Re: CCIE Service Providerv3 - General Question

Kenneth,
You touched on one of the key points in my training mythology. You don't
want to pass the CCIE lab and just end up being an "IOS command jockey"
because you focused on learning the IOS commands along with a few "tips
and tricks". When you pass the CCIE lab you want to have passed because
you're a true expert at the technologies covered. This knowledge can be
carried over to other CCIE tracks and even other vendors. When your focus
is on just the commands and how Cisco implements technology X or Y then
you're doing yourself a disservice long term. It's the difference between
someone who peaks technically when they pass the CCIE lab or someone who
is really just getting started learning in their networking career. Or
put another way, someone who is racking and stacking equipment and pasting
in configurations all day vs someone who is designing the network and
coming up with the configurations for you to paste in while you're racking
and stacking equipment.

Let's say for example I for some reason lost my mind and wanted to learn
Juniper. I'm not going to attend a CCNA equivalent course and then a CCNP
equivalent course. What my focus would be on is how to master the JunOS
operating system but I don't need to sit in a CCNA level JunOS class with
an instructor who is covering the basics of OSPF and subnetting. It's not
an elitist view. It's the view of someone who learn the right way the
first time. Another example would be when I learned IOS XR. I personally
didn't need to attend the CCNA SP and CCNP SP classes to learn IOS XR. I
just needed to get my level of understanding of IOS XR equal to my
knowledge of the IOS.

-- 
Brian Dennis, CCIEx5 #2210 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/SP/Voice)
bdennis_at_ine.com
INE, Inc.
http://www.INE.com
On 10/29/12 4:19 PM, "Kenneth Ratliff" <dayne_at_cluebat.net> wrote:
>On 10/26/12 7:29 PM, "Brian McGahan" <bmcgahan_at_ine.com> wrote:
>
>>Right, there are obviously differences between the two OSes, both in
>>hardware and software, but for any true CCIE this should not be an issue.
>> The point of the CCIE is to obtain the level of expert in network
>>engineering.  As an expert you should have a deep theoretical knowledge
>>of why and how different networking technologies work.  OSPF is OSPF, BGP
>>is BGP, whether it's on IOS, IOS XR, NX-OS, JunOS, etc.
>
>Yeah, that's the kind of viewpoint that causes outages. When you start
>thinking like this, you tend to make some very, very bad assumptions. Of
>course, you might live you in a world where vendors never change options
>or defaults between platforms or even OS revisions on the same platform,
>never mind the consideration of interoperability.
>
>>
>>What I'm saying is that if you're a CCIE in R&S - an  *expert* in Routing
>>& Switching technologies - and you need to start back at CCNA level for
>>the Service Provider track, then you have failed.  You've failed yourself
>>as you've missed the entire point of CCIE to begin with.
>
>There's something about this I find to be fairly offensive, and quite a
>bit elitist. Do you honestly believe that achieving a CCIE means you never
>have to go back to basics? You never have to review? That you don't have
>that much to learn?
>
>When you're dealing with an unfamiliar platform and a new OS, I think it's
>prudent to probably start with the basics. I'd expect a CCIE to be able to
>breeze through it, since it should simply be a matter of reconciling the
>differences with what you already know, but to say that you've failed
>yourself by making an attempt to cover all the bases? I think that's a bit
>too cavalier.
>
>
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>
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