From Roberts article on networkworld

Ok, so Ethan doesn’t believe in violating the NDA that he had to sign umpteen times to get where he is now, but he’s promoting the use of Testking (a well known cheating tool) to “study” for his CCIE.

As a CCIE, I am obviously supportive of Cisco’s efforts to maintain the integrity of their (and my) certifications. And yes, Ethan was not exercising the best judgment by posting about Testking in a comment on his blog. Is that a reason to start a fire, and try to get his CCIE revoked? As a CCIE, my vote is a resounding no. While Ethan definately made a bonehead move, it does not change a couple things.

1. The CCIE written is just a gating exam, meant to limit the CCIE lab to individuals that have a chance (a notably slim chance) of passing the actual lab.
2. The CCIE exam, and its proctors are amazingly effective at weeding out cheaters. Yes, every once and a while a cheater manages to get through. But trust me, these guys get eaten alive when they look for employment.
3. Cisco has its own enforcement team and methods for finding cheaters, they have managed to keep Cisco certifications from devolving into the land of the MCSE. I think we should trust them to do their jobs, and more importantly trust their discretion.
4. Ethans site documented a very thorough preparation process as he walked the long road towards his CCIE. Sadly his site has been taken down, but in my opinion this shows that he put significant preparation in, and earned his number.

My take on things is that Ethan the target of a marketing scheme. From what I can see, Roberts efforts here are not focused on supporting Cisco’s certifications. It looks to me that he is trying to drum up traffic to his business. If you look at his products, there are $995 – $4,999 fee’s to become a “VIP site”. For your payment, you receive a seal of approval and a listing in the “VIP” area of his site.

Sadly, I have seen this scheme before in the photography world. Certain photographers have been known to set up review sites of other photographers. They build Google Page Rank (PR) on their site so they show up in searches relevant to their competition. Once they start showing up in those targeted searches they sell “VIP” listing or reviews. The photographers that pay up to become “VIP” members ensure that no bad reviews of their buisiness are put up on these sites.

Robert is running the same quasi extortion scheme, but for training vendors. I think this demonstrates a lack of integrity on Roberts part. There is no excuse for attempting to destroy Ethans name in order to make a few bucks. I refuse to condone his behavior and would hope that the editors at Network World feel the same and remove his blog from their site.

Ethan – If you read this, I hope you realize that me and others like me are on your side. You have obviously put stellar effort into both studying, and documenting your efforts. It is obvious to any reasonable person that you have earned the title of CCIE.Similar Posts:

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• Cisco Certified Design Expert – CCDE – officially released by Cisco

--Colin McNamara

Certguard, Ethan Banks, Network World and Common Sense

Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media

Put Yourself at the Center of the Action

The rules for marketing a conference like our Web 2.0 event are pretty much the same as those for marketing anything else. Here are the ones we follow.

1. Be first. This is one of the immutable laws of marketing. Who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic? Lindbergh. Who was the second? No idea.

2. If you can’t be first, create a new category so you can be first. Who was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic? Amelia Earhart. New category. We didn’t have the first Web conference out there, but when we applied “Web 2.0″ to the category, we created something new.

3. Position yourself at the leading edge of a new wave. The way to make sure you recognize the next big wave is by watching what I call the alpha geeks. You find people who are cool, by whatever metric you want to apply. It would be the same thing if you were marketing sneakers. And then you find out what the cool people are doing and you spread the word about it. This isn’t to say there aren’t audiences for whom cool might not be the right measurement, but it works for us.

4. Tell a big story. We don’t market products narrowly. We market big stories about the industry, things that matter to a lot of people. In 1992 we came out with The Whole Internet User’s Guide and Catalog. Instead of marketing the book, we marketed the Internet using the book, and said the Internet is coming and by the way here’s a book where you can learn about it. In planning Web 2.0 in 2003, we came up with a goal to reignite enthusiasm in the computer industry. We said, here’s something that distinguishes the companies that survived the dotcom bust, here is something that is bubbling up again, so we gave it a name – Web 2.0 – and started telling a story about what was new and important in technology. Sometimes giving it a name helps people to see it.

5. Make it an A-list party. Conferences are really like parties, and an A-list party is one where A-list people are in attendance. You figure out who are the really important people to invite and get them to show up as speakers or as guests. Then everybody wants to be there. If you don’t know who the important people are, you shouldn’t be doing a conference.

6. Care about the attendees. There are a lot of lousy conferences that pander to sponsors. They end up creating an opportunity for boring speakers who are paid shills for their companies. We still get a few of those, but we really try to police it. Think about who the audience is and what works for them, and deliver high-quality content.
Copyright ©2008 | Colin McNamara | CCIE 18233 | All Rights Reserved”

Colin McNamara
CCIE #18233

http://www.2cups.com

“The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer.”Similar Posts:

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--Colin McNamara

How to succede in 2007 – By Tim O’Reilly

I found an intersting article on Light Reading
Let me summarize the interesting Items.

Team hightlights
1. Nuova is led by Cisco’s former Chief Development Officer, Mario Mazzola
2. J.R. Rivers, a Cisco Distinguished Engineer who led the team that developed the Catalyst 3750 switch is on board.
3. Tom Lyon, who founded Ipsilion is also on board.

Visibility
This company is almost entirely in stealth mode. No press releases or released products.

Funding
Asside from Cisco’s investments they have refused all offers of VC funding.

Gossip
from Light Reading –

“The startup is presumed to be working on a virtualization project in the storage networking space — at the intersection of storage, networking, and computing.

The idea is that they’re trying to “aggregate compute IO from the server and centralize it into a single or small number of network elements, connected back to the servers via a high-speed low-latency ‘closed’ network,” one source says. This frees up processor memory and CPU cycles so that larger clusters of servers are possible.”

My opinion

I think that Cisco plans to jump into the clustered storage market head first. Netapp has just finished the integration of Spinnaker software with the deployment of Ontap GX. Isilion is making a killing on distributed storage. And everyone in their mother is trying to copy Googles GFS filesystem.

I think that Cisco is going to leverage the recently deployed Storage Services Module with its storage virtualization features to create an abstraction layer between products such as Nuova’s and the classic FC or SCSI connected server.

–Colin McNamara

Copyright ©2008 | Colin McNamara | CCIE 18233 | All Rights Reserved”

Colin McNamara
CCIE #18233

http://www.2cups.com

“The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer.”Similar Posts:

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--Colin McNamara

Update on the Cisco / Nuova connection

“When you sit at the business table you always look for the sucker or fool. If you don’t see one, it’s you.”

“you only have to win once in business”

–Colin
Copyright ©2008 | Colin McNamara | CCIE 18233 | All Rights Reserved”

Colin McNamara
CCIE #18233

http://www.2cups.com

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--Colin McNamara

Interesting thoughts from Mark Cuban