NetworkWorld claimed third-party boot camps designed to prepare candidates for the exam are not always up to par. Fred Weiler, Cisco marketing director claimed “There was a very diverse level of quality” in the third-party exam preparation programs. He also goes on to say that “The third-party courses often trained Cisco pros well enough to pass the exam, but not well enough to become true experts”. “It’s not to train to the test. It’s training to become an expert,” Weiller said.

Like CCIEPursuit, I call bullshit. You cannot pass that exam unless you are an expert. I went through that whole process using third party training vendor material. So did a lot of existing CCIE’s. It has not only made me a better instructor, but a better engineer. Saying that the existing vendors only train you enough to pass the exam is marketing FUD.

Cisco delivers its official course material through its Learning Partner program. Cisco structures its Learning Partner program into three tiers. At the top we have CLSP’s (Cisco Learning Solution Partners). The middle tier is where the CLP’s (Cisco Learning Partners) sit, and the bottom is where SO’s (Sponsored Organisations) sit.

A CLSP is allowed to deliver only Cisco authorized materials using Certified Cisco System Instructors (CCSI). Having a certain number of certified staff members is a requirement. CLSP’s are allowed to customize courses but are required to report and pay royalties on all derivative works to Cisco.

There are only a handfull of CLSP’s in the world and each has a specific region (or theatre) they look after. Its like a giant pyramid scheme with CLSP’s sitting at the top. CLP’s and SO’s must purchase kits (training manuals etc) from CLSP’s and get any derivative works approved. Cisco gets a cut from these derivative works.

What does all this have to do with the Cisco 360 CCIE Learning Program? I suspect that only the high end CLSP’s will be allowed to deliver this training. The problem for Cisco at the moment is that there are these great CCIE training companies out there who provide training and create CCIE’s, but Cisco doesn’t get a cut from any of that.

Why didn’t Cisco partner with one of the top CCIE vendors? In short, I think its because of derivative works. If a CCIE vendor aligned themselves with a CLSP as a SO or CLP, the CCIE vendor would be able to accept Cisco learning credits. Cisco partners get Cisco Learning credits that they can redeem with a Cisco Learning Partner. If a CCIE vendor aligned themselves with a CLSP as a SO or CLP, I suspect Cisco would then demand a cut from the CCIE material. Cisco would want it to be considered a derivative work. But they didn’t have a CCIE training program for it to be “derived” from. They do now.

I think that IPexpert and Internetwork Expert at one stage accepted Cisco Learning Credits but I can’t find anything on their webpages on whether they still accept them. I’m thinking out loud here, but put yourselves in the shoes of IPexpert and Internetwork Expert etc. You align yourselves with a CLSP so you can take Cisco learning credits and then you have to pay Cisco royalty fees on something you created all on your own as a “derivative work”. I know I would hate that.

It will be interesting the see how this effects the CCIE vendors now. I think CCIEPursuit is correct in that you will have more candidates taking the Cisco courses because it has the Cisco logo attached.

Does that mean, that the existing CCIE vendors training material is suddenly substandard? Hell no! I have used both IPexpert, and Internetwork Expert’s training material for CCIE preparation. I have seen Narbiks training material. I honestly believe that you could use any of the CCIE training material from any of the top CCIE vendors and pass the exam. So in terms of the actual material, I think they become a commodity

What really matters? The Instructor.

At the moment, what I believe distinguishes the third-party vendors (or the so called grey training market) with the official Cisco courseware, is the person delivering the material. The instructor. The official courseware for CCNA, CCNP etc is great (I know, I deliver it every day as a CCSI working for a CLP). I have used both IPexpert, and Internetwork Expert’s training material for CCIE preparation. I have seen Narbiks training material. I honestly believe that you could use any of the CCIE training material from any of the top CCIE vendors and pass the exam. What differentiates them is the Instructors.

I always say people remember two things about a training course they attend: The Instructor and the food :). Im sure all of us at one time or another has been to one of those training courses. You know the ones. The instructor gets up and starts reading the slides word for word. Death by powerpoint. You ask him/her any questions and they retort with “I’ll get back to you”.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

I want to know: who will be teaching these Cisco 360 CCIE training courses? What instructors? Are they as good as Jared, Scott, Narbik, and the Brians? Are they as inspirational as these guys? If all the CLSP’s are getting the same material then what makes you choose one over the other? I’m sure the material will be great. What I care about is who will be guiding me through this material?

