From: Scott Vermillion (scott_ccie_list@it-ag.com)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2007 - 00:33:16 ART
Gregory,
Were a person to acquire the CCIE cert w/ nothing more than time on
Dynamips, that person may indeed face a few embarrassing moments
early on. So it should be outlawed and shunned by the CCIE-seeking
community at large? I'd wager that 90% or better using Dynamips for
CCIE study have sufficient experience w/ real HW to know which side
the power switch is on.
Do you think you'll normally have physical access to all of the
routers on which you are expected to perform your work? If you
require that to do your job, are you effective?
Recall that this is real IOS -- not some training simulator. So the
chassis, the power supply, the interface cards, etc. are lacking in
your CCIE lab, where you are intensely focused on subtle protocol
interplay. So? Can you even touch the HW during the CCIE practical
exam?
I have posted this as recently as a few hours ago on the professional
board:
"I have now been dealing with Dynamips since (roughly) Dec of last
year. I generally trust it (yes, bugs now and then and even the
occasional crash, but can IOS itself claim otherwise?) and actually
prefer it over real hardware for a couple of reasons:
1. Recabling a HW lab takes longer than launching a new .net file. I
keep every .net file I've ever created, along with all of the router
NVRAM files, etc. Modifying one lab for another purpose gets easier
and easier as your collection grows. Take good notes on why you
created a given environment and your results. This becomes a highly
valuable reference resource when you've grown a little fuzzy on some
details of a prior battle.
2. The capture function of Dynagen is killer. Definitely beats debug
output when you're really trying to understand what's going on under
the hood. If you're proficient w/ Wireshark or any other PA that can
open a .cap file, this is a "killer app" for sur e."
Dynamips is nothing short of revolutionary for understanding,
troubleshooting, prototyping, and generally poking and prodding
network-related protocols. It has some limitations, yet in its
infancy. Know those and live with them. And then leverage a tool
that can only be bested by some seriously deep pockets...
Regards,
Scott
-------- Original MessageGr --------
Subject: Virtual CCIE's?
From: "Gregory Gombas" <ggombas@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, August 20, 2007 6:19 pm
To: "Cisco certification" <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Guys,
I was checking out Dynamips and its pretty cool and all, but it
does
worry me a little bit....
How will employers view the CCIE certification after they've been
burned by hiring a CCIE who has never touched a real router in
their
life?
Do you like the idea of a pilot flying your plane whose only
training
was with a virtual flight simulator?
I remember the days when the MCSE was a hot cert until an army of
paper CCIE's hit the job market.
Maybe they won't call it a paper CCIE, maybe they'll coin a new
term
like virtual CCIE.
Just food for thought...
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