From: Alan Chng (ccieteam@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Feb 20 2008 - 21:28:48 ARST
Thanks for all the overwhelming responses.
FYI, I've had the pleasure to work for Cisco and a few large
organizations(SP and enterprise), and absolutely had a ball of a time
esp over whiteboard discussions...
This also includes picking up other vendor skills such as F5, NetApp and
Juniper and I certainly agree with Scott's statement that CCIE teaches
you the interworkings of protocols rather than the IOS, which is more like
what CCNA caters :)
Reason I mention abt moving away from Cisco is a recent opportunity with
another vendor advertising CCIE-level candidate but willing to be trained &
involved in purely Layer 1-2, 2.5(MPLS) for migrating customers from legacy
ATM, FR, TDM networks to the IP/MPLS core. L2VPN stuff basically no IP VPN
or anything IP related except management perhaps.
Obviously, financial benefits will be justified for the switchover and
perhaps you become a Subject Matter Expert, so in that sense I mean you're
not one of the many but become one of the 'few'. Yet the thought of not
working with routing protocols, or IP does twiddle my mind a bit. The fun
level just seems to dip a bit ;-)
The fact I'm discounting Juniper is I see them as equivalent to Cisco since
the 'protocols' are simply applied in a different manner as prev stated.
Has anyone been in similar circumstances, made the leap and walked away
smiling? The industry we're in is so fast-paced that stepping away for a
couple years can mean a lot of lost time. just look at the CCIE
numbers these days ~ :)
On 2/21/08, Scott Morris <smorris@ipexpert.com> wrote:
>
> I suppose the first question would be why you were discounting
> Juniper. The
> second would be why it had to be a rold of complete isolation?
>
> Either way, one of the nice things is that the basic technologies (for the
> most part) are pretty much the same vendor to vendor. You'll have CLI
> differences, you'll have different intracacies and proprietary things, but
> most stuff won't vary that much.
>
> So (IMHO) it's a mistake to look at the CCIE as simply a familiarity with
> IOS. That's a secondary feature. You've likely learned more about things
> like OSPF, BGP and multicast operations than you normally would. The fact
> that you can do it in IOS is nice, but doing it in JUNOS isn't all that
> much
> different. The theory is mostly the same.
>
> If you're looking for something ENTIRELY different (you note less
> competition, so one has to wonder) then I suppose it would simply be a
> matter of what happens to interest you at any point in time. In which
> case,
> the CCIE has become a lesson of process and/or troubleshooting. Both
> skills
> which should not be underestimated.
>
> From a consultant's viewpoint, I always look at things to ADD to my
> skillset, but it would have to be one hell of an opportunity for me
> (again,
> just my opinion) to completely forego all the stuff I've learned.
>
> Good luck no matter what you end up doing though!
>
>
> Scott Morris, CCIE4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service Provider) #4713,
> JNCIE-M
> #153, JNCIS-ER, CISSP, et al.
> CCSI/JNCI-M/JNCI-ER
> VP - Technical Training - IPexpert, Inc.
> IPexpert Sr. Technical Instructor
>
> A Cisco Learning Partner - We Accept Learning Credits!
>
> smorris@ipexpert.com
>
>
>
> Telephone: +1.810.326.1444
> Fax: +1.810.454.0130
> http://www.ipexpert.com
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
> Alan
> Chng
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 7:23 AM
> To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
> Subject: Moving away from Cisco
>
> Fellow experts,
>
>
> Considering the amount of time and 'sacrifice' made to achieve the
> CCIE and make our mark in the networking field, would anyone here
> contemplate on moving to a role supporting another vendor (e.g. Alcatel,
> Tellabs, Ericsson) ??. I'm referring to a role which requires in-house
> training to learn the intricacies, proprietary protocols and CLI of the
> vendor and be completely "isolated" from the Cisco world. I'm discounting
> Juniper since I tend to see them in the same market segment.
>
> Would anyone do it? And if so, what would be the factor? Better
> opportunity?
> Less competition? Another challenge?
>
> I find the switchover challenging as I believe a lot of us started the
> CCIE
> journey more as a hobby and through the course of the time and developed a
> familiarity to the IOS, not to mention the resources, information,
> forums/communities that are widely available today.
>
>
> Any opinions will be much appreciated
>
> Regards,
> Alan
> CCNP/IP/SP, R&S due in May
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