CCIE longevity??

This is a difficult one for me.

I've been studying for my ccie r&s for the past 6 months or so. And at times I think is it actually worth it? The amount of time and effort that is required, and what is the reward? Or how long will that reward last.

The networking industry as a whole seems to be going through quite a lot of changes over the past few years with the introduction of sdn's/cloud based devices etc.

I work in the enterprise space, and there are sd-wan devices that can build vpn tunnels by the click of a few buttons. My company have just bought a Meraki mx65w firewall and some z1's and it is so easy to build full mesh vpn's, not only that you get so much information out of them. Wireless can be setup in 10 minutes. Much easier than deploying any 2500/4400 series WLC.

I've just tried out the new denali ios xe on a 3650 and the gui is quite nice, I was surprised. 10x better than times gone by, at the moment you can't configure routing on there but I'm guessing it won't be too long until they release some updates that allow this. Cisco have even said that the cli should be "the last resort" Cisco says CLI becoming interface of last resort

I've been spending 4 hours a day on average every day studying for the ccie, and i'll continue to do so. Just having doubts as to whether i'm doing the right thing or would be better off switching focus to something else - CCDE/scripting/Linux/Security etc. While it's difficult finding the time to study with work/family/kids I don't mind putting the effort in if it's going to be a benefit in the long run. Just a bit worried that those benefits will soon start to diminish. Cisco are even releasing a cloud based phone now!!

Anyone else have these doubts about the industry and the way things are going? Or is it just me?

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networker050184

Things are definitely changing. It will be a long time before the current R&S skills are irrelevant though.

That said, at this point I don't think there is going to be a good enough return on the investment of time and energy for my to ever do a CCIE. I'm busy learning things like cloud systems, automation, etc. that have much better immediate and future return career wise. The latest certification I achieved is the MCA for OpenStack which is definitely more interesting and important to where I'm headed in my career than a strictly R&S certification.

nickelito

Your post sums up my concerns exactly.
Im willing to put in all the time and effort it would take to become a true expert of networking, and the deeper my knowledge of how the protocols behave and interact gets, I just love learning it more and more.

But just like you I am asking myself if all of this knowledge will hold any value in the future?
I really want it to, because this is what interests me the most, but since there is a lot of time and effort involved I have to have a realistic view and realize if I am throwing my life away, learning about technologies that the industry is moving away from.

I have discussed this matter with all kinds of different people and while some are more optimistic than others (optimistic in this case in the sense that this new tech called SDN will take over the industry very soon and everything will be automated), they all seem to agree on that CCIE-level expertise will be needed and sought after even in the future...
But what will the demand be?

So some say that networking will still be networking but with these new technologies added to it as an extra layer, if you will.
Others say that the new technologies are going to make the "old" technologies obsolete..

So... for me its not a case of going where the cash is at, then I would become a programmer.
For me, it is a matter of knowing if it is time to adapt and leave "old ways" of doing things or not.

After all, it is Networking that I am passionate about, not scripting, not automation, not one-click VPN setups.
If networking is about to turn out to be all of that then maybe I need to re-evaluate my current career options.
But - if networking is about to have those things added to it - but still remain an area within IT where there is more to it than "next-next-finish", then I welcome these changes.

Good thread, Im hoping to see more people's view on this!

razar

Thanks for the replies guys, I guess it's difficult to know exactly what the future will hold.

I must say I do quite enjoy networking but I wouldn't say it's a passion of mine (apart from on my cv/resume

) For me it's a way for me to live comfortably, pay my bills and feed my family. I'm passionate about sports, music, movies.

So to spend so much time doing something that will have no real value or demand would feel like a real waste of 2 years or however long it will take me to pass. I go home and study instead of spending time with the wife and kids, now she's (relatively) fine with this as we've discussed it and she knows how much time I need to put into it. But as I proceed with my studies, I do wonder as I go along how much of what I'm learning will be relevant to the job i'm doing now or type of jobs i'll be going for in the future. I almost feel like I'm too late to the ccie r&s party and it would have been more worthwhile 3-5 years ago.

The good thing is that they are making a few changes to the exam, like the new evolving technologies section which is worth 10% on the written.

