Good answer, Howard. I've been thinking about the statement that someone made that "the knowledge isn't proprietary," referring to the knowledge one needs to pass CCIE. The information isn't proprietary. The word "knowledge" implies something more, however. It implies that the recipient actually received and internalized the information and could retransmit it (like on a test) if necessary. The word knowledge has the same root as acknowledge!
Developing effective methods for knowledge transfer requires creativity, skill, time, money, awareness of the audience and their learning styles, and other resources. The results may be proprietary and there's nothing wrong with charging for them. I can't comment on the pricing. (Setting a good price has always seemed like a black art to me, having only taken one business/marketing type class in my life.) It does seem like different prices for different countries makes sense, as others have said. I encourage the folks who want to develop labs for free. I remain a bit skeptical that the results will be as good as the results from the professionals, such as Howard and the folks at ccbootcamp. But I could be surprised! I have done some of my best work when people told me I couldn't do it. ;-) Cheers, Priscilla At 01:42 PM 12/20/01, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: >Let me comment on several aspects of this thread, with the disclaimer >I am involved with a virtual rack business that will be announced >Real Soon Now, and involves the cooperative efforts of several >recognized groups. > >First, let's talk about scenarios. Not long ago, I posted my >taxonomy of lab scenarios, which range from "mini classes" to let the >user get deeper understanding of a particular technology, to >multistage scenarios more like the test but with mentoring features, >to pressure-cooker lab practice. It's not super-hard to create a >scenario that gives some practice. Speaking from experience, it's >much harder to create scenarios that have specific instructional >objectives. When I'm writing a scenario for gaining specific protocol >knowledge, I will usually explore several ways to do it. When I'm >writing one to be more like my understanding of the actual test, I >will put in artificial constraints so there is basically only one >solution. Should a practice scenario have supporting references, at >least links? I think so. > >Second, the lab or virtual rack itself. There is a wide difference in >features, stability, and operational support among commercial labs. >While it may be practical and appropriate to have cheaper written >products for countries where S prices are simply out of the question >(incidentally, rather to my surprise, I just received Chinese >translations of my Routing & Switching Architecture book), that isn't >necessarily practical for labs. There are fixed capital costs for >equipment, plus operational costs to support the lab. Let's put it >this way...for this upcoming project in which I'm involved, we are >now pouring the concrete for the backup diesel and UPS, but are still >working on having redundant local loops. Not everyone has that kind >of availability as a goal. > >It may be practical to clone shared labs into countries where >operational cost is lower, and save on the transoceanic bandwidth >costs. The equipment cost, however, is what it is. > >Incidentally, I am a strong believer in virtual racks rather than >personal labs, because you certainly will have to deal with remote >routers in real jobs, and it's my understanding that the 1-day CCIE >lab also is hands-off the physical equipment. Even if you build a >personal lab, rely on a terminal server and reverse telnet -- it will >be better practice. > >I wish people well in rolling their own scenarios, and we will also >have some scenarios for free download, as well as others that are >associated with rack rental. But it's harder than it looks to write >GOOD scenarios. Indeed, I treat them like any other formal software >engineering project, with code version control, formal acceptance >testing, etc. ________________________ Priscilla Oppenheimer http://www.priscilla.com Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=29834&t=29682 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
