Worst idea ever?

http://www.ine.com/instructor-led/ccie-cram-session-on-the-sea.htm

Not sure what the rest of you think but if I'm doing 10-12 hour CCIE bootcamp days + labs when I get out and back to the hotel room, it doesn't make a lot of sense to combine that with an extra distraction (a pool, the Caribbean, etc) and pay $3K more for it.

Maybe it's useful if someone is looking for a free vacation for their work to pay for.

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techfiend

Iristheangel wrote: »

Maybe it's useful if someone is looking for a free vacation for their work to pay for.

Worst idea quickly changed to great idea!

Iristheangel

True! You won't get a CCIE but company paid trip thinly veiled as a "CCIE Bootcamp?" BAZINGA!

techfiend

This might be my motivation to study CCNP very soon. Studying AWS and RHCSA has made me lazy on the certs aka getting out of the house and dropping mucho dinero.

gorebrush

It's a gimmick for sure, but, an interesting idea all the same.

darkestclown

"Bootcamp students will enjoy a double occupancy room as part of their CCIE Cram Session on the Sea package". Hmmm. I gues you will know your class mates really well by the end of the cruise....

Iristheangel

Oh I missed that. Ouch.

xengoreth

I think going to a real bootcamp session would be preferable, but in my case, it might be a way to appease my wife, who would want to accompany me on such a trip in either case. That's my read on it.

deth1k

Or maybe they are struggling a little filling their "on land" bootcamps?

joelsfood

Hey, brian is the only person working there anymore. Don't begrudge him a vacation

joelsfood

Actually, it looks like you can bring her along (you have to pay taxes and fees), with the quoted cost of the bootcamp. If you room with someone, you actually get a double occupancy discount. So bring her along. And enjoy labbing away (are they bringing equipment ont he ship? I wouldn't want to trust ship's internet connection/latency for labbing) while she gets some sun.

Iristheangel

My bad, didn't read that clearly. That four hours of sleep is working against me today :P

Danielh22185

There is no way I would have the discipline. Vacation is vacation, leave it at that. Studying for a grueling exam while on "vacation" is not a vacation by any means in my book.

thatguy67

lol, Brian looks like a cruise magician in that photo.

theodoxa

Iristheangel wrote: »

Maybe it's useful if someone is looking for a free vacation for their work to pay for.

I had a couple of coworkers once try to convince the company to pay for a boot camp on a cruise ship.

silver145

Depends really, you do an intense day of cramming, once that is over pure relaxation. I can see the advantage to it but paying for it is another

darkestclown

All the bootcamps I have been on involved working after the instructor had left into the early hours.... That's bad enough, but to be surrounded with people completely enjoying and chillin' that's pure torture...

lostindaylight

What darkestclown said.

There's several hours of labbing to be done after class every night. That's where the real learning happens. The next day you can get clarification on the things you struggled with from someone who knows the technology and has helped lots of other people who've had the same struggles.

Sure you could just not do the labs and go party, then veg out in the first part of class every morning during review, but that would sort of defeat the purpose of going to a bootcamp wouldn't it.

malcybood

Maybe instead of knocking INE and Brian for this we should applaud him for trying something different and using his entrepreneurial flair to even come up with the idea.

If there is not enough interest it won't happen and he is obviously trying new things to allow him to develop INE and continue producing more CCIEs to add to the thousands he has helped already.

It's also a 10 day cruise with only 5 being a CCIE bootcamp and following 5 days being whatever you want to do.

In respect to having all of the temptation, this is where a CCIE candidate should just show the same discipline as they do and have done during the rest of their study and use the 5 days post bootcamp to relax, sunbathe or whatever they want to do.

I travelled from the UK to Florida for 5 day CCDE training with Jeremy Filliben a stone's throw from international drive, Disney land etc. The days were 8am - 5:30pm and 2 hours homework each night which I guess is down to you if you do it or not.

I could have easily skipped the homework and went on "vacation" but I had a couple of days post course I used to go and see a magic game, go shopping and down international drive.

When I got home I was mentally exhausted and 5 days relaxation would have been welcomed but I also had to prepare for CCDE the next week.

