Carroll Kong wrote:
>
> > Those three have pretty much echoed my themes. Hansang, in
> fact, has
> > admitted that he accelerated his ccie studies so that he
> would take (and
> > pass) the 2-day exam because he didn't want to run the risk
> of being known
> > as an "asterisk-ccie" (meaning the one-day ccie).
>
> I know someone who took both the two day and one day. He felt
> the
> one day was harder. He might have been an exception, I do not
> know
> any other two dayers who took a one day.
You just met another one. Hello, pleased to meet you, you can call me "the
notorious nrf".
>He was R&S first,
> then he
> just got a Security one to get the double. Of all the CCIEs I
> do
> know, none of them ever wanted to really take it again (except
> one
> other CCIE I know... he wants to see if he still got the touch!)
Hey, I don't want to take either of them again if I don't have to. But if I
was forced to make a choice, I'd prefer to take the singlet over the
doublet. It's like being punched in the face once vs. being punched twice.
>
> While I agree to some degree about how the "old style" might
> have
> been "harder" to some degree, I feel it is more of a
> preference. I
> think depending on the kind of problem solver you are, one will
> appear easier than the other and vice versa.
>
> I only took the one day, and all I have to say is it is a real
> speed
> torture exam. One slip up, and it's pretty much over. You
> have a
> SLIGHT margin of the error and that is only if you are very
> fast,
> both in the mind and on the keyboard. This is not to say if
> you are
> slower you are necessarily any less qualified, just, some
> people do
> not type as fast or take longer to formulate a very solid plan
> anyway. Those people suffer greatly from this new format.
I'm afraid I have to disagree about the speed aspect of the test. The fact
of the matter is that the speed component of the test is greatly overrated,
whether we're talking about the 1 or the 2-day versions. Take the 1-day
version of the test. The fact is, if you're not essentially done with
everything by 1 or 2 PM, you're probably DOA. I remember in both of my
successful 1-day tests, I sat around for about 2-3 hours at the end with
nothing to do - I checked all my work, reread the test questions over and
over again, and was quite frankly bored. The same was true of my 2-day
test, again, I had done everything on both days by mid-afternoon and I just
sat around with nothing to do but check my work over and over again. Nor is
my experience unique - I think that most CCIE's would agree that if you're
not done with several hours to spare, you're probably not going to pass. I
would venture that very few people that have passed the test have actually
required all the of the testtime that was allotted to them.
What seems to kill people is that they don't read the questions carefully or
they simply don't know the material and then they consequently make
mistakes, and then in their haste, they start working too fast thereby
making more mistakes, etc. But again, if you know the material and you're
careful about reading the questions, the test is really quite straightforward.
>
> This is also probably why I got some seriously mixed reviews
> from
> different CCIEs in terms of the difficulty of the exams (be it
> one
> day or two day).
>
> For the record, the one day exam was more suited to my style
> than the
> two day sounded like. Oh well, I will never have a direct
> comparison
> now.
>
> The same was said about the two day as well in terms of speed
> but
> with some ancillary tricks such as the physical element, etc.
> I
> suppose that is good to know, but hey, nothing 5 minutes
> couldn't
> figure out on a web page.
I agree that the physical element was dumb. But the troubleshooting section
was absolutely critical, see below.
>
> The troubleshooting element was definitely a sorely missed
> element
> from the two day lab, but trust me, with the one day it is a
> dynamic
> truobleshooting element built in. It is VERY easy to break
> your
> working network while you perform the exam.
But not realistic. Let's face it - as a network engineer, how many times
are you really building networks from scratch vs. how many times are you
troubleshooting already-built networks? The fact is, building networks from
scratch is really only a minor part of the overall job, most of the time you
are maintaining built networks. A far more useful test would be one that
was PURE troubleshooting. For example, you get the whole morning to
familiarize yourself with the network, and in the afternoon, all kinds of
funky problems get injected into your network. One serious problem with the
present format is that you end up with guys who are really good at
configuring stuff but not very good at troubleshooting existing networks.
>
> Unfortunately, because it is more speed driven and because the
> content, while jam packed, is probably 'less', it also means it
> might
> be more prone to some form of bootcamp brain dumpage. But this
> is
> not really conclusive. It might just be that, the CCIE is
> becoming
> "more popular" and people have recently tapped into this
> market. The
> drop in Cisco gear pricing on the used market probably had a
> LOT to
> do with bringing down this barrier to entry.
Well, the market for bootcamps is pretty darn good proof that it's
conclusive. Think of it logically - why would people be willing to
consistently cough up thousands of dollars for bootcamps if they don't
work? Either all these people are all stupidly throwing their money away,
or you have to concede that bootcamps are making the test easier. PT
Barnum said that while you can fool all the people some of the time and
some people all the time, you can't fool all the people all the time. If
bootcamps really had no value, it is likely that this would be common
knowledge by now.
>
> Regretably, it is difficult to say whether or not it is the
> slippery
> slope we are going up if we really believe a one day exam is
> instantly easier than a two day and that is the reason why
> there are
> more CCIEs per month, or if it is because the failure rate is
> the
> same, and the expected value of passing CCIEs goes up due to
> the
> higher volume of candidates per month.