I want to be as good as I can be and become an expert in my field which is why I started studying in the first place. It's just a bit difficult to know which direction to go in at the moment.

bluejellorabbit

CCIE is a tentative long term goal for me, but I have some of these same concerns. Nevertheless, it's too early for me to really speculate on any of this. I'm most likely going to do another CCNA when I finish R&S, see which Cisco path is most appealing to me, and then go to a CCNP of some variety from there. Once I've got that, if it turns out I have a good job that pays enough and the future of the path looks somewhat bright, I'll probably undertake the CCIE. But if I get my CCNP, am still making $40,000, and not finding much in upward mobility, I don't think I'll attempt to invest in CCIE.

gorebrush

I got a CCIE to prove not only to myself that I could achieve it, but to show people just how much I enjoy my craft. Nobody does the CCIE these days purely for the money because it just isn't that easy a gig to get a well paid job as it was back when the dot com bubble popped. Nowadays you need to be proven in a job AND have the experience in order to get anywhere and having both is tough.

It does mean that you get a lot of very well experienced engineers getting the big jobs because there is just as much confidence in those as with those with CCIE's etc.

Is it still worth it to get one for a new job? Absolutely it is. The recognition you get from your peers is something you will not get with just CCNA/CCNP level - unless all your co-workers are the jealous type. Anyone I've met have all been like "Oh wow that's amazing" which is a nice feeling.

Iristheangel

Heh....

It depends on your priorities but I don't think the CCIE is going to go away or stop being relevant. There's still a high amount of respect from a consulting, enterprise and partner point-of-view if you have one. As far as SDN and pretty GUIs, that's great but they still have protocols and underlays running under those GUIs. There will still be a need for someone to understand how to deep-dive into them if something goes wrong or understand on a packet-level what is happening. You may work with Merakis there but what's your Meraki doing with BGP right now? How do you configure MPLS on your Meraki? <-- Trick questions. What if you need to create and troubleshoot MPLS inside your enterprise for your non-Meraki equipment? Do you know how to do that? You have a GUI on your switch and it's really nice but what if you need to do some troubleshooting that the GUI doesn't cover? If you have SDN running at your data center, what if you need to troubleshoot the underlay? THAT is why deep routing and switching knowledge is never going away. Just because you configure things different with products doesn't mean expert-level deep TCP/IP knowledge isn't still valuable.

That being said... As the industry changes, you'll see the CCIEs change as well. That's why you're seeing the addition of "evolving technologies" on the written exams for all tracks, CCIE DC v2 now has ACI, and I wouldn't be shocked if programmability and scripting made it into CCIE labs in the future. We don't have ATM and Frame Relay on the CCIE anymore for that very reason. I would suspect that with the introduction of APIC-EM in the newest version of the CCNA R&S and the removal of PFRv2 on the CCIE R&S v5 (just shy of a couple months before PFRv3 came out), we're probably heading for iWAN, PFRv3, APIC-EM, etc in the next version of the CCIE R&S.

Now with all that said, don't go for your CCIE unless you're willing to commit a year or two to studying almost every day and 1000+ hours labbing. If the pay bump. recognition, knowledge, etc isn't that compelling to you, then don't do it. If they are but you don't think you can commit that much, don't do it. If you think you are going to magically get it done with half the time and half the effort, REALLY don't do it.

lostindaylight

CCIE is too hard, too much work, too expensive, not relevent enough in a changing industry, all that.

I'd say if someone has doubts and the above factors are giving them pause, best to go ahead and quit right now.

Go spend time with your family and enjoy life. Simple solution, no dilemma, no drama.

gorebrush

lostindaylight wrote: »

CCIE is too hard, too much work, too expensive, not relevent enough in a changing industry, all that.

I'd say if someone has doubts and the above factors are giving them pause, best to go ahead and quit right now.

Go spend time with your family and enjoy life. Simple solution, no dilemma, no drama.

You could end the thread on this statement

kohr-ah

It depends on what you are aiming for.

Don't look at it as a pay status symbol look at it as a sign of dedication for learning something.

The same way you would look at getting a PhD.
Like how a plumber would go from Apprentice > Journeyman > Master.

It is showing you are dedicating to becoming better at a skill / craft and those numbers show that you dedicated a LOT of time in your personal life to learning something new. It depends on what you are looking to do.

For everyone this isn't the best path. I think CCIEs will always hold a place in the world / market but they (Like people without IEs) will have to learn to keep their skills up to date also.

chrisone

Iristheangel wrote: »

If the pay bump. recognition, knowledge, etc isn't that compelling to you, then don't do it.

Many people don't truly understand or appreciate such levels of success until they reach rock bottom or become desperate.

