Category Archives: CCIE

2012, Year of the CCIE Data Center?

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About six months ago, I wrote out my predictions about the rumored CCIE Data Center certification.  I figured it would be a while before we saw anything about it.  In the interim, there are a lot of people out there that are talking about the desire to have a CCIE focused on things like Cisco UCS and Nexus.  People like Tony Bourke are excited and ready to dive head first into the mountain of material that is likely needed to learn all about being an internetworking expert for DC equipment.  Sadly though, I think Tony’s going to have to wait just a bit longer.

I don’t think we’ll see the CCIE Data Center before December of 2012.

DISCLAIMER: These suppositions are all based on my own research and information.  They do not reflect the opinion of any Cisco employee, or the employees of training partners.  This work is mine and mine alone.

Why do I think that?  Several reasons actually.  The first is that there are new tests due for the professional level specialization for Cisco Data Center learning.  The DC Networking Infrastructure Support and Design Specialist certifications are getting new tests in February.  This is probably a refresh of the existing learning core around Nexus switches, as the new tests reference Unified Fabric in the title.  With these new tests imminent, I think Cisco is going to want a little more stability in their mid-tier coursework before they introduce their expert level certification.  By having a stable platform to reference and teach from, it becomes infinitely easier to build a lab.  The CCIE Voice lab has done this for a while now, only supporting versions 4.2 and 7.x, skipping over 5.x and 6.x.  It makes sense that Cisco isn’t going to want to change the lab every time a new Nexus line card comes out, so having a stable reference platform is critical.  And that can only come if you have a stable learning path from beginning to end.  It will take at least 6 months to work out the kinks in the new material.

Speaking of 6 months, that’s a bit of the magic number when it comes to CCIE programs.  All current programs require a 6 month window for notification of major changes, such as blueprints or technology refreshes.  Since we haven’t heard any rumblings of an imminent blueprint change for the CCIE SAN, I doubt we’ll see the CCIE DC any sooner than the end of the year.  From what I’ve been able to gather, the CCIE DC will be an add-on augmentation to the existing CCIE SAN program rather than being a brand new track.  The amount of overlap between DC and SAN would be very large, and the DC core network would likely include SAN switching in the form of MDS, so keeping both tracks alive doesn’t make a lot of sense.  If you start seeing rumors about a blueprint change coming for the CCIE SAN, that’s when you can bet that you are 6-9 months out from the CCIE DC.

One other reason for the delay is that the CCIE Security lab changes still have not gone live yet (as of this writing).  There are a lot of people in limbo right now waiting to see what is changing in the security internetworking expert realm, many more than those currently taking the CCIE SAN track.  CCIE Security is easily the third most popular track behind R&S and SP.  Keeping all those candidates focused and on task is critical to the overall health of the CCIE program.  Cisco tends to focus on one major track at a time when it comes to CCIE revamps, so with all their efforts focused on the security track presently, I doubt they will begin to look at the DC track until the security lab changes are live and working as intended.  Once the final changes to the security lab are implemented, expect a 6-9 month window before the DC lab goes live.

The final reason that I think the DC will wait until the last part of the year is timing.  If you figure that Cisco is aiming for the latter part of the calendar year to implement something, it won’t happen until after August.  Cisco’s fiscal year begins on August 1, so they tend to freeze things for the month of August while they work out things like reassigning personnel and forecasting projections.  September is the first realistic timeframe to look at changes being implemented, but that’s still a bit of a rush given all the other factors that go into creating a new CCIE track.  Especially one with all the moving parts that would be involved in a full data center network implementation.

Tom’s Take

Creating a program that is as sought after as the CCIE Data Center involves a lot of planning.  Implementing this plan is an involved process that will require lots of trial and error to ensure that it lives up to the standards of the CCIE program.  This isn’t something that should be taken lightly.  I expect that we will hear about the changes to the program around the time frame of Cisco Live 2012.  I think that will be the announcement of the beta program and the recruitment of people to try the written test beta.  With a short window between the release of the cut scores and beta testing the lab, I think that it will be a stretch to get the CCIE DC finalized by the end of the year.  Also, given that the labs tend to shut down around Christmas and not open back up until the new year, I doubt that 2012 will be the year of the CCIE DC.  I’ve been known to be wrong before, though.  So long as we don’t suffer from the Mayan Y2K bug, we might be able to get out butts kicked by a DC lab sometime in 2013.  Here’s hoping.

Trust But Verify

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By the time you are ready to sit in the torture chambers that house the CCIE lab, you are practiced with live configuration to the point of it being subconscious.  Configuring VLANs and routing processes happen without a second thought.  The candidate can do simple tasks quickly and spend more time focusing on difficult areas and weak points.  After walking out of the lab and waiting for the score report, tough areas are replayed over and over again trying to dissect any bright spots.  Whether or not you are confident about your results, when the unsuccessful score report arrives there is usually a shock.  Areas that the candidate believed they passed with authority show missed points and lost opportunity.  The most often heard phrase after this situation is, “I know I did better than that!”

I uttered these very words more than once.  I thought to myself, “How could I get that wrong?  I typed everything in right.  It looked like it was working.”  The fault here wasn’t only in my configuration skill.  Instead, the additional fault was in my failure to verify what I had configured.  Typing commands into a terminal for a lab configuration task is easy, relatively speaking.  It is equally important to prove that you’ve done what you think you’ve done.  Without verification, there is no way to make sure that your configuration tasks are behaving like they should.