I'm seeing a load of negative comments about INE across a few different forums and people moaning about the content but to me they are the best training company around offering a multitude of training aside from the IE track and this market seems to be going more towards independent trainers who specialise in specific tracks due to the ever growing complexity of this industry and especially since IP Expert went under.

If INE keep getting slated and Brian name dropped about how he is the only person there etc we may find him just saying to himself why do I bother and going to consult for Google, LinkedIn or similar.

Iristheangel

Heh. Studying 5 days on and taking 5 days off might work for some but I know that when it comes to the CCIE, it's pretty hard to take multiple days off the closer you get to the lab. Plus when you're labbing your butt off, you want less distractions, not more. Discipline isn't putting temptation in front of you just so you can say no - it's about removing the temptation or distractions while you hunker down and do what you need to do. This seems more gimmicky than "entrepreneurial."

I'm also glad they've helped you so far in their career. I definitely don't want them to close up but I do want them to get better. They really haven't done much to improve any track but R&S. Wireless, collab, and DC have been a joke along with the rack rentals for those classes. Just in the last 2 weeks, they had 2 classes scheduled that I wanted to watch live as part of my AAP and they mysteriously vanished from the calendar. The first one (CCIE DC v2 update) was cancelled until further notice - found an announcement buried in their FB. The second class, Advanced FP, was postponed a couple weeks according to some buried Twitter post but it's not showing on their schedule anymore...

Honestly, if they do better that would be awesome. If not, I think these niche other providers are a great alternative. I know three IPX instructors are each doing their own content now and that's a great thing. Competition is healthy in this sense. IF you look at the IPX reddit thread, the big thing that people were stressed about was INE not having competition and getting even lazier with their content so if there are independent trainers who specialize in their specific tracks and they're great at what they do, the more the merrier.

DPG

Iristheangel wrote: »

I'm also glad they've helped you so far in their career. I definitely don't want them to close up but I do want them to get better. They really haven't done much to improve any track but R&S. Wireless, collab, and DC have been a joke along with the rack rentals for those classes.

Basic economics. If there isn't much demand for the content then INE has no reason to invest in producing it.

Iristheangel

DPG wrote: »

Basic economics. If there isn't much demand for the content then INE has no reason to invest in producing it.

Except if you ask Vik Malhi, Jason Lunde, and Jeff Rensink, there is a demand and they were making pretty good money on those tracks. Jason mentioned that DC was doing pretty damn well in the IPX thread (Post #99 http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccie/118278-ip-expert-users-aware-4.html). Joel, myself and another gentleman went to separate IPX bootcamps for CCIE DC and there definitely were butts filling the seat. Vik Malhi is running Collabcert now and doing bootcamps every month for collab. INE did have some drama with their collab workbooks where they promised they were coming "soon" 2+ years ago and having a bunch of people order them only to not have them come (still waiting them). Jeff Rensink also recently opened up a business geared towards the Cisco wireless track:
http://start.networkdojo.com/

There's also been the bait-and-switching or just not responding to customer's inquiries about stuff they paid for. i.e. sending out a bunch of emails saying that people should sign up for your AAP or preorder the content for CCIE DC v2 and then pull it from the calendar last minute saying it's been rescheduled until further notice. Or on their CCIE DC rack rental page, they don't mention that you're only getting a VDC and not the full technology before you buy it. Or asking a bunch of people to pre-order workbooks 2 years ago and never really responding to the customers on when they are coming. You just kind of have to "discover" it when you can't do a chunk of the biggest section of lab - while technically this isn't false advertising, it isn't a great business practice or completely upfront either. It seems like they're more interested in making the sale than delivering the goods which isn't a great business model or a way to keep in business if the R&S business starts to trickle away to these other providers.

malcybood

Fair enough, each to their own and I guess everyone approaches things differently. I study even when I'm on holiday - quite happy to sit on the beach and fire up a lab or read a Cisco book in between things to be honest.

I did not say that specifically the cruise thing is entrepreneurial and the greatest idea ever in itself, I just said it demonstrates he is trying to do things differently rather than sitting stagnant and demonstrates flair. Some ideas work in business, some don't - if this doesn't it won't fill places but I'm not going to knock the guy for trying new things.

