From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Sun Sep 12 2004 - 10:06:16 GMT-3
Ok, no worries. Now that I have had more sleep, it seems that we mostly
agree on things, I just didn't read the entire thread, so missed some of the
history of your remarks. :)
No, the CCIE isn't an end to a journey but a beginning. Just like any
collegiate degree. In fact, just like damned near anything!
But, the exam/cert does meet its target which is to test topics within a
pre-defined pool of technologies to demonstrate that the candidate has
expert-level knowledge within those technologies and their implementation in
the Cisco environment.
Now, of course, that sounds more like a legalese definition of things, but
nobody ever stated that this exam was geared to mimic real life!
Hell, with four of these damn things, I still don't know everything! (But
don't tell anyone!) ;)
Scott Morris, CCIE4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service Provider) #4713, CISSP,
JNCIP, et al.
IPExpert CCIE Program Manager
IPExpert Sr. Technical Instructor
swm@emanon.com/smorris@ipexpert.net
http://www.ipexpert.net
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Howard C. Berkowitz
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 2:07 AM
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: RE: Failed RS lab [7:92677]
At 1:51 AM -0400 9/12/04, Scott Morris wrote:
>"They teach very little about the aspects of the technology that Cisco
>might not have implemented..."
>
>Interesting statement, but would anyone else be different?
Scott, I was referring to some of the first posts in this thread, which
flatly stated the CCIE program taught everything there was to know about a
technology or protocol.
> Or are you using
>that concept to compare CCIE to a college degree? By the same token, a
>collegiate setting may teach you all sorts of aspects of the technical
>theory, which may be great, doesn't give you a lick of experience to
>help you get your job!
And neither is sufficient to go out and design protocols or protocol
implementations. I fully grant that is not what a CCIE is intended to do,
but I was trying to correct a misapprehension that it teaches everything
about every aspect of networking.
>
>Coupled with the fact that most college settings seem to be so far
>behind the technical curve that everyone has to play some form of
>catch-up either before or after graduation to position themselves
appropriately.
Agreed.
>
>I'm a bit confused by the bit about Cisco designing the CCIE to exclude
>people.
So was I, and I responded to a post that claimed that Cisco tried to exclude
people -- since, otherwise, according to the poster, just anyone could
acquire technical knowledge and pass. That went right by me.
>As in excluding folks who are experts on other platforms? Perhaps, but
>so what? :) I wouldn't expect an enployer to interpolate my Cisco
>experience and presume that I could configure a Nortel network to the
>same degree. Technical concepts being similar, I'm reasonably sure I
>could do a good job of it, but I would not comfortably consider myself to
be an expert.
>So who are they excluding? It's not Cisco's job to say someone is an
>expert at OSPF.
That was the suggestion to which I was responding.
>However, the CCIE is believed to be someone who contains expert-level
>knowledge and the ability to implement OSPF within the technical
>constructs of the Cisco IOS.
>
>But getting back to my misunderstanding... So what? That's what I
>would expect of any vendor certification.
EXACTLY! The CCIE is a vendor certification! It's not a certification of
total networking knowledge. Parkhurst and others have said it doesn't deal
with quite a number of things, such as large network design, best current
ISP practice in BGP, etc. It certainly doesn't deal with the tradeoffs in
protocol design and programming.
I am trying to draw attention to the CCIE being a worthwhile goal for
certain career paths, but not for every possible job in networking.
No certification or degree will substitute for experience, at the more
senior levels.
>
>Maybe it's just too early in the morning for my brain to be sufficiently
>engaged yet. :)
>
>
>Scott Morris, CCIE4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service Provider) #4713, CISSP,
>JNCIP, et al.
>IPExpert CCIE Program Manager
>IPExpert Sr. Technical Instructor
>swm@emanon.com/smorris@ipexpert.net
>http://www.ipexpert.net
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
>Howard C. Berkowitz
>Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 3:36 PM
>To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
>Subject: RE: Failed RS lab [7:92677]
>
>At 9:11 AM -0400 9/11/04, Scott Morris wrote:
>>Considering that many employers won't even look at a resume these days
>>if you do not have a college degree of some sort on there, I would
>>think that should be a primary goal to complete.
>>
>>Industry membership is nice. Notoriety certainly helps, but all it
>>takes is one hard-nosed HR person to quash the hiring of the most
>>experiences person by not being able to check off a required box of
>>"college degree" or something like that.
>
>True enough. But, Scott, perhaps I didn't make my point clear. I am not
>arguing for or against degrees or certifications. I was arguing about two
>specific points:
>
> 1. That Cisco deliberately designs the CCIE to exclude people
> 2. That the CCIE study process makes you learn "everything about a
> technology or protocol."
>
>The second point, to me, is more important. Effective Cisco studies teach
>how to use Cisco implementations. They teach very little about the aspects
>of the technology that Cisco might not have implemented, or about the
>architecture and design decisions that went into developing the protocol or
>technology.
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Oct 01 2004 - 15:00:42 GMT-3