Its an amazing journey/opportunity to get a high level cert/goal such as the CCIE. As mentioned before, if the appeal of success is not for certain people, wait till you reach desperation.

sea_turtle

when the script has a hiccup who are they going to call? the programmer who cant subnet and keeps confusing TCP with IP or the CCIE who can do it in their sleep and is still paid to help design/implement more complex tasks?

the takeaway? this is again another attempt from everyone in the industry to push away from wanting to learn the CLI of any vendor; cisco works, cisco SDM, cisco prime, PfR/OER, HPNA, the list goes on and on and on for days. they all half ass work and the other half you need people who understand the protocols, how to diagnose issues, best practice from a live device so that can be implemented into a script to push out on many more devices.

oh and all the naysayers about "dead protocols" are you kidding me? STP will never die, Ethernet has only gained more market share in the WAN, MPLS is still growing and IPv4 will be here until i retire (25-30 years). IPv6 will have gained more ground but the routing protocols running both of them BGP/OSPF/IS-IS/EIGRP will be the same if not just enhanced further to better do what is needed in the industry.

ill leave you with this, for those who work in a large network with strict change control will understand, the second the script has a hiccup and causes an outage its considered a risk and liability. what if a large enterprise network had their SDN controller hijacked and all their devices issued a "write erase"?? the company lose so much money/confidence its not even funny. what if an internal employee is upset about their raise(or lack of) and does the same thing? if the end user can not get their money from the ATM machine due to an SDN issue then you just lost a customer and are likely looking at a lawsuit.

you pay people money to do things manually so you have a lower chance of risk which can be better distributed. you bring in the script to help automate simple tasks that save you money; "switchport access vlan #" or perhaps sanity; pulling a show run before/after your change to allow a copy to be saved on a NMS repository.

also who are you kidding?? you know cisco/brocade/juniper will create their flavor of the JNCIE-SDN/CCIE-SDN that will teach people python, scripting, and their specific tool. dont think they would pass that up that free money.

edit: i want to add the "perfect example" for SDN and how it can be helpful and harmful.

helpful: MS Office Communicator has become Lync, gasp, and the developers decided to not use the same ports that are matched in the classifying ACL to apply the proper QoS. this ACL is live on roughly 25,000 routers. What do you do? you figure out what ports it is using, what ports it is no longer using, update your ACL's and push out manually to a few devices. then you verify the changes success or backout your change in accordance with your change control protocol. after that you hand over your findings to the SDN team who will then take and apply that into a script and push it out across multiple regions across multiple days. you also include your initial findings and you show what you did to verify and how you would backout if the verification does not work. what did you save yourself? night time/weekend work for who knows how long and for how many people.

harmful: the iWAN controller starts to toy with BGP attributes to forcing drastic traffic shifts within the network due to what it thought was being helpful. this congests pipes and causing many forms of traffic to be dropped, the most important? trader traffic or VoIP traffic that is destined to a trader. money is lost, questions are asked.

sea_turtle

oh and that article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/10/cisco_says_cli_becoming_interface_of_last_resort/) is total trash:

"Now Cisco thinks those greybeards, even the experts holding high level certifications like CCIE and CCNE, will spend less time rummaging around under the hood and more time talking to business people."

CCNE?? lmao wut?

networker050184

sea_turtle wrote: »

you pay people money to do things manually so you have a lower chance of risk which can be better distributed.

That is an EXTREMELY outdated view. Every company is looking to move towards automated processes as much as possible.

sea_turtle

networker050184 wrote: »

That is an EXTREMELY outdated view. Every company is looking to move towards automated processes as much as possible.

take a typical network change: add a static route to router A.

two path's we can go right? automate and manual? both of them have many of the same pieces along the way which will always be there:

1. tasked by your manager to add a static route to router A.
2. log into router A and verify that the static route is needed on router A. Due diligence.
3. create a EIP (engineering implementation plan) to add a static route into router A, ensure you pull a "show run" before and after your change as well as the command and expected output to verify why you are doing this change.
4. build a change request.
5. change request and EIP are reviewed and eventually approved, you request your access to be elevated to allow you to perform the change either via CLI or the tool.
6. implement change via CLI or implement change via SDN based automation.
7. verify your change was implemented correctly and what ever verification tests you have built into your EIP.
8. close your CR, upload documents proving you have completed the work with the expected outcome.
9. post network validation comes along at some point (maybe 1 for 1, maybe complex changes, maybe random audit) and verifies what you said you did, you did do.

so in reality the only step changing here is step 6 where i would implement it in CLI vs with a tool. you could make an argument that step 7 could use some script built into the tool to verify this as well but would you trust a complex routing change to the verification of a script?

as i stated before SDN has its place, ive been around it since 2012, its fine. its going to take jobs from people who have no want/will to move up and only do mundane tasks like the configuration of switchports (as an example) on a daily basis.