Every time I have sat down in the lab, I take one of the two pieces of paper that you are given and I write down a number for every task in the troubleshooting and configuration sections of the lab.  When I configure something, I make a check mark next to that task.  If I can’t get it working right away, I leave it blank.  Once I have a list full of single check marks, I know it’s time to verify.  I sit down with the configuration tasks and I forget everything I’ve done up to that point.  I do this because in the past I’ve been known to say to myself, “I did that right.  No need to check it.”  That attitude couldn’t be more wrong.  If you assume that you’ve done something correctly and don’t bother to check it, you might as well have gotten the question wrong.

When I begin verifying, I read the question again and make sure there were no omitted words or phrases that could affect the configuration.  I then use a variety of “show” commands to prove that I typed everything in the right way the first time.  Nothing is taken for granted.  Neighbor statements are checked.  VLAN descriptions are checked.  Routing tables are poured over.  On lab attempts 6 & 7 (where I passed the configuration section), I found simple mistakes both times that would have cost me a large number of points.  The kind of simple mistakes that a lot of people assume that they couldn’t possibly screw up because they were so easy.  The grading script doesn’t assume you meant “neighbor 1.1.1.1 remote-as 254” instead of what you typed “neighbor 1.1.1.1 remote-as 245“.  Don’t give the script the chance to punch you out for lapses in typing skill.

Once I’ve verified a task the second time, I put a second check mark next to that task.  Once I have a page full of double checks I can relax just a little knowing that I’ve looked at every question twice.  If there’s enough time remaining before I head out, I look over the particularly hairy tasks and add perhaps a third check mark if necessary to really be sure I got them working correctly.  These are usually single tasks that stand alone in the configuration and shouldn’t have an impact on core reachability.  Screwing up your core with less than an hour to go is a great way to get high blood pressure quickly.

Tom’s Take

There’s a reason why they call it “double checking”.  I feel that having a running total of the tasks in your lab keep you focused on the macro task instead of getting bogged down in the micro sections.  It helped in my passing attempt by forcing my to keep moving in the troubleshooting section.  It always helped me in the configuration section so that I didn’t miss the forest for the trees.  Hopefully those of you out there going after your lab will find this useful.  After all, since you can’t use the paper to dispose of your gum you might as well put it to good use.

The Sky’s The Limit for CCIEs

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First of all, congratulations to Jonathan Topping, CCIE #30002.  He passed back on August 25th, which means that CCIE #30000 passed on the 24th or 25th.  That person is still unknown at this time, but the milestone that it represents is pretty impressive.

I chased my CCIE all the way through the 20000’s.  From reading Ethan Banks’ first blog at CCIE Candidate as he got his number (20655) all the way up until I got mine just shy of the 30k mark, I’ve been entrenched in the lore of things.  30,000 is a big mark.  Sure, CCIE #31025 will be the actual 30,000th person certified, but you can’t ignore the significance of how many people out there have chased their goal and achieved it.  Ethan passed his lab in April 2008, and with a little fudging on the math with the pass rates, it took about 3.5 years to get from 20,000 to 30,000.  Pretty impressive for what some have considered to be the hardest exam in the industry for a number of years.  The rate of passing seems to be accelerating.  It fluxuates from about 50 per week up to 150 per week depending on when the test is being taken and whether changes are rumored to be coming down the pipe soon.

There was a time I can remember people saying that anyone with a 5-digit CCIE number was just too green to be of any use in the industry.  Those same things were said just after Larry Edie passed to become #20000.  I’m sure someone will say that now that we’ve broken through 30,000 as well.  It doesn’t matter in the end though.  CCIE numbers are like grade point averages.  I was worried when I graduated college because my GPA wasn’t as outstanding as those kids that spent every waking minute studying for tests and turning in homework two weeks early.  However, on my first interview I wasn’t asked about my GPA.  They asked about my experience and what I was capable of.  The same is now true of my CCIE.  People are impressed with the certification itself, not the number.  The number only exists to prove you are who you say you are.  It doesn’t matter if you’re #1027 or #31027.  The fact is that you’ve all passed the same rigorous test to achieve your goals.  Sure, Greg Ferro may have had to study Token Ring and Ethan Banks may have had to study ATM, but we all passed a lab exam with requirements and tasks.  I’m sure that the IP tasks on my lab exam will look foreign in 3 years when we’re all running IPv6 and configuring OSPFv3.

Other vendors are starting to see the light, too.  Juniper has lab exams for its Juniper Networks Certified Internet Expert (JNCIE).  Microsoft added practical-type questions to the Server 2008 certification track a while back.  Novell took a shot at a practical exam with the first iteration of the Novell Certified Linux Engineer 1.0 exam.  I still have nightmares about that jewel.  I can see more people starting to look at practical exams at the expert level.  I know they are pain to administer and grade.  They are difficult to study for and the material has to be refreshed frequently.  However, they provide something no written multiple choice test can – experience.  I know that someone who has passed the CCIE or the JNCIE can actually sit down and do the things on the test.  There’s no multiple guessing or subject board to award a certification.  It’s down to merit, plain and simple.