Unless Ivan (who works for NIL, one of the largest CLSP) or someone of his calibre at a CLSP teaches it, I think I’ll stick to the third party vendors for my CCIE material.

Resources:

• Check out the Cisco Learning Partner FAQ here
• CCIEPursuit’s comments on the new Cisco’s CCIE 360 Program here, and here.

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Summer 2008 Salary Survey

July 2008

Email: eman@bridgeresourcing.com
Web: www.bridgeresourcing.com
Blog: www.ccieagent.com

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Narbik’s popular “Advanced CCIE R&S - Technology Focused” workbook can also now be bundled with IPexpert’s CCIE R&S Blended Learning Solution. His workbooks will also be made compatible with Proctor Labs, matching the IPexpert topology. This will make it easier to get rack time for those working through his labs.

I’m a big believer in using multiple workbooks for CCIE preparation. You get different perspectives, as well as getting used to the different writing styles of questions. It also makes sure you don’t get comfortable with one vendor’s labs, layout etc. I’ve heard great things about Narbik’s workbooks both on groupstudy and everyone I’ve met that’s used them keeps raving about them.

The other big news is that the Blended Learning Solutions are now free! Anybody that books a bootcamp now gets the Blended Learning Solution for free! FREE?! I’m working through the Voice Blended Learning Solution (BLS) at the moment and the workbooks are fantastic. If its sounds like I am an IPexpert fanboy, its because I am. The level of detail in the explanations in the Voice BLS are great, and I can’t believe they would give it away for free! I am planning on attending the voice bootcamp when I am further along in the study, and I am glad you can apply the entire purchase price of your BLS toward a Boot Camp registration.

Looks like IPexpert are really trying to shake-up the CCIE training sphere. I wonder if some of the other vendors will now match IPexpert’s offer and follow suit?

Update: If you haven’t joined twitter, now is the time! I just got a tweet from IPexpert:

“Stay focused on your “tweets” this month… we will be giving out 2,000 HOURS worth of Proctor Labs rack time… only to Twitter followers!”

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To be honest, I’m really disappointed.

I wish they didn’t get rid of the old ones (Greg I’m soooo jealous!). After all that hard work, this thing looks like its made out of plastic. What am I saying, it IS made out of plastic! Plastic with a bit of glass stuck on the front. Bring back the old medallions. That is something you can show with pride!

According to Tassos, the company that made the old ones, Brandvia, is still around. I’ll be sending them an email to see if can get one of those old school medallions….

Seriously, Cisco, the new CCIE Plaques suck!

We pay $1400 a pop for the Exam (not to mention countless hours of blood sweat and tears), surely Cisco can make the prize at the end a little better than this!

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Woohoo! I’ve been waiting for this little puppy for about a week. It contained all the printed material for the Blended Learning solution: Workbook 1, 2, and 3 as well as a printout of the slides for the Video On Demand DVD.

Notice how I’m also showing off my brand new monitor that I treated myself too when I passed my CCIE (Not as big as the one Keith got when he passed…but hey its not the size that counts, its how you use it!).

IPexpert Blended Learning Solution Workbooks

Workbook 1 contains the “Focus Labs”. This is where all the individual mini-labs are that concentrate on all the technologies on the CCIE Voice Blueprint and where I will be spending the first couple of weeks of my preparation in. It is divided up into 17 different sections, each containing a mini-lab that goes through all the different technologies in a LOT of detail. I’m a strong believer in making sure your foundation is absolutely solid before moving onto doing full-scale labs, so I am planning to do these labs multiple times. This in conjunction with the Video On Demand DVD should make sure my foundation is solid.

There are labs on:

• CallManager fundamentals,
• CME Fundamentals,
• Gateways,
• Gatekeeper,
• Dial Plans,
• Media,
• High Availability,
• Unity,
• IPCC Express,
• CallManager Features,
• Qualtiy Of Service,
• Fax,
• CME Features,
• CUE Fundamentals,
• CUE Features,
• Security

Workbook 2 has full scale labs. 10 of them. I’ll be heading into this after I have gone through Workbook 1. My plan is to do all 10 of them, and then pick 5 of the best ones to do over and over again to really drill it in. I did something similar to this when I studied for my R&S and it worked out awesome. I’ll have to email Vik, or Mark on which ones they recommend.