silver145

sea_turtle wrote: »

take a typical network change: add a static route to router A.

two path's we can go right? automate and manual? both of them have many of the same pieces along the way which will always be there:

1. tasked by your manager to add a static route to router A.
2. log into router A and verify that the static route is needed on router A. Due diligence.
3. create a EIP (engineering implementation plan) to add a static route into router A, ensure you pull a "show run" before and after your change as well as the command and expected output to verify why you are doing this change.
4. build a change request.
5. change request and EIP are reviewed and eventually approved, you request your access to be bumped to allow you to perform the change either via CLI or the tool.
6. implement change via CLI or implement change via SDN based automation.
7. verify your change was implemented correctly and what ever verification tests you have built into your EIP.
7. close your CR, upload documents proving you have completed the work with the expected outcome.
8. post network validation comes along at some point (maybe 1 for 1, maybe complex changes, maybe random audit) and verifies what you said you did, you did do.

so in reality the only step changing here is step 6 where i would implement it in CLI vs with a tool. you could make an argument that step 7 could use some script built into the tool to verify this as well but would you trust a complex routing change to the verification of a script?

as i stated before SDN has its place, ive been around it since 2012, its fine. its going to take jobs from people who have no want/will to move up and only do mundane tasks like the configuration of switchports (as an example) on a daily basis.

:O rare to see someone that actually shares the opinion of SDN as having a specific place within the networking world and not the entire networking world as a whole! 4 years since release and i am still to ever meet it in a large non-specialized prod environment

fredrikjj

There are only around 50,000 CCIEs in the world, and many of those probably don't even work as network engineers anymore. The prestige of the certification alone would carry those people to other opportunities, most likely, even if new technology was invented today that made all existing networking obsolete. A more realistic outcome is that you study for the CCIE and never take the exam, in which case you have some of the skills, but none of the prestige. What kind of demand is there for people that have RS skills, but no prestigious credentials? That's the more important question imo. Even a moderate reduction in demand for that skill set will have an impact for people that are focused on it.

sea_turtle

silver145 wrote: »

:O rare to see someone that actually shares the opinion of SDN as having a specific place within the networking world and not the entire networking world as a whole! 4 years since release and i am still to ever meet it in a large non-specialized prod environment

haha, ive seen some proof of theory/concept get morphed into general release tools that helped a large amount of people get their lives back at night and even on some weekends.

for anyone that works m-f 9-5 and then has some changes on a weeknight or the dreaded saturday night understands how invaluable a tool is that can either speed up the process or perhaps remove you from a few of them by allowing you to do more/all in one night and not get shot down due to the risk factor.

Bardlebee

fredrikjj wrote: »

There are only around 50,000 CCIEs in the world, and many of those probably don't even work as network engineers anymore. The prestige of the certification alone would carry those people to other opportunities, most likely, even if new technology was invented today that made all existing networking obsolete. A more realistic outcome is that you study for the CCIE and never take the exam, in which case you have some of the skills, but none of the prestige. What kind of demand is there for people that have RS skills, but no prestigious credentials? That's the more important question imo. Even a moderate reduction in demand for that skill set will have an impact for people that are focused on it.

I think this hits it pretty hard as to why people strive for the CCIE as a prestigious level of achievement, done by the very few. Most of the failure of doing the CCIE, comes down to the person needing to be a CCIE. Its more of a life goal, a career goal or however you want to cut it. When you boil it down its something you want to achieve. You can't let money get in the way of your thinking, because you could probably make more money or the same doing other things.

The CCIE to me, and what I feel employers see, is not your mastery of a protocol. Its your passion to see things through. It states that you love doing this work so much, you gave up a year of your mortal life to do it to the best perfection you know how. Maybe that's a little extreme, but I base it off of looking at a bachelors or masters degree. Many people in IT don't give a crap about your degree, however, hiring managers look at a degree not as something that gave you the credentials to do the job, but as something to show you were serious about your career.

It comes down to really when you're being interviewed and you have 2 or 5 or whatever amount of candidates. Who can you trust in those short 2-6 hours of interview to be at your company and take it to the next level for the foreseeable future. It COULD be the guy with the CCNP and other SDN and varying degrees of knowledge, not saying it couldn't be. But, with such little time to choose who will man your infrastructure for the coming years. Would you take a CCNP or a CCIE when your major concern is drive, passion and seeing things to the next level.

