CCIE Storage

ccie15672

Anyone know how well Cisco is doing in the storage market? I'm thinking of getting this, if only because its the closest thing they have to a Data Center cert. I figure this plus their newer virtual data-center specializations would be a hot thing to have...

But I don't want to waste my time either. After the JNCIE-M, its either CCIE storage or CCDE...

hoogen82

Well there have been rumors of CCIE Data Center.. and wouldn't be surprised if they do introduce it... There has been talk in the group study of a possibility of scraping the Storage and replacing it with Data Center track... Storage is one of my favorite subject too... It is definitely going to get hot... Right now Cisco is doing well.. But the future could be something like this..

Cisco-EMC-Vmware vs Brocade-IBM-Juniper... HP I am not to sure what they are upto...
In the storage networking market.. it is a 60-70% market share for Brocade.. the rest being accounted between Cisco and McData... Juniper just got into a collaboration with IBM to build a data center switch... So my reason for IBM-Juniper coming out with some kick ass product... Brocade might just get acquired by IBM... but they are losing ground .. They are solid.. but Cisco marketing is killing them.

My best bet looking at your profile would be CCDE... no investment on studies required... CCIE Storage or Datacenter needs investment... and it is expensive... I did start to hear about a NX-OS simulator called Titanium.. That may be cool.. to practice with... but for now.. It is just going to be expensive to study..

apd123

Time, travel expenses and exam costs for many failed CCDE attempts are the main reasons I wouldn't waste my time with this silliness. I think the only reason not to do storage is because you believe Cisco will kill the track rather than just renaming it Data Center or leaving it as is.

Turgon

I'm cold on storage. All the SAN LUN stuff in the shops I worked was Netapp. Guys what stuff should I start with to get a handle on the Cisco offerings?

Thanks

hoogen82

MDS Switches is what they have in the Storage track... I think you don't need to much system knowledge to do the track... But for real world.. you need to be really good with systems...Most of the TAC folks that work on storage are Unix/Linux experts...

The best thing to do would be go through the offering in the PEC... Amazing videos and everything you need to know about configuring a MDS switch... There are PEC labs too... very difficult to get a slot... You need to talk to the SE and try getting slots booked to practice on them. The workbook from IEmentor is a gold mine... Roman/Alex are amazingly helpful... They have rack rentals too...

HTH
Hoogen