Tom’s Take

CCIE #40000 will probably be certified in March 2013 if the current passing trends stay stable.  Sounds closer than one might think.  Milestones come and go, but the aptitude is always there for those that pass.  Don’t worry about getting vanity numbers like 31,024 or 31,337.  Whatever number you get will be the one 5-digit number you will never forget in your entire life.  Don’t fret over getting a number in the 30,000s.  You’re still a name after all.  The number just comes after it.

If you’d like to lookup some milestone CCIE numbers, I highly recommend Marc La Porte’s CCIE Hall of Fame.  He verifies every CCIE number, so the information there is better than anywhere else on the net.

CCIE…For A Few Dollars More

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The price of becoming an Expert just went up a little.  Effective August 1, 2011, the price of the CCIE lab is being increased by $100US across the board to be $1500.  The email that candidates received this morning:

As of August 1, 2011, the price of the CCIE Lab will change from $1400
to $1500 USD*.  Your lab fee will be processed 90 days before your
scheduled lab date. Since payment for your lab will be processed after
this date, you will incur the new price.  While you can cancel your
lab date without cost, we hope you will continue on with your
certification exam to certify that you are one of the most expert
networking professionals in the world.

As an administrative change, the timing on this is just about right.  The Cisco fiscal year begins on August 1 every year, so we are now officially in FY12.  Revenue increases usually get recognized in a new accounting period for reasons that I’ve managed to forget since my last accounting class in college.  Suffice to say that tying the lab price increase to the beginning of the fiscal year isn’t all that unheard of.

Why increase the price at all?  What am I getting for an extra 7%?  All valid questions.  Allow me to speculate:

1.  A Weak Dollar.  It’s no secret that the US dollar isn’t doing so well against other foreign currencies, like the Euro.  I’m not a Harvard Economist, so I’m not going to delve into areas that I know nothing about.  However, the price difference between the two currencies could lead Cisco to believe that the customers paying for the lab in denominations other than the US Dollar aren’t getting a fair shake.  Or, it could mean that other candidates are looking at the US labs as a bargain compared to Brussels and Dubai.  That would mean they could start booking labs here as opposed to there and start overloading the seating available here for US students.  It’s happened before, so I wouldn’t be that surprised to see it again if the candidates believed the price difference was that great.  By raising the lab to $1500, Cisco is essentially resetting the level so that everyone is fair again.

2.  Layoffs.  Yes, I know that within the next two weeks, Cisco is looking at about 6,500 layoffs from all over the company.  This includes 2,100 people who opted for an “early retirement” package in lieu of a furlough.  Why would this have an impact on the CCIE lab?  Because I have it on good authority that once of those 2,100 retirees was a CCIE proctor.  Typically, most labs run two proctors.  One shows up early to get the lab up and running for the day and run the candidates through the morning instructions.  The other proctor ends the lab and collects materials.  Depending on the time differences, the first proctor may not even be around when the lab ends.  Only having one proctor available for a site means a lot of overtime for that poor soul.  More likely is the idea that a new proctor will need to be brought on board, so increasing the price of the lab makes sense from the perspective of training a new guy in how to be mean and paying a chunk of his/her salary in an environment where pennies are going to be pinched pretty soon.

3.  Technology Refreshes.  Before any candidates out there have a heart attack, notice I said “technology” and not “blueprint”.  There is a lot of interesting technology coming in the future for the CCIE lab.  Mark Snow hinted at some of it in his Cisco Live 2011 recap post.  The plan going forward is to port all the lab workbooks to the CCIE Lab Delivery System that the R&S lab uses now.  This costs money.  Also, Cisco wants to start introducing more troubleshooting tasks in the actual configuration section now that the Open-Ended Questions have been removed.  This isn’t cheap.  In addition, Cisco is working on varying the lab tasks slightly among different versions of the exam, for instance asking a task to be configured one way on a version and the same task to have a slightly different configuration in another version.  This kind of development takes time and (you guessed it) money.  So, by adding another $100 to the lab price, they can effectively pay for the development of these new technologies without having to increase revenue from another source.  By making sure the CCIE lab can generate enough revenue to fund its own development, you never have to worry about another business unit getting involved and deciding how things are going to be run.

Tom’s Take

The CCIE lab isn’t cheap.  Not by a long shot.  Between the lab costs and the flights and the hotels and the rental cars, even one trip is a fairly costly adventure.  Adding another $100 onto that may not seem like a lot up front.  But the psychological effect can’t be understated.  The lab is now a nice round $1500 amount.  For those footing the bill themselves, this is another wallet-sized portrait of Benjamin Franklin that they have to part with.  In the end, all the pain and suffering is worth it, even that of your poor bank account.  I think the price increase will fund some great new advances in the lab and hopefully do away with the 3-ring binders for the workbooks and usher in a new age that uses technology to full advantage.  If this increase is due to currency parity, then the additional revenue that is brought in after the currency markets stabilize will be useful as well.  Just don’t expect the price of the lab to go down anytime soon, if ever.  Because if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s the cost of the CCIE lab always being a fistful of dollars.

So…The Tattoo

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Probably the most talked about thing at Cisco Live, at least from my perspective, was this little joke that took on a life of its own.  Since a lot of people asked about it, and since it still keeps popping up all over the place, I figured I’d take the time to say something about it.

