BCNE training this week

Since the only Brocade certifications on this site are on the storage side, I will open this thready in "General". I will be attending the BCNE (Brocade Certified Network Professional) training course at Brocade's campus in Broomfield CO. This is my first cert in a while and I hope I still have the chops for it. It will be interesting to compare and contrast this to the CCNA material and test that I have already completed. If it agrees with me, I might continue to their "Converged", or what Cisco calls "Datacenter, certifications.

Brocade Certified Network Engineer (BCNE)
Curriculum Paths

I am betting that A) Brocade does not sell or spin off its ethernet line, and that

As people move to ethernet fabrics they execute that with Brocade switches...so I can be employed.

If that doesn't work out, I will surrender to my Cisco overlords.

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Comments

networker050184

Let us know how it goes. Seems like Brocade is making some good traction in the DC space.

it_consultant

After day one I can say the focus is decidedly different than Cisco in a couple of ways. In Cisco, we spent an awful lot of time on broadcast domains, the difference between routers and switches, etc. Brocade could give a darn if you know what a hub is. On day one of the lab we were setting up static and dynamic LAGs and learning about inter-switch failure mechanisms as well as getting the basics of multi-chassis trunking.

You can tell that the storage side influences this course heavily. The focus on redundancy and single point of failure, almost obsession, is a trait I see in our SAN engineer. Losing connection to your storage because you didn't have diverse enough paths is a career shortening event in the SAN world.

bryguy

Overall, you can't beat Brocade insofar as value is concerned. We were a Cisco shop at one time, but replaced all of it with Foundry gear (later bought by Brocade) mainly due to it's price point. I imagine we likely saved millions by making the jump.

it_consultant

We saved $110,000 in initial acquisition costs even after I allowed them to rebid without the Cisco Nexus switches. I never rebid Brocade to remove the VDX switches - which compete with Nexus - because I didn't feel like doing the work to get a new BOM.

Today was another weird day, 45 minutes on VLANs and hours upon hours on STP and rSTP. We touched a little bit on Foundry's metro ring protocol but that was outside the scope of this course.