R&S or Service Provider track

pahujasaurabh

Hey Guys,

I am through with CCDP, CCNA. I need your opinion on which track would be the best.

I have good exposure to routing,switching (but not BGP/MPLS). I would love to learn both these as these are the hottest technologies around. I would also like to devote time to QOS.

Which CCIE track would be easier to crack? Do you think i must write CCIP first bcoz i dont have much exposure in MPLS? (I know its nor mandatory but just for knowledge and learning).

Can someone highlight benefits/drawbacks of taking R&S wrt SP track.

Regards

wildfire

I think R&S is your best option, that doesnt mean rule SP out, but most people do R&S as its like the core one then move to voice/SP/Storage/Security for the second one. Theres a lot more products and support for R&S, and as you said you don't know about MPLS etc then thats a passion killer, but everything can be learnt!
Also it depends do you want to be in the Service provider enviroment? or do you want to be at the other end ?

SP Track on the other hand would carry a greater weight being as youd be amoung a smaller group of colegues, I only know 2 SP CCIE's and both did Routing and Switching first then moved on, and said doing so made it a lot easier.

Good luck with whatever you decide and hope to see lots of posts from you in the CCIE forum

mikej412

I agree for the same reasons -- The R&S first lays a good foundation for the SP and there is more study material available.

The QOS & BGP exams help for the R&S. That would just leave the the MPLS exam for the CCIP.

The only thing you may be missing is Frame-Relay knowledge from the BCRAN exam -- you'd want to study that for the R&S.

You can use Dynamips and Dyngen (MIPS IOS emulator and a Front-end configuration tool) for MPLS if you don't have access to a real hardware lab (and have access to 7200 or 3600 IOS images).

DW [banned]

Depends on your personal goals...

pahujasaurabh

Thanks guys for all the insight. It appears R&S is my best option right now. I will go through the materials to see if i can digest it.

I dont have any problems wrt hardware access, i have access to huge labs @cisco.

As regards my personal goals, i think i need a lucrative job for next 2 years to fund my MBA. After 2 years i wish to join IVY league business school.

Lets see how things go..

Regards