In the World of Solutions (WoS), Cisco usually has a lounge for any Cisco Certified individuals to come in and chat and hang out.  A couple of years ago, they started making the CCIEs go into this lounge to get their silver CCIE ribbon for their badge holder.  This usually means there is a long line of CCIEs waiting to pick up their shinies.  This year, Cisco hired an airbrush artist to put fake CCIE logo tattoos on any CCIE that wanted one.  You could get the basic new CCIE logo, or a specific logo with any track name, such as Routing and Switching or ISP Dial.  People started getting tattoos put on their arms and calves right away.  Some people, like Marko Milivojevic, got two tattoos on each arm for his dual CCIE accomplishments.  I skipped getting at tattoo on Monday night, due to the long line and the desire to get as many codes as I could for the Destination Collaboration game (which I ended up winning on day one).

The next day (Tuesday), I was just getting out of a class and decided to go back to the WoS to pick up a few t-shirts and other pieces of swag.  Along the way, I saw a tweet from Mr. Tugs aimed at the Learning@Cisco people asking if anyone had gotten the “tramp stamp” CCIE tattoo yet.  From Wikipedia:

A lower back tattoo is a body decoration, sometimes intended to emphasize sexual attractiveness. Such tattoos have become popular since the late 1990s. They are sometimes derided as suggestive of promiscuity and often referred to as “tramp stamps”[1] and other slang terms.[2] The German term Arschgeweih can be translated as ‘ass antlers’. Such tattoos are primarily seen on women, although a small but increasing number of men have them as well.

While the lower back is not the widest area of the human back, it has abundant space for a large design and horizontal tattoo designs can be worked easily. In contrast to the abdomen, which is otherwise a similar location, the lower back does not stretch significantly during pregnancy or other weight gains, thus providing a more stable site for a design. Lower back tattoos are often left uncovered by individuals wearing crop tops that are designed to expose the midriff and low-rise jeans that are worn low around the hips.

For those that might not be too familiar with the term “tramp stamp”.  At first it appeared to be a joke in good fun, pointing out that since the majority of attendees are male, the possibility of someone getting a tattoo in an area usually associated with someone feminine was out of the question.  The Cisco Learning folks decided to up the ante by offering a free t-shirt to the first person to get said tattoo in the lower back region.  As I walked into the Certification Lounge, I asked if anyone had gotten it yet, and I was told that no one had.  Julia, the Certification lady, asked if I was thinking about going for it.

To take a moment here to explain my thinking…I was pretty sure this would be a funny little joke for everyone.  I couldn’t care less about the position of the tattoo.  I figured Learning@Cisco would tweet about it and my name would get attached to it somehow.  My friends would have a good laugh about it and I’d be on the receiving end of some good-natured ribbing about it for the next couple of days.  I’ve been known to do silly things before, so this wasn’t entirely out of character for me.  However, the confluence of events rose to make this somewhat of the Perfect Tramp Stamp Storm.

Once I had committed to getting said tattoo, Marko walked over and said that if I would get it, he would get it too, provided there was a t-shirt in it for him as well.  Once he got the green light for his t-shirt, we went about the business of getting stamped.  When I looked up halfway through the process, I noticed a bunch of my friends sitting on the couches in the Certification Lounge.  What was originally going to be a bit of a shock to them turned into them crowding around to see and start taking pictures.  I was doomed from the moment I stood up.  A couple of quick photos followed while Marko got his matching tattoo.  Once we had completed the process, Julia asked us for a quick picture so she could tweet it out to the world to show that two CCIEs had stepped up and sacrificed a little dignity for a t-shirt.  When she posted the pic to twitter, she not only used the conference hashtag of #cl11, but she also appended the hashtag #CCIE2011, which was to be used for pictures taken at the CCIE party that night.  This was the beginning of the end.

As word spread about the tattoo, the picture kept getting retweeted over and over again.  Because the hashtag for the CCIE party pictures was embedded in the original tweet (and subsequent retweets), the picture kept popping up on the monitors at the party.  It wasn’t all that uncommon to see the picture three or four times in a row while walking around the party.  It ended up being so popular that Carlos Dominguez put it up on the big screen during his introduction at the Wednesday keynote by Padmassree Warrior.  He said it was his favorite picture at Cisco Live so far and he called Marko and I “two of our brightest CCIEs”.  For Marko and I, this was praise enough to make it worth it.

The picture keeps cropping up even a week later, as people find it and retweet it or my friends keep bringing it back up as a punchline in a joke.  Frankly, I’m more than amused.  If my jovial behavior during Cisco Live didn’t already make me popular, going to the lengths that I did to get my backside up on a giant screen in front of 15,000 live guests and who knows how many thousand around the world virtually sealed the deal.  I’ll always be known as the “Tramp Stamp CCIE”.  And I’m perfectly fine with that.

Tom’s Take

Never be afraid to make an ass out of yourself.  It takes a lot of confidence to put yourself out there and to be ready to weather the storm of criticism and jeers.  I’m pale and a little chunkier than I could stand to be.  I’m also not afraid to have fun and use some self deprecation to accomplish good humor.  If all I’m ever known for is one famous tattoo, I can die a happy man.

Should you really want to see the evidence of my little bit of humor, I’ll link to it rather than putting the pictures in this post.  Be aware, though, that what has been seen cannot be unseen.  Do not observe my paleness while under the influence of medication or while operating heavy machinery.  My back has been known to cause blindness and discomfort in test subjects and small children.  Do not expose yourself to these pictures for more than a few minutes.  Should your find yourself with blindness lasting for more than four hours, please consult a physician.