I think Workbook 3 is the pick of the whole package. The detail in this thing is amazing. See that big pile of books on the right? Thats the proctor guide. Or should that be proctor guides. There are 10 labs and each lab has a book containing explanations as well as a corresponding video of a walk through! Holy crap. I spoke with Matt Brooks this morning and he told me that the first 5 labs of these work with the automatic grading solution that they have.

Here’s a couple of shots showing the format and layout. Notice the screenshots and the detail in the explanation. Also notice my l33t photography skillz!:

(Ohh photo taken at an angle…very arty!)

Check out the screenshots and explanations. Every lab has step by step screenshots detail in the explanations are very good. They are so good in Volume3 that I’m a bit undecided as to whether I should make that workbook 3 as the second phase of my study and then treat the workbook 2 labs as mock labs. With the sheer volume of explanations it would probably make the most sense. Only problem is Workbook 2 labs aren’t automatically graded yet. I think again I will talk to someone at IPexpert about my study plan once I’ve finished with this and get some advice.

DVD slides

You get a DVD workbook as well that has all the slides from the Video On Demand as well as notes on each slide.

It comes with a warning at the start:

This is fair enough. Its not a CCVP course but a CCIE level course. I can’t wait to get my hands on that Blended Learning Solution HDD so I can start watching them! (Anybody at IPexpert wanna throw me some free rack time?…my love can be bought! *evil grin* )

Room with a View

Here is the view from my study. That’s beautiful Melbourne in the background. When we first moved into the apartment I would spend hours looking outside. It was a bit of a distraction but not anymore. My biggest distraction at the moment is Call Of Duty4 (Damn you terrorists!).

Now I gotta get back to that OSPF tutorial. HTH! :

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Erin  | IP: 99.1.86.170

GRATS ON PASSING!!! I recently got my CCNA from this company called Cisco, they are great plce to go for certification.
They have lots of seminars and online web tutorials, great place for training or if you just need more information and IT certs.
Here’s a link:

http://www.cisco.com/go/learnnetspace?utm_source=blog+commenting&utm_content=Google&utm_campaign=Domestic

Check out that link. They are tracking the source coming from blog commenting. Man that’s so not cool. :). I marked it as spam. lol

Looks like the marketing campaign needs work. How come I don’t get an email like the cool people? (Hehe…Ivan’s link didn’t work!.)

They are obviously trying to get you to go to their new Cisco Learning Network Portal. This portal actually looks pretty cool. Its a web portal with a discussion forum etc. The CCIE section is pretty bare at the moment, but hopefully they put up some cool tutorials or videos etc. Now I wonder how many of those comments on the forum are real…. :)

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Here is Wayne Lawson’s, Founder & President of IPexperts official response:

Wayne Lawson’s Statement on the Departure of Scott Morris from IPexpert

Over the past five years, since Scott Morris joined IPexpert, we have worked together towards a common goal of making IPexpert the world’s best CCIE training organization. In this time, the company has faced many successes and challenges in our journey to stay at the top of our game.

- Wayne Lawson II – Founder & President, IPexpert, Inc.

Whoa! I remember when I first started out down the CCIE path and finding out about Scott’s $2 million Lab. It was one of the reasons that led me to IPexpert as a training company. That lab was pure marketing genius. Heck I still tell my students about it. Scott has been an inspiration to many (myself included), and no doubt he will continue his excellent work at Internetwork Expert.

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• CCNA Voice certification validates skills in VoIP technologies such as IP PBX, IP telephony, handset, call control, and voicemail solutions.
• CCNA Security certification validates skills including installation, troubleshooting and monitoring of network devices to maintain integrity, confidentiality and availability of data and devices and develops competency in the technologies that Cisco uses in its security structure.
• CCNA Wireless certification validates candidate’s skills in the configuration, implementation and support of wireless LANs, specifically those networks using Cisco equipment.

Cisco Press has announced products on all of the new CCNA tracks.

The CCNA Wireless track certainly makes sense now that they unofficially announced the CCIE Wireless, but it definitely leaves a gap between the Associate level and Expert level. I think its a pretty safe bet that there will be a CCWP (Cisco Certified Wireless Professional) or something similar in the works - great I’m starting rumours now! :)

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I wasn’t going to comment, because frankly I thought it was crap as soon as I read it on Networkworld. “This is just some guy drumming up exposure for his company. Nothing to see here…move along”, I thought. If you followed Ethan’s blog, to me it was obvious Ethan didn’t cheat. I didn’t want to post about it because I didn’t think it deserved the attention it has subsequently attracted.

