From: Schoeneman Steve (gs@grimnotions.com)
Date: Sat Oct 20 2007 - 19:53:35 ART
I beg to differ. I just sat for the exam on Oct. 17th and there were
a great deal of switching/bridging tasks.
Steve
On Oct 20, 2007, at 2:41 PM, nrf wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Morris"
> <smorris@ipexpert.com>
> To: "'nrf'" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>; "'istong'" <istong@stong.org>
> Cc: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>; <security@groupstudy.com>;
> <comserv@groupstudy.com>
> Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 1:46 PM
> Subject: RE: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>
>
>> It's called IOU. Or third party it's called Dynamips.
>>
>> However, you can't emulate all the ASICs and other things in a
>> switch.
>
> But why would you need to? As I'm sure we know, the CCIE exam
> ain't that "switch-heavy".
>
> I very strongly suspect that the switch functions that are on the
> exam can all be successfully emulated. Come on, like I said,
> you're not exactly loading the switch capacity very much on the
> exam. In fact, you're hardly loading the capacity at all.
>
>> And
>> what benefit would the virtualization have for Cisco? Increasing
>> the number
>> of seats?
>
> That's a pretty big benefit. After all, it gets to the fundamental
> question of why Cisco even runs the CCIE exam in the first place.
> Presumably it does so to provide a reliable credentialing signal to
> the market. But that reliable is compromised when some people who
> probably could pass the exam have to wait for months on end just to
> get a seat.
>
> But there are more benefits than that. See below.
>
>>
>> That's very shortsighted to believe that's where the shortfall is.
>>
>> Cisco kinda owns their equipment already, so "purchasing" it
>> internally is
>> not that big of a deal. Space isn't that big of a deal.
>
> But building a proper emulator is also not that big of a deal. In
> fact, arguably, it's less of a big of a deal than dealing with all
> of that hardware and that space. The simple labor of operating all
> that hardware and space is a big deal.
>
> For example, right now, every time you roll out some new piece of
> hardware into the lab, you have to send out working gear to each
> lab. You have to have somebody test it and maintain it. You have
> to have spares available in case one of them conks out during
> somebody's test. All of that can be obviated by just making
> everything virtual. Overall, the capex and opex probably declines.
>
>
>> They have LOTS of
>> buildings.
>
> But that's endogenous. The reason why they have so many buildings
> is PRECISELY because they know that some of the space will need to
> be used for test space. If they had a virtual system, they
> wouldn't need so much space. It would also mean that they could
> continue to grow without having to acquire yet more real estate
> because they could repurpose that lab space.
>
>> It's people. Proctors. That's the shortfall. That's the most
>> important part, and the hardest to fill.
>>
>> Cisco is working on things right now (see discussion re: New Lab
>> Locations)
>> to find other ways to remotely adminster exams. None of them have
>> anything
>> to do with virtualization though. That would be silly to
>> introduce more
>> points of confusion or errors into the standardized setup.
>>
>> The number of available seats on any given day is not contrained
>> by physical
>> space or equipment. It's contrained by a candidate to proctor ratio.
>>
>> Think.
>
> Uh, trust me, I AM thinking, thank you very much.
>
> Even a proctor problem can be solved (or at least aided) by
> virtualization. Why not have all of the proctors available
> remotely? Why not connect them to users via, say,
> videoconferencing or web-conferencing. Why exactly do you need a
> PHYSICAL proctor right there? Like I said, I thought Cisco was
> supposed to be a networking company. If any company is supposed to
> know all about the benefits of teleworking and e-learning, it would
> be Cisco.
>
> Think about it.
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