With that out of the way, check out my tattoo HERE (thanks Amy and Greg) and HERE (Thanks Learning@Cisco).

CCIE Data Center – Coming Soon-ish

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Right before I left for Cisco Live, I had a big post about the rumored CCIE Data Center certification exam that I was going to publish.  I held off at the last second because I wanted to gather some more information at Cisco Live from the army of Cisco people that would be there.  I’m glad I waited.

Speculation has been rampant that Cisco is readying an update to the CCIE Storage Area Network (SAN) lab certification exam to better align their position with the new Unified Computing System (UCS) hardware and various other technologies like Wide-Area Application Services (WAAS) and the Application Control Engine (ACE).  These items are heavily utilized in modern datacenters to provide the best customer experience with large scale computing deployments.  Since the focus inside of Cisco for the past few months has involved UCS to a large degree, there is a lot of support in the partner community for top-tier certifications to recognize the investment that partners make in UCS training for their employees.  Also, having a program with the prestige of the CCIE attached to your data center learning gives the engineers working on the product an aura of intelligence when it comes to product.

During Cisco Live, there was even an overview of the CCIE SAN program in the breakout session BRKCCIE-1001.  Curiously, it was titled CCIE Data Center/Storage Certification.  I’m sure that people flooded into the class hoping to hear whether or not the data center CCIE would be coming out soon.  However, the majority of the class dealt with CCIE SAN and the methodologies and topologies of that exam. Only in the last few slides are any hints of the future of data center certification, and even then it is just a suggestion of updates to the existing blueprint.  What follows in this article are my ideas about what a proposed CCIE Data Center might involve.  They are based on conversations I had in the past week, but in no way represent the official position of the CCIE program or any person inside of Cisco, so don’t go quoting me as the gospel truth.

I think the CCIE Data Center program is still 12-15 months out.  Why?  Well, there is still a lot of life left in the SAN program.  The announcement of the removal of the Core Knowledge/Open Ended Questions slated for August 15th proved it.  Why bother mentioning SAN if it’s not going to be around for a while?  There are still a number of students in the CCIE SAN track today and announcing changes this soon would wreck all their hard work and study.  This is also a requirement that any major changes to a track or blueprint must be preceded by a 6-month notice.  As we haven’t heard any announcement yet, the data center CCIE couldn’t possibly arrive earlier than next January.

There is a lot of hardware that could go into a CCIE Data Center exam.  UCS, MDS, WAAS, ACE, load balancers, and even FC/FCoE storage arrays must be considered at a minimum.  What about focus?  There are lots of different areas that you could exam for track focus, from simple UCS deployments to more of a service provider, hosted cloud type integration.  How to cover all of those bases in one exam?  Especially if you have to shoehorn it all into 8 hours?  I’m pretty sure that we might end up seeing some form of tracks in the CCIE Data Center after it launches, similar to the way the CCIE Service Provider used to be subdivided.

What about all those SAN folks that busted their butts learning about MDS switches and figuring out crafty ways to configure fibre channel?  Are they going to be left out in the cold just like the old CCIE ISP Dial guys?  Relics of a bygone era?  I doubt it.  MDS switches are still on the proposed blueprints that I’ve seen being kicked around, and even the rumors say that the SAN program is being upgraded, not retired.  Don’t be shocked if the SAN guys get some kind of “bridge” program to take what they’ve learned about storage and apply it to a Data Center track.  My guess would be something like running the two tracks parallel for a few months after launch and then allowing SAN CCIEs and candidates a single free shot at the Data Center lab exam.

Tom’s Take

It’s time for Cisco to come out with a CCIE for the modern data center.  The other vendors that play in this space love to tout their expertise building multivendor networks and implementing large scale server/storage/switching deployments.  But let’s face it: they aren’t CCIEs.  Once someone gets the digits, they take on a different aura.  Having CCIEs focused on servers and storage would give Cisco a competitive advantage in the data center market, where it appears the battle for supremacy will be waged for the next couple of years.  I think Cisco is going to take their time and get this one perfect before releasing it to the public, both to be sure that it covers their goals for where they want the Cisco data center brand to go as well as to ensure they don’t alienate those CCIEs who have diligently studied SANs and taken the battle standard thus far.  Just remember to have a little patience, since the CCIE is a marathon that pays off in the end.

The OEQs Just Flatlined

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Okay, 24 hours after my blog post about the imminent removal of the Open Ended Questions (OEQs) from the CCIE Security Lab, I find out that I was not only right, but it is happening sooner than expected.

According to this post:

Effective August 15, 2011, CCIE Security Lab Exam and CCIE Storage Networking Lab Exam, in all global locations, will no longer include the four open-ended Core Knowledge questions.  The removal of Core Knowledge questions allow candidates to utilize the total lab time for configuration and troubleshooting. The total lab time will remain eight hours.

That pretty much puts the final nail in the coffin.  After additional research, I’ve discovered the Service Provider Operations test doesn’t include a “Core Knowledge” section, which is Cisco shorthand for the OEQs.  Along with the revelation that the SP 3.0 lab no longer includes them, this is indeed the end for CCIE Trivial Pursuit edition.

