From: Darby Weaver (darbyweaver@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Feb 11 2007 - 23:53:00 ART
Hey,
I need to clear some things up - it appears I have
gotten considerable feedback (some thought my comments
were on mark, and a few felt a bit hurt by my
comemnts), so let me clarify a bit:
1. I do not think those who use labs aka "lab rats" or
those who create labs are bad or to be thought less
of. Some may have feel this sentiment. Conversely, I
am a also a "lab rat" and have learned a great deal
from the instructors and vendors on this list and
would hope to continue to do so in the future.
2. Definition of a "lab rat" - A person that spends
considerable time, efforts, energy, and personal
sacrifice to learn each facet of the technology. This
person may be a "regression tester", a lab candidate,
or even an instructor and does not imply that one does
not actually have "actual" experience, but instead
means that one has enhanced "actual" experience with
extensive testing and debugging required to actually
gain the knowledge to master one or more technologies.
3. I owe my career to the instructors and vendors here
on this list and I am the last person that would seek
to imply that these "CCIE Wizards" have only "lab
experience". Indeed most of them were reknowned
experts while I was still trying to figure out what
difference between a bit and byte was.
4. One more inportant point to make, I'm also one of
those guys who owns nearly ever vendor's materials and
plans to continue to subscribe to their offerings long
after I finally attain my own CCIE.
So, if we are going to "coin the term" lab rat, let's
realize that everyone on this list (even the lurkers)
are probably labbing somewhere and by my definition,
are "lab rats".
While there may be some folks who simply think they
can practice a few labs and pass the lab and earn
millions, the reality of the situation is that most
folks here are serious about their studies, have
studies usually 1-2 or more years at the CCIE level
before finally attaining their own certification and
nearly everyone here who participates regularly
appears to gainfully employed as a Cisco Network
Administrator or Engineer somwwhere.
There are other groups and other forums where the same
cannot always be said of the bulk of the membership,
but Groupstudy has by far the largest number of CCIE's
to have ever hit the market and thus has I would hope
every CCIE and CCIE-Candidate knows what Groupstudy is
by now. And if one reads the signature lines, one
might quickly realize the lab rats contained in this
list are quite impressive by comparison.
Again, just clarifying the matter, in case anyone was
in doubt.
--- "Du, Jianbo" <jdu@ebay.com> wrote:
> Looks many guys interested with this topic. :)
>
> I do not want to say too much words as Scott had
> mention how the poor
> CCIE is.
>
> Excepted some SI, most employer want their CCIE
> would able to fix issue
> in shortest time and send easy understand issue
> report. If he found a
> member with CCIE title but have not a clue to fix
> issue, how he think?
> Will it hit CCIE's value?
>
> Ask yourself twice, if oneday CCIE's number like
> CCNA/NP, will you proud
> of this title?
>
> I am on the way to CCIE because it helps me keep
> passion in technical
> and it is the most valued certification in IT
> industry. Hope it would
> keeps it's value in further.......
>
> Regards,
> Jianbo
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Morris [mailto:swm@emanon.com]
> Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 7:49 AM
> To: 'Darby Weaver'; 'Tom Larus'; Du, Jianbo
> Cc: 'Gobind'; 'Faryar Zabihi (fzabihi)'; 'Seemore
> Tops';
> ccielab@groupstudy.com
> Subject: RE: Lab rats make me mad
>
> Hehehehe... I'm not sure I've ever been called a
> lab rat before, but
> fair
> enough. :)
>
> I think the whole gist of things in the original
> posting though was
> separating lab-based experience from real-life
> experience. There are
> things we learn in real-life to round out the puzzle
> of what's
> happening.
>
> There are things we may know (such as crappy DNS
> responses don't
> necessarily
> mean a network problem) or whatever it may be. The
> CCIE lab didn't
> teach
> you how to recover that DNS server that you wrote
> about. The CCIE
> lab/studies don't teach you how to use a network
> sniffer/protocol
> analyzer
> or other tools to assist in tracking problems down.
> They don't teach
> you
> about server or OS issues that lead to networking
> problems.
>
> IF someone were truly a CCIE lab rat, there are many
> things they may not
> have a clue about. On the other hand, those who
> know the details about
> their own network and can analyze things may not
> have a clue about how
> to
> optimize a BGP/OSPF table.
>
> These are the types of things (IMHO) that were being
> lamented early on
> on
> the experience differential. I see things like it
> all the time. Great
> engineers who can design networks and crank out
> command sets without any
> problems, but the first time something doesn't work
> right they have a
> serious lack of knowledge about troubleshooting. Or
> better, when it
> comes
> to "physical layer" things, they are clueless.
>
> These things all round someone out in the
> experience. 20 years working
> on a
> stable network doesn't teach you much (other than it
> was fairly well
> designed to begin with, or nobody cares!). It is
> ALL of the experiences
> of
> life that keep things moving along.
>
> On a side note, I have most certainly done more
> technically complex and
> bizarre things in a lab environment than I have ever
> done in real life
> (for
> good reasons!). But in real life, I have worked on
> much larger networks
> then I'd ever want to lab up from scratch! :)
>
> Ya gotta be able to see it all! Everything is
> experience. Nothing is
> the
> "best". It's all part of the total package. Make
> it as good as you
> can!
>
>
> Scott Morris, CCIE4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service
> Provider) #4713,
> JNCIE
> #153, CISSP, et al.
> CCSI/JNCI-M/JNCI-J
> IPexpert VP - Curriculum Development
> IPexpert Sr. Technical Instructor
> smorris@ipexpert.com
> http://www.ipexpert.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nobody@groupstudy.com
> [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
> Darby Weaver
> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 5:45 PM
> To: Tom Larus; Du, Jianbo
> Cc: Gobind; Faryar Zabihi (fzabihi); Seemore Tops;
> ccielab@groupstudy.com
> Subject: Re: Lab rats make me mad
>
> Hmmm...
>
> I hate break it to you my friend, but experience
> comes in many flavors.
>
> If you are the engineer who only works on a
> production network to "learn
> things" then you are not only a problem, but a
> threat to a well run
> network
> (some folks do have a mini-netowrk to play on - i
> know many more who do
> not).
>
> I value experience, but being "experienced", I also
> realize that the
> average
> Joe only sees probably less than 5-10 hours of real
> network engineering
> per
> any given week.
>
> Now for some rare engineers this may differ, but
> take this into account:
>
> 1. Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings 2.
> Vacation/Holidays/Sick/Other
> 3.
> Other duties as required 4. time spent verifying
> something is not your
> problem 5. Other Admin Overhead.
> 6. Research
> 7. Documentation (and some forget this part
> entirely) 8.
> Email/Newsgroups
> etc.
>
> So for most folks who claim to have 10 years
> experience... Let's see?
>
> 5hr (per week) x 50 = 250 hours per year x 10 2500
> hours or so...
>
> And in many cases this may be overkill. If not,
> then one probably has a
> really challenged network anyway and may need more
> training anyway or
> other
> consideration i.e. "more experienced engineer".
>
> I mean it does not take a rocket scientist to
> systematically resolve an
> entire network - if one is "experienced".
>
> Who will tell me I am wrong?
>
> Now if the "experienced" guy has 2500 hours on the
> equipment over 10
> years
> (We'll give him a few more hours for those big
> upgrades that might
> happen
> every 5 years or so... Say another 500 hours - say 6
> weeks
=== message truncated ===
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