CISCO certifications

[DrPara]

i'm currently taking CCNA courses and i was wondering what other certifications does CISCO offer and what is your oppinion about them

 

[Nutz]

Cisco

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/10/wwtraining/certprog/select_cert.html

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/10/wwtraining/certprog/

The have the entry level certs: CCNA and CCDA (Network and Design Accociate, repectively)
The Professional level certs: CCNP, CCIP, and CCDP
And the holy grail of certs: CCIE (Internetworking Expert)

All are great tracks to follow, but I prefer getting my hands dirty so I'm aiming for the CCNP (and hopefully one day the CCIE).

 

[FFC]

I think CCIE is a little too common now to be called a Holy grail it's still hard though.

 

[Nutz]

What would YOU consider the new holy grail of certs (and/or degree)?

 

[spidey07]

PHD, EE?

 

[ScottMac]

I dunno, I know a EE with a Masters, I wouldn't let him try to fix my toaster. Totally inept on the practical side.

I wouldn't be surprise to see him trying to screw in a cable with a tire iron since the prying end of the tire iron and a flat blade screwdriver tip "have the same basic shape and functionality."

I'm still partial to folks with a bit of experience under their belt.

FWIW

Scott

 

[spidey07]

It seems once you get to a certain level certifications really don't mean anything at all. the resume does most of the talking.

 

[FFC]

I don't think there is a holy grail of certs. They're very useful and they have their place in our industry but they don't actually mean that much. There are good and bad CCIE's just as there are good and bad network engineers with no certs, it's mainly down to the individual. Many hours of tiem have been wasted on arguments about the value of certs and how CCIE is now devalued bcause you can all the information you need to pass the test from a bespoke course or a book without having much practical experience. CCIE's get employed as network designers/architects when the CCIE is a support certification not a design one, the disciplines are very different.

I like the idea of certs, they give people something to aim for and they do make you feel good when you pass them, you feel rewarded for the effort you put in. Are they a panacea? In my opinion no. Do they prove anything? Not really. Are they of benefit? Mine have been to me as they've got me employment.

Which is the hardest cert right now that could start a huge argument my vote would be for the JNCIE.

As for formal education, I've met good network engineers who left school as early as possible and terrible ones with degrees and vice versa, I can't comment from personal experience as I don't have a degree myself.

 

[shadow]

So FFC, would you argue then, that the characteristics of a person are more important than what they have/have not achieved? For example, derived from your post, you would think of someone better if they were alert, conscientious, industrious, competent, and intelligent Community College Grad with a CCNA over someone who is sluggish, unorganized, and lazy but who graduated from CalTech and holds a CCIE.

I'm thinking at this point, that you are thinking you'd like to look at their experience, and talk to their previous supervisors etc.


Pardon my use of only CISCO certs. The only ones I am familiar with besides them and MS's is the CISSP.

 

[FFC]

For me it is always down to the person. Experience is absolutely the best thing a person can have to get to the interview stage. Certs will help a lot with this but when recruiting I'm always slightly suspicious of certified people with very little experience. Once you're in the interview it's you that counts not any certification. I would always rather employ someone I have worked with before and who I KNOW is good. Failing that I try to speak to someone I know who knows the candidate and get some form of verifiable reference (the SP networking business is surprisingly small in the UK).

Certs can bring a downside as well. I work with a couple of Guys who when I joined the company were CCNP's but immediately owned up to being paper certified only. They're both very hard working and have gained a lot of experience in the last year, both would feely admit to effectively being networking charlatans a year ago but they wanted the certs to help them keep their jobs or to make them more employable if they had been made redundant. CCIE's can bring different headaches. Some are poor and trade on the certification, some have huge ego's and are difficult to work with and others are very good.

Also it can depend on the industry you work in. In the UK Service Providers pay no credence to CCIE because it doesn't major on the technologies they use. the BGP in the test is simplistic, SP's don't use IPX, Appletalk, X.25, DECNET or a host of other things that the test covers.

As I said I think the value of a cert varies for a variety of reasons.

 

[SR]

I'd really like to know where you can get all the "canned" info for the ccie lab? Yes, companies sell the senarios for the lab test. I'll agree the ccie written test is fairly simple. Name any other cert out there, where the failure rate is around 80% on the first attempt?
The ccie to me is the holy grail. All the flaws you point out are personal flaws not the flaws of the ccie test.

As for SP's maybe they should have a ccie on staff or two. IMHO they have some of the sloppiest hodge podge networks around.

 

[FFC]

Canned info can be found on the CCIE preparation courses which are run by training companies around the world. Also there are some very good books around now detailing exactly what you need to know in detail to pass the test. the Caslow volume is a prime example. The example labs available from quite a few places allow you to create your own lab simulations with scenarios which are not far from the reality of the test. All of these things make it easier to pass the CCIE test they don't make the test itself easy.

As for another test with an 80% or higher failure rate, try the JNCIE there were only 22 in the world a coupe of months ago.

Finally have you worked on a large SP network with BGP or MPLS in depth. If yes and you have attempted/passed a CCIE lab you'll understand why they generally accept that CCIE has little value for them.

 

[xyyz]

<< I think CCIE is a little too common now to be called a Holy grail it's still hard though. >>



are you kidding? I believe there are still under 15k CCIE's worldwide... this cert is the doctorate of networking...

 

[FFC]

It's around 7000 at the moment. The CCIE numbers are up to 9000 but the first 1024 don't exist and some are no longer active.


CCIE Numbers and distribution