The OEQs were never really meant to do anything more than stem the tide of people “braindumping” the lab.  Rather than go through the trouble of remaking the lab every few months, they evolved the candidate interview section into a mass-produced cheat buster.  I don’t think it was as successful as Cisco would have liked, but it was really just a stop-gap measure until the statistics from the troubleshooting sections could be compiled.  Plus, they needed lead time to get the labs changed before they hemmoraged numbers well north of 30,000.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take the opportunity this weekend to enjoy the long overdue death of my least favorite section of the CCIE lab exams.  Stay tuned, though.  I’ve got some interesting CCIE news coming up after the holiday.

Death to OEQs!

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Just when you think things can’t get any more interesting, a little nugget of news slips out and makes your day fun.  An announcement about changes to the CCIE Security exam leaked out this morning and was quickly retracted to be polished before being reissued tomorrow or the next day.  However, Natalie Timms, the CCIE Security Program Manager confirmed in this thread that the changes were the removal of the Open Ended Questions (OEQs) and more addition of hands-on configuration.  As soon as I saw this, my wheels starting spinning.

Note: What follows is mostly conjecture based on opinions and conversations I’ve had with people in the industry.  Many of these facts are not confirmed as solid, but will be cited where appropriate.  Please don’t go telling people that my words are the gospel truth.  I don’t know any more than anyone else.

I think this movement is the beginning of the end of the OEQs.  They’ve been gone from the R&S lab for over a year now. The Voice lab has done away with them as well.  In the case of the R&S lab, they kept the new troubleshooting section in place as it served the same purpose as the OEQs, a section that could be rapidly changed to provide a method of varying the difficulty of the lab quickly.  The Voice lab introduced troubleshooting into the lab itself, either by making you diagnose broken things in your equipment or by forcing you to debug errors and do things like copy them to text files like you would if you were going to forward the files to TAC.  Integration of troubleshooting allows Cisco to have a good gauge of the candidate’s abilities and more closely ties the exam to the real world skills of a network enginee…rock star.

The remaining CCIE tracks (Wireless, Service Provider/Operations, Storage, and Security) still have OEQs attached to them.  Makes for an interesting briefing in the morning when the proctor has to give 3 different sets of instructions based on what the initial setup of your lab might look like.  Candidates hate the OEQs.  They are a trivia section at best.  People say that they are easy, CCNA-to-CCNP level questions that any CCIE candidate should be able to answer.  I find the lack of specificity in the old OEQs I took to be maddening in some cases, and the lack of proctor assistance was irritating.  In fact, the continued inclusion of OEQs on the other CCIE tracks has made them a little less appealing to me, should I find myself crazy enough to even think about attempting it all over again.

With the announcement, retraction, and eventual re-announcement of the removal of the OEQs from the Security track, I’ve got high hopes now.  I think Cisco has enough data based on their year of R&S and Voice troubleshooting to see it as a viable alternative to Trivial Pursuit: CCIE Edition.  I’ll bet that there is going to be a section similar to the Voice lab where faults are injected (or user-created) in the lab and you’ll be required to diagnose and perhaps log them in files on the desktop.  This makes the most sense, as some of the hardware can be emulated like the IOU images that run in the troubleshooting section but emulation of the specific ASICs and software on something like an ASA would be problematic at best.  By adding troubleshooting, the Security lab will start feeling more like a real-world scenario.

The Wireless track is due for a revamp in November.  Don’t be shocked to see the OEQs get stripped from it as well.  Wireless is a hard track with all the specific hardware required and would also lend itself well to a Voice-style troubleshooting inside the lab exam.  The CCIE Storage exam is on its last legs and is most likely about to be replaced by a new CCIE track more focused around Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS), along with Nexus switching, Wide-Area Application Services (WAAS) as well as Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) storage that will require the MDS switches from the old Storage lab.  This CCIE Data Center track (if that’s what it ends up being called) is probably one of the worst-kept ‘secrets’ in the CCIE world, as I’ve had several people mention to me, and a couple of candidates even ask the proctors when the lab would be retooled to include it.  In the interest of complete fairness, the proctor’s comment was “No comment.”

That leaves Service Provider and Service Provider Operations left as the only OEQ-enabled labs here.  I doubt that Cisco will leave the OEQs here if it removes them from other tracks.  The SP lab recently received a refresh and the SPO lab is very new.  I think that there will be an announcement very similar to the Security lab that removes the OEQs, but I think rather than injecting faults in this lab, they may try for a troubleshooting section down the road similar to the R&S lab.  This could be accomplished with the IOU images that are in use now for the R&S TS section.  Addition of the IOS-XR content would require something different, perhaps the mythical “Titanium” emulator for XR that I keep hearing about yet have never seen (much like IOU only a few months ago).  The addition of a real TS section would change the content drastically though, so it would require 6 months notice before being implemented.  In that time, however, they could use an in-lab troubleshooting method just like the other tracks.

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*EDIT*

Thanks to Youssef El Fathi for pointing out that the SP lab has not had OEQs since the 3.0 revision early in 2011.  The thread confirming this from June 8th is HERE.  If that truly is the case, then I don’t see any reason why there should continue to be OEQs in any other tracks.

