Anyone else every try Alcatel-Lucent exams?

zoidberg

I did their MPLS one today. Not too bad. Worst part is walking in there with absolutely no clue what to expect. Other than attending their training classes, there's no training material anywhere!?

Well, I guess they did recently release publish Advanced QoS for Multi-Service IP/MPLS Networks, but considering their certification track consists of 11 exams and 2 labs, one book just doesn't cut it.

I haven't had the "pleasure" of an Alcatel-Lucent MPLS course. I did have a intro course to 7450 Ethernet Service Switch years ago though. I figured I'd try to go in and wing the MPLS exam on my ok grasp of their command line, the so-so depth of their MPLS configuration guide, and the strength of my MPLS background. With little thanks to Alcatel-Lucent, I passed it today. The configuration guide covers a good chunk of the questions, but there were still lots of things, including supported features and options, that were not discussed by any of their configuration guides. Thankfully my background filled in a lot of the gaps.

Oh. 90 minutes, 60 questions, cannot mark questions or go back. All exams are in that format. Except the first one, Scalable IP Networks is 75 minutes, and the last one, Advanced Troubleshooting is 40 questions.

So, anyone else putting themselves through the Alcatel-Lucent SRC torture?

I'm just excited to see what plaque they send me now. Better be worth it

Turgon

zoidberg wrote: »

I did their MPLS one today. Not too bad. Worst part is walking in there with absolutely no clue what to expect. Other than attending their training classes, there's no training material anywhere!?

Well, I guess they did recently release publish Advanced QoS for Multi-Service IP/MPLS Networks, but considering their certification track consists of 11 exams and 2 labs, one book just doesn't cut it.

I haven't had the "pleasure" of an Alcatel-Lucent MPLS course. I did have a intro course to 7450 Ethernet Service Switch years ago though. I figured I'd try to go in and wing the MPLS exam on my ok grasp of their command line, the so-so depth of their MPLS configuration guide, and the strength of my MPLS background. With little thanks to Alcatel-Lucent, I passed it today. The configuration guide covers a good chunk of the questions, but there were still lots of things, including supported features and options, that were not discussed by any of their configuration guides. Thankfully my background filled in a lot of the gaps.

Oh. 90 minutes, 60 questions, cannot mark questions or go back. All exams are in that format. Except the first one, Scalable IP Networks is 75 minutes, and the last one, Advanced Troubleshooting is 40 questions.

So, anyone else putting themselves through the Alcatel-Lucent SRC torture?

I'm just excited to see what plaque they send me now. Better be worth it

Post CCIE R&S this is the direction Im going. Juniper first though!

determinedgerman

I am working for a big telecommunications company and we are using 7450 ESS Switches and 7750 SR Routers ... this product is the worst product that I have ever worked with ....

I am ANRS certified which is the comparable to the Cisco CCNA certification.

I have been going through the Alcatel-Lucent classes ... worthless in my opinion. Half of their instructors in the Plano, TX facility have no idea what they are talking about ...
Don't get me wrong ... there are a couple decent instructors there ... but hey ...

In my opinion ALU is wasted time ....

zoidberg

I can't argue with you there. We have a bunch of 7450s and now 7750s are starting to pop up more and more. I hate them. Everyone I work with hates them. I picked up the NRS to see what it was like, and figured I'd try one more.

Turgon, definitely the correct order of operations there. Alcatel is the last in my books as well. Working on the CCIE R/S and SP right now, already finished the Juniper, so I figured I'd try an Alcatel for "fun" before going hard on CCIE lab prep.

Paul Boz

God, I don't know if I could bare to put myself through an Alcatel course or exam. I administered a rather large fiber to the home network that relied on Alcatel 7340's for aggregation and GOD they're turds. It sucks when a 64-port pon card decides that the A side is going to brick with the only fix being to completely lock, unlock, and reboot the card. That is, unless the card has to be swapped entirely. Batch provisioning is easy enough but for some reason the 7340's don't like to cut service back on once its been suspended in the equipment.

Obviously once that type of infrastructure is in place you can't reneg and install new stuff over it, but thankfully we decided to split ways with Alcatel and start using Calix equipment instead.

I do not envy anyone that has to work in 7340s or their ilk on a regular basis. Sorry for the mild rant, alcatel just made my life hell for three years

veprimk

zoidberg wrote: »

I can't argue with you there. We have a bunch of 7450s and now 7750s are starting to pop up more and more. I hate them. Everyone I work with hates them. I picked up the NRS to see what it was like, and figured I'd try one more.

Turgon, definitely the correct order of operations there. Alcatel is the last in my books as well. Working on the CCIE R/S and SP right now, already finished the Juniper, so I figured I'd try an Alcatel for "fun" before going hard on CCIE lab prep.

Is there any place where I can find trainings or other materials to download for ALU ?!
And I would like to know if there's any electronic copy of "Advanced QoS for Multi-Service IP/MPLS Networks"

Regards,