who were much more experienced that
myself, but even so, I had some useful insights, I was able to quickly find
answers to questions on CCO and elsewhere, and I was pretty good at thinking
through problems. I consider myself junior to these more experienced
networkers, but I was still useful and valuable.
I am basically into research and writing and studying and teaching. I would
rather lab something up and write about my findings than do a lot of the
mundane tasks that network engineers end up doing so much of the time.
Running cable between patch panels and switches and then labeling each end
of the cable, or tracing 100 cables to troubleshoot a LAN problem may be
considered "network technician" stuff, but network engineers often end up a
doing a lot of that kind of work. The reality is that in a career of five
years as a "Network Engineer" or similar title, many people spend a lot of
time monitoring screens waiting for a link to fail, or cabling, or writing
down serial numbers for licensing purposes, or racking and stacking, or
having meetings and then more meetings about a network upgrade, or
populating spreadsheets with data for importing into Call Manager, or
spending hours at a time on the phone with Telco people about getting a WAN
link up.
Yes, there are folks who do every day the kinds of things we traditionally
think of network engineers doing, but these people are few in number, and
many of them have been CCIEs for years. There are many folks who think that
the CCIEs should only come from the ranks of these few, but the reality is
that many of us need to get the CCIE before anyone will let us do much
"network engineer" work. This is the old "chicken and egg" you are
concerned about.
The point I am leading up to is that if you spend 600 solid hours in a lab
doing practice scenarios, you may well have more hours of experience
configuring routers and switches than many people whose resumes show five
years on the job as a"network engineer." This does NOT make you a better
network engineer than the folks with more years in service. You have not
learned some of the on-the-ground lessons of production networks, like
keeping yourself from getting locked out of a router you are telneted into
(which, by the way, experienced people still do), or being cool under
pressure, or not letting people know your areas of weakness.
Speaking for myself only, perhaps the biggest problem for a "lab rat" CCIE
is one of confidence. If you are like me, you may be too self deprecating
because you know you do not have the years of experience that make one so
valuable in a production network crisis situation. You need to remember
that you do bring valuable things to the table. It could be writing or
analytical skills learned in another career or in college or grad school.
It could be accounting or marketing or sales skills learned in another
career or in college or grad school. It could be something as
inconsequential seeming as a good personality, which can help when you are
marketing IT products or services.
If you really want to do network engineering work, the CCIE is a way to get
to that goal. However, don't think it will be easy, and do not expect the
money to be the sums people used to talk about (although it still can be
quite good). Do it because the material interests you, and you may well
find success.
Tom Larus, CCIE #10,014
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Danu" <rdanu@apex3.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 1:02 AM
Subject: CCIE Professional
> Dear members,
>
> Excuse the overhead - Please reply off-line.
>
> The day I stepped in to the IT arena, I worked with an individual who was
> working for his CCIE (today he is # 5761). I remember him enthusiastically
> talking about a box with 2 Ethernet ports and amazing things it could do.
> (how boring -- I thought!).
>
> Today, I am also working on my CCIE certification. Trapped in the world of
> Microsoft and the never-ending support of our typical (average) users with
> challenges on printing problems among may others, I am faced with one of
> the toughest dilemmas: how can one, who is motivated and gives up precious
> time with family and friends studying internetworking and potentially
> benchmark, can find themselves working among professionals such as
yourself,
> with literally non-existent experience with production
internetworking/Cisco
> gear. I have been watching this list for several months, and while
> overwhelming, topics are very interesting...
>
> Truth of the matter is, if an individuals can potentially pass and attain
> their CCIE, while continuously practicing on routers as a "hobby", how
could
> they ever find themselves in the job market as internetworking
professionals
> in a production environment?
>
> In my opinion, passing a CCIE examination hardly measures up to veterans
who
> have worked long hours and solved an array of vast, tough, challenging,
> problems on internetworking, for numerous, counting years... I am simply
> looking for feedback what some of you have done to move from the bottom,
to
> the prestigious network engineers you are, today!
>
> Again, my apologies for the off-topic question.
> -- Richard Danu
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