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Tom’s Take

There you have it.  A road map for eliminating the OEQs and banishing them to the same circle of hell as ARCNet and MicroChannel buses.  While I can’t confirm any of my suspicions outside the semi-firm announcement of the removal of OEQs from the Security exam, it makes the most sense that Cisco is ready to implement this change track-wide in the lab.  OEQs take a lot of time to grade and are slightly subjective.  Troubleshooting is pretty easy in comparison – it either works or it doesn’t.  By standardizing on troubleshooting instead of OEQs as the preferred rapid-change method of candidate testing, it makes things a little more fair all around.  I plan on finding the CCIE program managers when I go to Cisco Live this year and asking them about upcoming changes to the tracks so that I can nail down what might be happening.  If they tell me that the OEQs really are going away please don’t mistake my tears for sorrow.  They’ll be tears of unadulterated joy.

I’m going to say it again to avoid an international incident: This is all conjecture at this point.  If I turn out to be wrong, so be it.  However, I feel the time of the OEQs is over.  Don’t tell everyone on Groupstudy or or OSL that this is the absolute truth until you get a confirmed press release from someone whose name ends in “@cisco.com”.

A Lot Of People Take The Lab Seven Times…

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A couple people have asked about some highlights in my lab experiences while going for my CCIE. Here are a few of the more humorous points.

My first lab attempt was in December of 2008. This was back before Open-Ended Questions (OEQs) or the Troubleshooting section. I got my teeth kicked in by this first lab. By lunchtime, I was pretty much shell shocked. I didn’t talk to anyone and spent a lot of time staring at my lab binder. At 2:00 p.m., I was wrestling with a BGP problem that I refused to let go of until I solved it, even if it cost me the rest of my lab. I got up and decided to get a drink from the break room. In RTP, the breakroom and bathroom are down the hall from the lab. As I worked out the possible solutions to my issues in my head, I woke up from my mental fog and found myself in the bathroom wondering where the Coke machine was. That’s when I knew my goose was cooked on that attempt.

Number two was the first with the OEQs.  I switched lab locations from RTP to San Jose.  Firstly, because the lab started an hour later and I love my sleep.  Secondly because I had the time change going from Central to Pacific working for me instead of going from Central to Eastern and always being behind.  I nailed the trivia section at the beginning but got hammered on the configuration section.  I realized that I was good at the theory, but I needed to concentrate on the application.  Number three was my last shot at the version 3 lab. I got enough points to pass the configuration section, but I missed too many trivia questions. I was livid. It’s like meeting someone for the first date and calling them by the wrong name 5 minutes after you meet. The rest of the night is a wash no matter what, so why bother putting yourself through it?

Number four was my first version 4 lab attempt. I refused to take the new lab so long as the OEQs were still there. Two things kicked me out of my self-imposed funk. First was the announcement of the elimination of the OEQs. Secondly was some words of encouragement from my friend Narbik Kocharians. At Cisco Live 2010, he told me that I just needed to keep it up until I got my number. So I took him up on his advice. Attempt four hurt a lot. The TS section wasnt kidding around, and I got stomped by the lab. I felt almost the same as I did after attempt number one. The sole bright spot was my ever-increasing subscore. While I didn’t get enough points to pass either section, I was getting close to the top.  I just needed to find the drive to put myself over the summit.

Attempts five and six were my “near misses”. On five, I passed the TS but failed the configuration.  I was upset after that one.  I thought I had done a damn good job, only to get my score report back less than an hour after I left the lab building.  I retraced all my steps in my mind to find where I could have screwed up.  All the anger in the world wouldn’t get me past my failing mark, though.  IPExpert instructor Marko Milivojevic put it a little differently to me.  He told me there was no sense complaining about it. Get ready for the next one and get it done. On six, I failed TS and passed config. So, if you averaged those two, I passed. 😉 Attempt six really bolstered my confidence. I knew I had failed the TS section after the first two hours. But rather than leave and enjoy the California sunshine, I stuck around and finished. In return, I was able to pass the config section for the first time.  It was a bright spot that led me to have a little hope that passing this thing was possible.

I didn’t say much about attempt number seven because I was anxious. I felt a little embarrassed that I was up that high.  I was worried that I’d disappoint everyone that had been keeping up with my battle with the dreaded lab. I decided to take the Navy SEAL approach. Get in, do the job, then talk about it after success. I was relaxed as I strolled into the lab Thursday morning.  There were a couple of first timers there, and I could tell they were nervous.  It reminded me of my first attempt.  I’m pretty sure Tom Eggers and Tong Ma recognized me from my last attempt.  I could have given the pre-lab briefing for the proctors.  For every previous attempt, I’d been seated at the same workstation. This time, I was beside my usual spot. Maybe a change of location would be a good thing.

I started the TS section and told myself not to get caught up on any questions. If I couldn’t get it in 10 minutes, move on to the next one. I started to panic a little by the third question, but after I made a change that fixed a bunch of things all at once, I was elated and plowed right through, finishing about 20 minutes early. Once I was sure all the conditions were satisfied and my configs were correct and saved, I jumped into the lab. Normally, I get up after reading over the lab and go to the bathroom and get a drink. This time, however, I was in the zone and I didn’t stop to think. I just kept going. Before I realized it, Tong was handing out the lunch vouchers.

