Is CCIE certification will loose its importance because of SDN?

Chaya

Hello All,

Feeling good to be part of this forum. I have Degree on distant course and 3 years of experience in system/network admin area.

I had to quit job in 2012 due to personal reason. Now it is almost 2.5 years of gap. Currently I am located in Bangalore and it is very hard to find job in IT industry.

I need job urgently now . I am thinking of joining CCIE Data centre course to rebuild my career. Please put some light on it so that I can take better decision.

I also heard that SDN(Software Defined Network) is booming now and may be in future need of CCIE experts will come down gradually.

Your input will help me in building my career again.

Thank you
Chaya

Iristheangel

There was a thread recently where we covered it. Here it is: http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccie/104759-ccie-dead.html

In short, the CCIE is going to be valuable for a very very long time and you're not going to see wide-scale SDN adoption for some time yet.

Essendon

What you need to do now is get a job, worry about the cert later. Since you've been outa work for that long, chances are your rusty on whatever knowledge you had when you had a job. Pick up a job now, don't plonk all that money into some "course" for the CCIE: DC, no one can teach you that kinda stuff in a few days/weeks and from what I've read, this particular CCIE's much harder and more expensive to study up on. Oh and are you a CCNA? Maybe that's expired too (if you were one before)? Good luck with finding a job though, it's pretty competitive everywhere.

MrBrian

What I would say is that it will not lose importance, but you will also need to pick up some python skills or some other programming skills to keep up. It won't be enough to simply be an expert at tcp/ip + cisco devices.. a lot of things will be automated, but if you understand the inner workings of tcp/ip and the routing protocols, and can also code, you'll be just fine.

Someone chip in or correct me please if there are other viewpoints.. This seems to be a prevalent viewpoint from many of my co-workers and they are pretty smart Although I'll admit I don't know for sure.. I'm currently trying to add deep python skills to my arsenal though because of it..

MrBrian

Oh whoops, I didn't read the whole post.. In that case my reply is just directed towards the thread title..

joelsfood

In regards to the CCIE Data center course, it definitely gives you a range of knwoledge that is invaluable in IT, but I wouldn't expect to pass the test just based on the ccourse. As of the 10/1 cciehof ****, there were only 235 CCIE:DC holders in the world. It's a strange mix of storage, network and server, that not many people hold. Rather, not many people hold the knowledge of all three to a CCIE level. Most people know one or at most two of them, but this test is basically asking for an expert level knowledge of what are generally two (or even three) separate domains in most data centers.

Besides that, this is still a relatively new course, so not nearly as much information out there to study from, as compared to say the RS track

NOC-Ninja

SDN has been there for years and it hasnt stopped CCIE making money. I doubt it will. CCIE is a cert, it does not mean you will have to stop learning after that. So if you can adapt on learning then you shouldnt be afraid of the next big thing.

NOC-Ninja

joelsfood wrote: »

In regards to the CCIE Data center course, it definitely gives you a range of knwoledge that is invaluable in IT, but I wouldn't expect to pass the test just based on the ccourse. As of the 10/1 cciehof ****, there were only 235 CCIE:DC holders in the world. It's a strange mix of storage, network and server, that not many people hold. Rather, not many people hold the knowledge of all three to a CCIE level. Most people know one or at most two of them, but this test is basically asking for an expert level knowledge of what are generally two (or even three) separate domains in most data centers.

Besides that, this is still a relatively new course, so not nearly as much information out there to study from, as compared to say the RS track

In my experience, the boss/CIO/manager expects you to work on storage/network/server at the same time. If you are a CCIE and you dont know it, then they will expect you to learn it. I dont expect or trust server guys to touch, deploy and work on my UCS when I have PRIME,MSE,ISE in there. IMHO the idea of only CCIE data center knows data center is untrue. Neither does VOIP engineers trusting other people with their VM's.

Also, Nexus and MDS are not assigned to any specific person. If its the project list and my boss tells me to design or troubleshoot it then I will do that.

networker050184

Nothing lasts forever. Certifications are short term goals. They aren't something you get that you should expect to still be relevant in 10 years.