When (not if) I get my CCIE R/S, I could not be needed for some of my CLI configuration, maybe I press a button. But I will always be looked at as the guy who had a real drive and passion for his work. I think as a manager, I would take a man who has the best chance of having a real passion for their work, even if they were less experienced, over someone who is not. And when it comes down to that interview room or assessment, its really just an educated guess on who that will be. So for those reasons I think the CCIE transcends the topic matter and that is why I think its not just going be relevant today, but it will be tomorrow. I don't see it losing value in the next decade in my opinion.

gorebrush

I think SDN is great if you are a single shop. I don't think it's mature enough for MSP type environments because it would be widespread but this is not the case - there's none of it where I am and we support 100+ customers!

networker050184

I don't think anyone even knows what SDN means these days. It's used to describe so many different things it''s as useless as the term cloud.

networker050184

sea_turtle wrote: »

take a typical network change: add a static route to router A.

two path's we can go right? automate and manual? both of them have many of the same pieces along the way which will always be there:

1. tasked by your manager to add a static route to router A.
2. log into router A and verify that the static route is needed on router A. Due diligence.
3. create a EIP (engineering implementation plan) to add a static route into router A, ensure you pull a "show run" before and after your change as well as the command and expected output to verify why you are doing this change.
4. build a change request.
5. change request and EIP are reviewed and eventually approved, you request your access to be elevated to allow you to perform the change either via CLI or the tool.
6. implement change via CLI or implement change via SDN based automation.
7. verify your change was implemented correctly and what ever verification tests you have built into your EIP.
8. close your CR, upload documents proving you have completed the work with the expected outcome.
9. post network validation comes along at some point (maybe 1 for 1, maybe complex changes, maybe random audit) and verifies what you said you did, you did do.

so in reality the only step changing here is step 6 where i would implement it in CLI vs with a tool. you could make an argument that step 7 could use some script built into the tool to verify this as well but would you trust a complex routing change to the verification of a script?

as i stated before SDN has its place, ive been around it since 2012, its fine. its going to take jobs from people who have no want/will to move up and only do mundane tasks like the configuration of switchports (as an example) on a daily basis.

Larger networks have not had people logging in and doing things via the CLI for a long time now. It's been since maybe 2005 or so the large carriers went to GUI front ends for troubleshooting and provisioning. That is certainly not something new. Nothing to do with SDN there.

sea_turtle

as stated originally, that would be steps number 4 and 6 on my list above. it still falls within the process of getting a change through and implemented on the network. in this application the tools at hand (SDN or w/e) are being used to help, not take over.

to your point, i have seen a large carrier pushed out of a contract due to multiple issues with that exact thing. orders going into their system provisioned by their people incorrectly and then implemented incorrectly with a tool. when the person on our side found the issue (lets just say arbitrary BGP issues) the person on the carrier side was unable to troubleshoot because all they had was access to the tool (at layers 1/2/3, each layer had a different tool and group and manager). it would normally take 2-3 escalations and a long period of waiting to get someone on the bridge that had elevated access and the ability to troubleshoot and fix the very simple issue, bgp password incorrect, bgp asn incorrect, not sending community, etc.

so what happens? the company who is purchasing the service requests to have that engineer who can help assigned on perminate escalate to resolve these issues. the carrier says they cant since he is the tier 3 person, very busy. we ask for anyone who can help during our change calls? they didnt have anyone just people who push buttons. in the end the company i worked for tallied up every man hour involved in just waiting for proper escalation as well as backout, process to get the change re-approved and a second attempt and decided it was easier to cancel all ~12,000 circuits and find another carrier who is better skilled to work with us, this was in 2013.

networker050184

Sure, sometimes you need an engineer to get on an work it manually. You can't automate everything 100%. You can automate 90% of your common service turn ups. None of that has anything to do with SDN though. SDN doesn't mean a GUI into your regular routing/switching devices.

sea_turtle

SDN in the sense of what people are freaking about is whitebox deployments where there would be a controller or two controlling all layers (except layer 1 in the sense of WDM at the moment).

im saying automation has its place, SDN is a form of automation. 90% automation? that may be a little rough, thats like taking sales guys, throwing them into the NOC and giving them a flowchart, oh wait.....

networker050184

I've worked on very large carrier networks were 90+% of service deployments are automated.

silver145

my new product: Secure Cloud SDN. give me your monies!

TheFORCE

Wait till they make a CCIE robot, then you should be concerned.
Foxconn replaces 60,000 humans with robots in China - MarketWatch

dppagc

Oh my god! If there are robots, no one has jobs.

dppagc

You know I was thinking, what would Brian be doing if CCIE is obsolete?

ITSpectre

dppagc wrote: »

Oh my god! If there are robots, no one has jobs.

RISE OF THE MACHINES!