After a nice lunch, I came back and dove right back in. A couple of silly mistakes right off the bat made me refocus on doing things right.  I cursed myself for such simple errors, knowing that the difference between typing the right command and the wrong one was razor thin inside Building C.  I shut out distractions and kept going. In fact, I didn’t even notice the guy beside me on his first attempt get up and leave just after lunch. Guess my old pod got him too. By the time I finished my first run through, it was 2:00. I looked up and thought to myself that this was very doable from this point on. I had 3 hours to make sure I was right this time. After rearming with a Mountain Dew, my first that day, I went back over my configs with a fine tooth comb. Not a cursory inspection, but a real Navy SEAL dressing down. I forced myself to reverify every command, no stone left unturned. It’s a good thing I did, too. I found mistakes that would have cost me 7 points had I not corrected them. Those little lapses of attention very likely would have had me coming back for attempt number eight.

Once I double checked everything, literally in this case as each task had two check marks next to it on my paper, I reverified a few things I wasn’t sure about. After I satisfied myself with the answers, I turned in my scratch paper. It was 3:30, an hour and a half before the end of time. When I walked out of Building C, I knew I had done my absolute best. I was confident that this would finally be the one. After catching up on Twitter and email, I celebrated with my usual trip to In-N-Out Burger. Back at the hotel, the minutes started ticking away. After reading about the last few passing attempts from my friends online, I knew the longer it took for your score report to come back, the better it would be for my chances. No report after an hour was good. After 3 hours, I was giddy. I’m sure the hotel bar had nothing at all to do with that. By 11:00, I was equally concerned and hopeful. Had the grading script messed up? Were the proctors going over my configs to shake out any flaws? I had given up the idea that I’d get my results before bed. After hopping in the shower, I walked over to shut off my computer before bed. It was then that Outlook delivered the dreaded email.

CCIE Score Report

I clicked on the link and logged into the site. I scanned to the bottom of the list and saw FAIL. My heart sank. How could I have failed?!? Then I realized I was reading the results of my first attempt in RTP. The newest score was at the top of the list. My eyes flitted over the four most wonderful numbers I’d ever seen. P-A-S-S, quickly followed by a glance at the five most amazing numbers ever, 2-9-2-1-3. The whoop I let out surely had to wake the whole hotel. I called my lovely wife at 2:00 her local time and told her the good news. She informed me she was very happy. And also going back to bed. I, however, was wired. It was like the feeling of winning the big game a thousand times over. No more doubt, no more anticipation. No more second guessing myself and wondering if it would all ever be worth it. I emailed my boss and my Cisco account team. I chatted on Twitter with the poor souls awake at that hour. I made lists of who I needed to talk to. I tried to calm down. I finally fell asleep an hour later, but I didn’t really rest. The elation at my accomplishment kept me on high for a while. But at least I wasn’t dreaming about Indiana Jones and the Lost Prefix (that has happened before).  The next morning was filled with phone calls before my flight.  My boss answered on his speaker phone but quickly switched to his handset when I told him I was going to give him my lab results.  After informing him I passed, he laughed and said, “I could have left you on speaker for that good news.”  I boarded the plane home with a spring in my step for the first time in a long while.  Nothing could chisel the smile from my face.

Tom’s Take

What is best in life?  To crush the lab, see it driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the proctors.  Okay, maybe a little cheesy, but it kind of sums things up.  My father asked me how many questions I got wrong and still passed.  I told him “Since they don’t give you a breakdown, I’ll always think I got them all right.”  I can’t give the best advice about lab strategy.  As you can see, there were lots of dumb mistakes and missed chances.  I underestimated some sections and they paid me back in full.  But if nothing else, know that perseverance is the key to the lab.  Not giving up, not backing down, not letting yourself think for an instant that it isn’t possible.  Doubt is one of the biggest enemies of the CCIE hopeful.  Don’t let it cost you your chance at a number.

I’m Not A Name, I’m A Number!

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You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see this little snippet in my email:

Three years.  Seven lab attempts.  Several close calls.  Lots of studying.  Lots of second guessing.  Lots of anger.  But in the end, the elation of those four letters makes it all worthwhile.

There are a lot of people to thank.  I’m going to call out three people in particular who are head and shoulders above the rest though.

First, my family and my beautiful wife Kristin especially.  Thank you for putting up with my odd schedule and my even odder behavior for the last three years.  Thank you for not letting give up and making me keep my nose to the grindstone for this achievement.  I promise from this point forward that Daddy won’t have his nose buried in a configuration guide.  At least not too often.

Secondly, to my amazing boss, Mr. Mike Hibbs.  The man that never gave up on me.  Every time I flew back home with my head hung low with shame burning on my forehead, he told me to pick myself up off the ground and try again.  He footed the bill for me even when I didn’t think I could do it any more.  I owe you more than I can ever hope to repay in a lifetime.

And lastly (but certainly not least), to my mentor and friend Wes Williams.  Four years ago, Wes and I were having lunch and I told him that I was going to take the CCIE exam.  He paused and told me in his slow drawl, “Well, if you keep your head on straight and study hard, I think you’ll do it with no problem.”  Wes, you left us far too soon.  You saw the potential in me from the very start and never let me settle for second best.  I always said that if I passed the lab that I would owe my success to you.  I just wish you could have been here to see it.  This one’s for you, Wes.  I hope I made you proud.

There’s a lot more story for me to tell than I can hope to stuff into this blog post right now.  I plan on laying out some more of it after I’ve had time to come down off this emotional high.  I want to thank everyone for their encouragement and support for the last three years.  I knew that the only time I would have truly failed the CCIE is the day I decided the quite trying.  And now I never have to worry about that day.

From now on, CCIE belongs to me.