Dear Candidate:

On August 27, Cisco will introduce a pilot for the CCIE Routing and
Switching lab exam in Beijing, China. The pilot will add a 10-minute
interview that will assess the candidate's ability to apply expert-level
networking skills and knowledge to networking problems that are encountered
on the job. After the lab orientation, a panel of three experts will conduct
a verbal interview with each candidate, asking a series of expert-level
networking questions (questions and answers will be in English). The ability
to correctly answer these questions will affect the exam score. After
completing the interview, the candidate will have the entire 8 hours to
complete the lab portion of the exam.  These scores will then be
calculated and then combined for a total score which will decide a pass
or a fail.

Our goal with this email is to let you know that your day will extend beyond
the normal testing day by approximately one hour.  The additional hour will
be at the end of the day. We hope you find this interview process
enlightening and helpful as we continue to strive for the standard the world
has come to expect from CCIE.

In my opinion this change is both needed and appropriate. In the past couple years, the two main barriers to entry with the CCIE (access to gear, and knowledge) have been lowered with the abundance of training programs as well as dynamips and it’s derivatives for gear emulation. Where in the past you were looking at a minimum of $8,000 dollars for a full lab, now you can run it on your PC at home.

From what I see, this is encouraging engineers to get their CCIE’s earlier in their career. This in itself is not a bad thing. If an engineer has dedicated themselfs to learning all the in’s and out’s of networking technology, then they really have earned the title. The problem comes when people want to take short cuts. They buy a lab of someone in China, or use other methods to get copies of the lab. To them, passing the lab and getting their number is all that is important, not truly becoming an expert in the technology.

While in the short term this may seem like the quick path to a good salary, in the long term everybody loses. Those who have cheated their way to their CCIE (while few and far between) end up devaluing the cert for the rest of us. And at the end of the day, they are just cheating themselves, and will lose their jobs when their true skills are tested.

It looks like Cisco is seeing the same thing that I have just talked about. This pilot program should go a long way into protecting the integrity of the CCIE for years to come.Similar Posts:

• What does it take to pass the CCIE exam?
• My experience taking the CCDE Practical Beta
• It’s on like Donkey Kong – CCDE practical registration is open
• Are you a kick ass engineer looking to grow?
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• Where is Colin ? Passing the VCP exam (VMware Certified Professional)

--Colin McNamara

Protecting the integrity of the CCIE lab – Verbal Interviews being tested

• Cisco Nexus 7000 DataCenter switch released – Welcome to DataCenter 3.0
• Thanks and farewell to Jayshree Ullal
• Jayshree Ullal takes the helm of Arista Networks
• John McCool chosen as Jayshree Ullal’s replacement to lead Cisco’s Data Center Switching and Services Group (DSSG)
• The emergence of MDS features in Cisco’s datacenter networking equipment
• Cisco Nexus 5010 released

--Colin McNamara

DataCenter SVP Jayshree Ullal interviewed about the Nexus 7000

• Russ White – CCDE interview
• CCDE Practical – Beta candidate deadline August 1 2008
• My experience taking the CCDE Practical Beta
• It’s on like Donkey Kong – CCDE practical registration is open
• Cisco Certified Architect – Board examination above the CCIE and CCDE
• Passed CCDE written and Recertified my CCIE – Killed two birds with one stone

--Colin McNamara

Russ White – CCDE interview – Part 2

• Russ White – CCDE interview – Part 2
• CCDE Practical – Beta candidate deadline August 1 2008
• My experience taking the CCDE Practical Beta
• It’s on like Donkey Kong – CCDE practical registration is open
• Cisco Certified Architect – Board examination above the CCIE and CCDE
• Passed CCDE written and Recertified my CCIE – Killed two birds with one stone

--Colin McNamara

Russ White – CCDE interview

The wedding was great. A classic SoCal wedding, complete with the surfer priest. No joke, he even had a soul patch. The reception was held at the Costa Mesa Country Club. This place is shwank, 100k a year for membership. Erin’s parents really came through on this one. Aside from the location, it was great seeing Adam, Erin, Dan, Lott, and Linda again. I have changed so much, that no one recognized me at first. I guess 60 pounds, a beard, and longer hair can hide things .

Ashley and I drove north of LA that night, and made it to scenic Buttonwillow. Or maybe it was buttwillow. We got a room at the scenic Motel 6, the best room in town. After 5 hours sleeping in this room we recieved a call from the red cross. The lady on the phone informed my wife that someone who had german measles stayed in the room the night before. Ashley turned white on the phone. She responded “I am nine months pregnant” and the lady on phone said “Oh my god”. Shortly after the lady asks if we were in a specific room. Luckily it was a large number off. Then at the end, she asks if we were in Nebraska. At that point Ashley returned to a normal color. Crisis averted, same thing for sleep.
So that trip ended about 3:00 pm that day. I had a little break, fixed my laptop, got everything set up to be autonomous again. Did some phone interviews looking for that right place to land. Checked surflines (sadly it has been pretty flat), worked on the motorcycle, gossiped with friends, chatted up Kylie, surfed the net, did pretty much everything I have been putting off for so long.

Later that week I was back down south for the day. Sadly I had to get back up to the city that evening, or I would have gotten dinner with Dan down in PB. So everything went well down south, and I ended up being late for my flight. Luckily Southwest has pretty much the nicest employees on earth. I ended up on the next available flight without any charge or problem. You can’t beat that. I ran into some interesting people on the flight up. One was a MIT Business school grad. He moved up to the bay to do work with alternative energy development. Things like this give me that 1999 vibe. The bay is starting to get that buzz again. There are deals dropping everywhere. All that money the VC’s have held back is starting to flow. Even podcasting startups are getting 9 million in funding. I mean, come on – Podcasting ? Are we in this build a cool product, advertise, get rich mode again? Scary and fun at the same time. I guess its time to party like its 1999.

–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:

• Tour of Ashley’s new site !
• Google Translate API and speech recognition
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--Colin McNamara

Weddings, Measles and Podcasting -