RE: OT: Cisco Certified Architect

To generally answer the first two questions, you need not look any further than:

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/certified_ccies/worldwide.html

Why not just state the numbers in the future...

Total of Worldwide CCIEs: 20003 (last updated 06/26/2009)
Total of Routing and Switching CCIEs: 17247
Total of Security CCIEs: 2328
Total of Service Provider CCIEs: 1414
Total of Storage Networking CCIEs: 145
Total of Voice CCIEs: 1039
Total of Wireless CCIEs: 6

Americas
Total: 6755 North America 6352
        Canada 864
        Mexico 139
        USA 5349

EMEA
Total: 5349

Pacific Rim
Total: 7797 Pacific Islands 696
        Australia 601
        New Zealand 90
        Asia 7195 <- very broad, but wow.

The number that I still value is 5349, to me that's still an impressively low number for a technology certification.

-ryan

So while some people may think the CCIE has become devalued because it now
has numbers as high as 24,000, we have to ask some real questions:

1. What is the number of active CCIE's total?

2. How many are there per state, region, or even country?

3. How many CCIE's does a CCIE really have to compete with in his or her
world for a job or project at any given time?

The answer to all three questions:

Not that many.

I don't think the CCIE has played out yet. I don't think it is a lot easier
to attain in terms of actual work required or in the knowledge level
expected.

Yes - I do think a lot of the current CCIE's took shortcuts and apparently
so do the proctors who spoke with me on the subject. But hey - I'm not in
China and so 90% of those people in that demographic who fit that MO are not
my comptetition for a job anytime soon.

In the USA, my area, the numbers have not really exploded. They have...
maintained at best and are quite modest by comparison.

So the numbers are not quite out on the CCA yet.

They are out on the CCIE and it is probably the better of the two to still
bank on.

While there are alot of CCIE materials available today, there still leave
something to be desired, else why would people, advertise, and sell
materials that cost more than the legitimate study aids and be able to keep
doing it? Common "cents" prevails.

The truth is people who are working hard and harder to earn a CCIE will
always be in demand, and those other folks will still be unemployed looking
for the next best thing.

That's just the way of the world.

But hey there is a whole market of resellers who need a fresh new "food
supply" to fuel the "ecosystem".

By the way - a quality engineer will still be a quality engineer - with or
without a CCIE, whether there are 1000 CCIE's or 100,000 CCIE's.

Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
Received on Mon Jul 20 2009 - 12:24:26 ART