>
> Whether or not it is easy or not, I cannot say. I encourage
> any
> CCIEs of the two day to take a one day and see how it is. I
> only
> know of one who did it, and he felt it was worse than the two
> day
> lab. But, like I said, different types of people, different
> types of
> problem solvers. Might be easier for some.
My opinion- it's easier. Significantly easier. Another guy who has also
taken both, John Kaberna, has said the same thing.
But it's not just the 1-day vs. 2-day thing. It's an entire suite of
factors that together have degraded the difficulty of the cert. The CCIE is
suffering death by a thousand cuts, of which the format change is only one
cut (albeit a substantial one). Like I said, the proliferation of bootcamps
and dedicated practice labs, and all these other things all take their toll.
>
> One thing is true though. By law of numbers, even if the
> percentage
> rate of failure IS the same, since the NET number of CCIES
> passing is
> higher, by supply and demand the value of the CCIE is
> dropping.
> (someone else mentioned this as well).
>
> If the percentage of failure is even lower... then the value
> just
> drops exponentially. :)
>
> As for having a lower CCIE number, I do not care, I do not
> know.
> Most of the really older CCIE numbers I know tend to be
> mediocre with
> the new technology and are sick of knob turning anyway
> (although
> some are still verry good). The medium numbers seem to be the
> best.
> ;) The ones on the highest numbers end seem to be a mixed bag.
I believe that people place far too much emphasis on knowing the new
technology. Hey, don't get me wrong, it's important to keep up. But let's
not overemphasize this point too much. For example, take the case of the
R/S CCIE which is the CCIE that is supposedly geared to enterprise-level
networking (those guys who want to do service-provider work are supposed to
be looking at the C/S CCIE). Some people have retorted that the low-number
R/S CCIE's don't know, say, BGP, so they contend that the higher-number CCIE
is actually more relevant and useful. But let's be honest - how many
enterprises actually run BGP? 1% at most? Probably more like 0.1%, or
perhaps even less? And even those enterprises that are running BGP - how
many actually have a legitimate need to run BGP vs. how many have just done
it for stupid reasons (something that myself, Howard, and Peter van Oene
have discussed before)? Even in those cases, how many actually have enough
BGP routers that they might actually need to run their own
route-reflectors? And furthermore, I have to ask, how many enterprises are
running BGP not because they actually need it, but because their network
engineer has decided to make things more complicated than they really need
to be because it means greater job security for himself/herself (i.e. "...if
I install BGP everywhere and I'm the only person here who actually knows
BGP, that makes it that much harder for them to lay me off...")? How many
enterprises are like this? I don't know the answer either, but it's safe to
say that the number is greater than zero.
Or take the case of IP multicasting. With apologies to Howard Berkowitz -
pop quiz - name 10 popular IP multicasting applications that, right now, are
in use in the company you work for. Can't do it, can you? Can you even name
one? For most people, they can't even name a single one. In all my years
of networking, I have not run into a single enterprise that is actually
actively using IP multicasting. Now don't get me wrong - I know that there
are some rare cases of multicasting being used in the enterprise. But the
key operating word there is 'rare'. For various reasons, I believe anything
that could be done by IP multicasting could probably be done far easier
either through a broadcast network (for example, right now through my
digital cableTV service at home I get hundreds of TV channels - and quite
frankly most of them suck - and with compression algorithms improving all
the time, I may be getting thousands of channels in the near future) or
through an application-level proxy/cache/CDN arrangement. But the point is
that even the most fervent IP multicasting supporter has to concede that the
technology hasn't exactly taken the world by storm.
Therefore the argument that the newer CCIE test supposedly has more relevant
technologies really doesn't hold water. In the case of BGP, most
enterprises don't need it, in the case of route-reflection most enterprises
don't know it and care about it, and in the case of IP multicasting, most
enterprises don't know it, don't need it and don't care about it. Or, let
me put it to you another way. The newest version of the CCIE no longer has
IPX or tokenring. Yet I think I'm on safe ground when I say there are far
more enterprises out there running tokenring and IPX than are running IP
multicasting or BGP route reflection. Therefore, of the older or newer
CCIE, which one is REALLY more relevant to present-day enterprise networks?
>
> And while someone said the "higher number ones" have "less
> experience" that should not be true in theory since the CCIE
> was
> designed for people who already worked in the networking field
> for
> years.
>
> However, I will agree in practice, that does seem to happen
> often
> (higher numbers, less experience).
>
> I think as with all things in life, take the individual on a
> case to
> case basis. You are going to find good and bad apples in every
> basket. The CCIE is still a very good certification, I do not
> think
> anyone is denying that. But I do not think it is clear if it
> is
> blatantly easier now.
I didn't say that it had turned into the CCNA. But it's not the rockhard
exam that it used to be. And that's not the fault of anybody here. That's
the fault of Cisco itself.
>
> -Carroll Kong
>
>
Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=70839&t=70151
--------------------------------------------------
FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html
Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