Heck, I find this screenshot I took a couple of minutes ago amusing:

Here is a site that claims ethanbanks.net is safe. It even states that “this is the kind of PTP you should be looking for”. However it appears they see nothing wrong with dragging the name of owner of that site through the mud. I care about the integrity of these exams as well but his comments on Networkworld is bordering on slander. Who in their right mind would want anything to do with this company?

I think this is a sad attack on someone that has tried to give back to our little community. We’ve all followed Ethan through his preparation attempts and shared his joy when he passed. If you looked through his blog you would have clearly seen the amount of hard work and dedication he put into achieving his CCIE. You can’t fake that. He knew his stuff. If he was cheating, he was going about it the wrong way :)

This whole things seems like CertGuard trying to drum up free exposure. To me, it seems like they are trying to get you to use their search tool to verify any material you purchase…so you don’t end up like Ethan. Kinda like a mafia extortion racket. There must be many people they could have “made an example of” so one must wonder, did they target Ethan Banks for vilification due to his high profile, and if so was it also more for publicity than justice.

Having a watchdog protecting the value of our certifications is a good idea in principle, but in this case the implementation is just as evil as the crime. Cisco is the final authority on the matter. They should be the watchdog, not some guy who’s credentials and methods are questionable. How does CertGuard know material is safe unless they’ve looked at the questions themselves?

I was going to say that I wouldn’t be using any sites that have the CertGuard logo on it, but then I couldn’t find any. :)

Come back Ethan. Our community needs leaders like you.

Update: Ethan’s back!….and Robert Williams from CertGuard has issued an apology.

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After doing what anybody passing their CCIE does (killing brain cells with beer), I had time to reflect on what has been an awesome year so far. I’ve had emails from all around the world, calls from family and friends congratulating me. But you wouldn’t believe how many emails, and conversations I’ve had that contained the question “What are your plans next? Now what?”

Its really weird. After the initial celebrations had gone, the reality of it all dawned. Now what? When I was studying, I had a clear goal, a direction, something that I could throw my all at. I was challenged. I’d never been challenged like that before. It was liberating when I passed because I’d proved to myself I could do it. This could get addicting. :) So I’ve decided to get back to studying again.

I’m doing another CCIE. :)

Which one? I started emailing and talking to a few people about it. Some people thought I was crazy to start so soon, but most of the people that know me weren’t surprised. I initially thought about doing CCIE:Service Provider because it has the most overlap with CCIE:R&S. But I don’t think it would benefit me as much as the others unless I was working for an ISP (any takers?). I thought about CCIE:Security. I teach quite a lot of security classes so I have a lot more experience with Cisco’s security products than say Voice. But CCIE:Voice would give me the most opportunity to learn. It would be a real challenge……

I’m doing Voice. :)

Now the decision about how to start preparing. I had used IPexpert and Internetwork Expert’s materials for my R&S. I used IPexpert’s material at the start of my R&S prep and it was great, towards the end I switched to Internetwork Expert’s materials. I’m a big believer in using more than one preparation workbook because you get to see different ways of wording questions, different topologies etc.

I shot an email to one of the guys that I sat my lab with, Choon. He had just passed his voice lab, making him one of the few people in the world with 4(!) CCIE’s. I asked him for advice. He had used IPexpert material for his preparation and it came highly recommended.

I headed on over to the IPexpert website and had a look at their offerings. My CCIE:Voice Blended Learning Solution from IPexpert is on its way! This little bundle looks very cool, it has three workbooks and comes with video tutorials, a video on demand and an audio bootcamp. The proctor labs website says their R&S labs are automatically graded (which would make every lab a mock lab!), but no word yet on when the voice lab automatic grading stuff will be done.

I’ve also ordered all the books from the CCIE Voice booklist. I’m dreading looking at my credit card bill this month, but I’m a big believer in investing in your education. Its worked for me so far! Its been a while since I did my CCVP so I’ll have to refresh.

I’ll be blogging my way through the whole process, writing tutorials and commentary about all the labs along the way. This really helped when I was doing my CCIE:R&S, so I’m going to keep doing that. Stay tuned…. :)

This is kinda exciting. Is it weird that I am looking forward to the sacrifice and hard work again? I guess I am a sucker for punishment!

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