Scales

networker050184 wrote: »

Nothing lasts forever. Certifications are short term goals. They aren't something you get that you should expect to still be relevant in 10 years.

This ^^^

The knowledge you get from doing certs will always be relevant.

Almothanna

I totally agree with networker050184.
In my opinion, if you are working for medium-large enterprise, you should stuck with skills that benefits your position to market yourself for promotion or for higher position in another employer. Therefore, one day you need to move to management position -after you have spent couple of years on technical projects- where you will be responsible to make decisions. You are able to avoid being updated with latest technologies in your field. Look up PMP, ITIL expert or MBA in indeed.com.

if you really want to spend your life in technical projects, it's better to obtain a PhD in computer science and work as a research professor where you build a real solution and sell it instead of buying a product from Cisco and learn from them how to use their stuff by using their user manual "e.g. CCIE" . The inventor of SDN are professors, who enforce everyone holding CCIE to worry about him/herself while there is no PhD holder worries about the SDN revolution. It is stressed and frustrated to live like you think you are doing your best but it may be dead/wrong direction in the future.

At least, do not stay with system/network jobs in IT industry and switch to programming - if you don't wanna do a PhD - where you learn one thing "Web technologies with mastering Java" then you don't worry about vendors decisions

Chaya

Thank you all for your valuable time and inputs.

As Essendon mentioned, I am finding difficulty in clearing interview or in getting shortlisted , may be because of gap in my career. So I am finding ways to increase the possibilities of getting job. Plan to join CCIE is one of the reason.

CCIE is very expensive but I am clueless now. But somehow I want to start my career again.

Please suggest me on this.

Chaya

Thank you all for your valuable time and inputs.

As Essendon mentioned, I am finding difficulty in clearing interview or in getting shortlisted , may be because of gap in my career. So I am finding ways to increase the possibilities of getting job. Plan to join CCIE is one of the reason.

CCIE is very expensive but I am clueless now. But somehow I want to start my career again.

Please suggest me on this.

gorebrush

A CCIE from nothing is a very difficult thing to achieve! I would start at CCNA level and work your way up from there.

Network_Engineer

I heard a rumor that Cisco will release a CCIE SDN track in a few years.

chuang123

I just recently heard about this new techology SDN. well.. it might be a trend. but how do you know cisco won't release a new track of CCIE-SDN? then it is still valuable. don't forgot, cisco is the leader of the network!!

admin26

hello how are u doing am samuel and am new in this site

admin26

hello network how are u doing am samuel and am new in this site looking for friends to learn are u there

trackit

I think that for at least next 10 years traditional networking will be very much in high demand. Although SDN has been talked about since 1995, it is still deployed almost nowhere. Yea i know, people like to make the google example, but google is somewhat bad example because they use a lot of custom solutions and for example just because google uses custom built servers in their server farms doesnt mean that traditional servers are out. Even if SDN will make very rapid advances in the next years that doesnt mean that all the companies will through out their networking gear and rush to buy SDN. The way i see it SDN is more datacenter related technology. In a datacenter where you have racks after racks after racks full of virtualized "fabric" of computing power, storage etc it makes sense to also "fabricize" the netwok. But in "campus netwokrs" SDN doesnt really give you much advantages, traditional networking works there just fine and imo wount be replaced for a long time. And even if this (finally) happens and we will indeed use SDN you will still be much better off knowing how networking really works under the hood at low level.

So to summarize, i think that "if" SDN will make rapid advancement (it still takes years even for rapid advancement) it will be "datacenter technology" first and it will coexist with traditional grear for quite some time and even if after 10-15 years we will be running SDN everywhere you will still be much better off knowing how things really work under the hood.

SeekBytes

I simply think that Cisco will include SDN for their CCIEs once required. They are working on a standardized APIs to use on their devices. You cannot do any network programming if you do not know how protocols work. So if you study Cisco's stuff to learn technologies you are just fine. Nothing will change in the short term.

Kind Regards.