I bet if INE completely revoked all material from IE tracks other than the RS track then there would be uproar.

That may be the best idea if the perception is that they can't fulfil the demand for other IE tracks and let's face it a collaboration or DC rack or multiple racks for rack rental is not going to be cheap even if purchased on NFR so they should either invest if they feel that they can get ROI, or can those tracks and leave them to the specialists.

The CCDE materials from INE are not on par with some others and certainly do not prepare you alone for such an exam but still a valuable resource so I wouldn't be saying take them down - they're not adequate for CCDE.

Students should also do proper due diligence in my opinion before investing and putting all eggs in one basket or "buying blind" or based purely on hearsay, company reputation or assumptions.

For me if the content is not available or proven at the start I would not be taking any company's word for it that something will be delivered "soon", then investing a substantial amount of money. My advice to any candidate that has done this is to learn your lesson and wait until the product is available in future, with proven results - i.e. like independent training specialists with multiple success stories.

I agree competition is healthy in that field, nothing to add there.

fmitawaps

You may or may not learn as much on that cruise, but the people running it still get their MONEY. And that's all that really matters to them.

dppagc

Well let put it this way.
There is a difference evaluating things from a customer point of view and a provider point of view.

Iristheangel

malcybood wrote: »

I'm seeing a load of negative comments about INE across a few different forums and people moaning about the content but to me they are the best training company around offering a multitude of training aside from the IE track and this market seems to be going more towards independent trainers who specialise in specific tracks due to the ever growing complexity of this industry and especially since IP Expert went under. If INE keep getting slated and Brian name dropped about how he is the only person there etc we may find him just saying to himself why do I bother and going to consult for Google, LinkedIn or similar.

malcybood wrote: »

Students should also do proper due diligence in my opinion before investing and putting all eggs in one basket or "buying blind" or based purely on hearsay, company reputation or assumptions. For me if the content is not available or proven at the start I would not be taking any company's word for it that something will be delivered "soon", then investing a substantial amount of money. My advice to any candidate that has done this is to learn your lesson and wait until the product is available in future, with proven results - i.e. like independent training specialists with multiple success stories.

Part of making sure people don't buy blind or buy based on reputation is bringing up their shortcomings in public forums. If we never talked about it in any of these forums out of fear of Brian or INE closing up shop, no one would really have good feedback on the reality of the material for certain tracks EXCEPT what the company says or the reputation of the company. Given that INE and IPX always offered gifts (shirts, jackets, etc) for people who reported their CCIE to them, I would see the same CCIEs on both company's sites for "success stories" for the free goods. It might actually help the company if they google themselves and read criticism. It's never too late for INE to improve but if Brian or INE decides to pay their toys and go home (close shop) because people didn't like every aspect of their workbooks or videos, well... sucks for them and they lose a money making opportunity so they can go make $100-300K/year working for someone else.

You're also right that it's not cheap to host rack rentals and labs for tracks but with NFR and the cost of rack rentals, it's not unprofitable either in most of these cases. That's why IPX, FastLane, Lumos, etc were all making money and investing in pods.

doctorlexus

If I were rich, I'd go on a cruise to learn Cisco. I admit, it may not be the most efficient use of funds, hence if I only had $7000 to my name, I certainly wouldn't spend it on that. But if I was rolling in the dough, sure why not.

DPG

Iristheangel wrote: »

You're also right that it's not cheap to host rack rentals and labs for tracks but with NFR and the cost of rack rentals, it's not unprofitable either in most of these cases. That's why IPX, FastLane, Lumos, etc were all making money and investing in pods.

If the rack rentals alone were profitable there would be a lot more options out there. Maybe even Cisco would offer something other than Lab Builder to the public.

Iristheangel

DPG wrote: »

If the rack rentals alone were profitable there would be a lot more options out there. Maybe even Cisco would offer something other than Lab Builder to the public.

