From: Darby Weaver (ccie.weaver@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 10 2008 - 20:04:30 ART
Actually, I said a long time ago that it was probably a good thing for
CCIE's and especially wannabe ccie's to keep resfreshing the stuff.
I'm as guilty as any and I've paid for it a bit as a result. Forgetting
more stuff than I remembered. Drawing blanks instead of coming up with
explicit explanations of how and why a given technology work. And
forgetting little details. Ouch! I'm fixing this personally.
The problem is not that I, as a CCNP, was having a hard time keeping up with
these things. The true problem was that interviewers were telling me that
most if not all CCIE's interviewed fared worse than I was doing and that
many if any interviewed could not stand and detail the operations of
spanning-tree correctly.
Now while it is true a lot of things are going to get lost in the mix after
the battle is won. But let's keep it honest.
Is this the true state of a majority of CCIE's in the marketplace. If it
is, then why is it so. Are CCIE's "OVER-CERTIFIED"? I mean do CCIE's learn
more than they are able to put to use in the work environment that they
actually work in?
I mean I understand that there are consolutant types out there like Joseph
and Scott (both have said as much here) that they do not work in data
centers all the time and even that at least one of them spends as much or
more time in server based technologies. So much that the MCA credential is
now of some or even more value to Joseph than perhaps a CCIE might be.
I can tell you as a CCNP, I get grilled at interviews. I mean I've had to
explain the entire the Spanning-Tree Process and which ports are doing what
and when... why comes up and so do tweaking features. Luckily I've had to
deal with spanning-tree in the production environment when I want OSPF to
work and I want traffic to take one path verus another path. So
spanning-tree does matter.
All that time spent on MPLS and understanding Label Switching and what a
Pen-Ulitmate Hop Popping come up too.
So does IPSec VPNs... which company is not using some form of VPN with their
Router, PIX/ASA, or VPN Concentrator? Yes we need them all.
I was thrown into a weird situation when I got a good feel of how DMVPNs
could be used to work over an MPLS cloud to solve a VoIP problem.
You know reachability came up. You know multicast came up and you know...
most of the concepts I had learned and remembered from guys like Caslow
drilling the basic question... Is it a physical interface, point-to-point
interface, or a multipoint interface came up and you know... it mattered.
It really did. NAT.... well NAT was needed in that equation too. Next hop
reachability was required for everything to fall into place.
And I've had to deal with WCCP and many other little issues and been on
networks where EIGRP was so poorly laid out and BGP was advertising routes
long since abandoned, etc.
But ya know... if it weren't for all of these little things the CCIE Track
teaches, how would I have know otherwise? I mean I could have learned
eventually and yes other tech were in some of these places, some had been
and some had gone... but they did not know.
Sure they were ok with it.
But they did not even suspect it was wrong. In the DMVPN scenario... I
watched as the "Sr. Engineer" tried hopelessly to throw an atm interface
config he had copied from somewhere and tried to paste into a router with
only ethernet interfaces...
I recently got to see "engineers" try to change add VLANs to a network and
then assign ports and do so with baited breathe. Not really sure of what
was going to happen next.
Now no CCIE or even CCIE candidate has these problems. Or should never
have these kinds of issues.
But the reason is simple. It is because we as a class of professionals have
tried and tested each technology and we've made the mistakes and while we
may never be perfect and we all know IOS's always keep us on our toes, there
are some things we should never forget.
These things are taught to us by those other authors... Perlman, Zinin,
Black, Comer, etc. And when we are in doubt we can always head back to the
IETF and look for some various RFC's.
One of my friends... told me once our differences... I used a Cisco Press
book and he used RFC's. He was right at the time. I since decided to add
some RFC's to my diet to more clearly understand what Cisco is/was trying to
accomplish in its implementation of various protocols.
It also helps when things are not working quite right to understand what is
right and what is not.
So yes... CCIE are human and humans are flawed and a continuing education
program that is deeper than a single CCIE Written exam is probably in order.
And thus... we have the CCIE 360...
If you've never been part of a company that uses the "360" program get ready
you are in for a treat.
CCIE Lab changes are coming too and if you've been in the loop then you
probably already suspect a few of these as well.
I guess I know where most of us will be tuned in on October 23rd 2008.
On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 3:58 AM, CCIE3000 <ccie3000@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Very nice post.
>
> The snap shot in time is very relevant.
>
> I made sure I kept very good notes when studying. I was planning for the
> future, there are lots of things I may only use once every two years but I
> "could" need them one day. I plan to read through my 90 double paged notes
> every few months just to keep them frest in the Grey matter. Plus I've
> leanrt some pretty sweet tricks which are always good for show boating :))
>
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 4:18 PM, Nate Cielieska <ncielieska@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > I just wanted to send a quick email to give some perspective a month or
> two
> > after i passed the exam. I will be honest, after your CCIE the last thing
> > you want to do is study.. i took about a month off but i take once a week
> > to
> > do a IE core lab or once every two weeks go through one of Narbik's
> > workbooks (I will be doing SP or Security after Jan.1) . In my travels i
> > have been able to interview some pretty strong IE's and regretably.. some
> > weak ones. The real differentiator that i have been able to find is
> > maintenance. I think this is one of the reasons why guys with 1xCCIE (ie
> > Bruce Caslow) have such great reputations in the network community and
> some
> > people with multiple IE's are not trusted because the IE became a focus
> on
> > what i'm doing now, and everything else slip (including a non solidified
> > understanding of content in an earlier IE). The CCIE is not a
> destination,
> > it is an affirmation of your skills @ a snapshot in time. Since i have
> > passed the CCIE i feel that i have a responsibility to the network
> > community
> > (and my employer) to maintain the skills that are to do with Routing and
> > Switching, if i feel strong enough that i am @ a CCIE level verbatim with
> > those technologies, i will consider another one. I think that mindset
> after
> > the exam maintains the integrity of the certification to which we have
> all
> > worked so hard.
> >
> > Just wanted to throw some perspective from someone a little bit after
> they
> > passed.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Nate
> > CCIE #21955
> >
> >
> > Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
> >
> > _______________________________________________________________________
> > Subscription information may be found at:
> > http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Si
> 22023
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Nov 01 2008 - 15:35:20 ARST