There are rack rentals out there and I named a few. GoogleFu will give you many others

Saying INE doesn't do it means that it isn't profitable is making a lot of assumptions. That assumes INE is always in the right and everyone else providing the same services are fiscally incorrect. You should also let poor Mark Snow know that the DC track isn't going to be profitable for rack rentals. The poor guy just invested in like 15 ACI pods from what he was saying on FB the other day

As far as Cisco's rack rentals, that's not our primary business and we enable our Cisco Learning Partners to do bootcamps, rack rentals, etc. We do provide content for them, provide learning credits, and give them discounts but much like our selling partners, we're not typically doing direct learning except in special cases where it's easy and streamlined to do so but we're not primarily looking to be the sole learning provider.

DPG

Iristheangel wrote: »

that's not our primary business

You can probably say that about a lot of the rack rental providers. Even the training is secondary for some. The real money is in the consulting business generated through networking with the students.

malcybood

Iristheangel wrote: »

Part of making sure people don't buy blind or buy based on reputation is bringing up their shortcomings in public forums.

Sure, but if someone asks the company what about the CCIE Collaboration Track and the company respond saying it will be out "soon" where they then search the internet finding that there is a plethora of threads which reiterate this i.e. comments from people saying they have waited x number of months or years then still buy it - that is rather naive, but I bet they will still put the company in bad light.

Consumers have a right to review products, absolutely no issue with that as long as it's reflective of what has actually happened, otherwise what's the point?

Iristheangel wrote: »

If we never talked about it in any of these forums out of fear of Brian or INE closing up shop, no one would really have good feedback on the reality of the material for certain tracks EXCEPT what the company says or the reputation of the company. Given that INE and IPX always offered gifts (shirts, jackets, etc) for people who reported their CCIE to them, I would see the same CCIEs on both company's sites for "success stories" for the free goods.

Yes, I've seen this a lot with Expert level exams and don't agree with training companies doing the whole name drop for signing up to something.

Iristheangel wrote: »

It might actually help the company if they google themselves and read criticism. It's never too late for INE to improve but if Brian or INE decides to pay their toys and go home (close shop) because people didn't like every aspect of their workbooks or videos, well... sucks for them and they lose a money making opportunity so they can go make $100-300K/year working for someone else.

Life isn't just about money and 300k per year is not to be sniffed at. There is a number of other "big hitters" in the networking industry working for such large web scale companies, so I don't see the issue with it.

Can't see it happening anyway, but my point was merely that it would be better for CCIE candidates if someone like Brian was involved in delivering training than if he wasn't.

It's not just about the materials, it's also about the quality of the delivery.

That said maybe they should review what they focus on if the content on the tracks aside from RS are that bad. R&S skills demand will not be going away any time soon - not in the real world anyway!

Iristheangel wrote: »

You're also right that it's not cheap to host rack rentals and labs for tracks but with NFR and the cost of rack rentals, it's not unprofitable either in most of these cases. That's why IPX, FastLane, Lumos, etc were all making money and investing in pods.

"were"..............does this mean all of these companies are no longer investing in the pods / making money? I genuinely don't know other than IPX is rather obvious.

To provide a rack which covers all functionality for CCIE DC what is required - hardware or software? i.e. modelling labs or physical N77k, UCS servers, MDS etc? If it's hardware from a functionality perspective this would be prohibitive for most even using NFR.

A single Nexus 7702 with an F3 card + SUP2E and promo license bundle is in the region of 100K USD list per chassis, so multiply that by 2, 3 or 4 to provide a dual DC topology then even on NFR which is around 70% discount I believe you're talking about more than 100k USD CAPEX investment and is impossible without the demand for it.

MDS switches are ridiculously expensive also in the context of what they would be used for and I guess you would also need a B-Series chassis, UCS director, N5k and FEXs in there too? Not to mention connectivity and co-location hosting for rack space and power.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible as it clearly is for some and maybe virtual labs hosted on AWS or something like that will make it even more possible in the future (if not already).

The Collaboration & CUCM side of things may be more achievable as it can all be hosted on VM servers, but I reckon you would probably need a beefy B-Series server to provider multi-tenancy to allow multiple students to use it if that was a requirement.

Wireless and Security would be exactly the same; whereas R&S there is a lot more equipment available, even older kit that can run the required IOS.

Point being it's a major investment NFR or not and the scale would ultimately determine the outlay.

On that note I'm bowing out of this one and will leave you folks to it. Thanks for the discussion and have a nice day