New JTAC record set!

I just got back from California and received the results of my JNCIE-M test and I passed, it was fun but it was one tough 8hr lab test. I passed it the day before my one year mark on the team which is a new record for JTAC. The record before was 1 year and 2 weeks which was set by a guy 6 or 7 years ago. It was a long year filled of many hours of study but in the end it was definitely worth it.

I'd say that the biggest part that helped me in obtaining this goal was my wife for letting me get what ever I needed for networking equipment, dropped about 5k on the lab so far, and also allowing me to spend all my sparse free time with it

It's amazing what you can do when you loved ones fully support you in it.

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Comments

networker050184

Congrats on the major accomplishment and record!

Now time to come get certified in the REAL networking gear

Stotic

That's amazing. It's great to have the support from those around you when you work to achieve such difficult tasks.

dynamik

@ Networker

Congratulations Aldur! I think you've made up for being such a newbie

shednik

Congrats Aldur!!! I do have to agree with networker you need some of the letter C at the end of your name

astorrs

Congrats Aldur, that's quite an accomplishment.

jryantech

What the heck is a Juniper? :P

Congrats that is really awesome.

Think of it this way, if Cisco ever tanks and Juniper rises.
You will be one very very very very rich man.

mamono

Congrats!!!

Aldur

Thanks for all the congrats guys, and I would definitely agree that I could use some cisco certs to my name too

I might just start working on a CCNA now, after a little break that is.

undomiel

Woohoo! Congratulations on knocking that out Aldur!

zoidberg

Way to go man!!
Welcome to the JNCIE club

Aldur

zoidberg wrote:

Way to go man!!
Welcome to the JNCIE club

It sure does feel good to be a part of such an elite club

The last guy who got his JNCIE-M at work was #360 something, I haven't got my number yet but I'm sure it'll be in the 300's. It's truly amazing how few IE's there are out there for Juniper.

Low numbers and high demand, definitely a good place to be.

Slowhand

Congrats, Aldur. That's a heck of a test to pass. Looks like you've got a serious leg-up on any routing that doesn't involve just Cisco equipment.

Congrats again, and good luck with the Cisco-studies. Who knows, maybe this is the first of several network-related "IE" certifications we'll see in your profile?

zoidberg

You'll definitely be in the 300s. When I checked earlier this week, there were 382 JNCIE-Ms and 33 JNCIE-ERs. You'll have a nice low number (380s) to show everyone on your plaque. If you're really a sucker for punishment, you have a good window of opportunity to go down to the double digits with the ER :P For some reason, Juniper keeps different numbers for each track vs. Cisco's one number for each person.

I've been keeping an eye on the certification website, and I see the number of certified people is clearly starting to grow at a faster pace. For all the "What's a Juniper?" jokes floating around, when it comes to service providers, Juniper is major player. In that sandbox, it's starting to become "What's a Cisco?"

Juniper's sights are now trained on the enterprise and data center market, so start learning JUNOS everyone :P Hehe.

Alright, enough marketing fluff/taunting, I don't want to start a C v J thread, just some friendly teasing for you Cisco guys :P Both vendors are great, and a well rounded multi-vendor education plan is always the way to go.

Enjoy your success!! It's pretty cool that you set a record at JTAC. I wonder if any of my tickets had the fortune of making to your desk

G'nite everyone

gorebrush

How difficult is Juniper to pickup for say someone who is educated to CCNP/CCIE level?

Aldur

gorebrush wrote:

How difficult is Juniper to pickup for say someone who is educated to CCNP/CCIE level?

I think for somebody who had an CCNP/CCIE level of networking knowledge would be in a great position to pick up Juniper equipment. I've talked with many ppl who took that route and they said it wasn't bad at all, they already understood the technologies and so it was just down to understanding how Juniper implements it.

zoidberg wrote:

If you're really a sucker for punishment, you have a good window of opportunity to go down to the double digits with the ER :P
...
I wonder if any of my tickets had the fortune of making to your desk

haha ya I kinda am a sucker for punishment and I am seriously thinking about pursuing the IE-ER, I have 5 j2300's at home right now so I'd just need to get together a few more. I have heard that test is amazingly impossible though so I really doubt I'd be able to knock it out in one shot like the IE-M, but who know's its worth a shot

Which company do you work for zoidberg? There's a real good chance that I've had some of your tickets, Although I've only been here a year I've taken so many tickets just thinking about them makes my head spin.

gorebrush

Aldur wrote:

gorebrush wrote:

How difficult is Juniper to pickup for say someone who is educated to CCNP/CCIE level?

I think for somebody who had an CCNP/CCIE level of networking knowledge would be in a great position to pick up Juniper equipment. I've talked with many ppl who took that route and they said it wasn't bad at all, they already understood the technologies and so it was just down to understanding how Juniper implements it.

Thanks Aldur - will bear that in mind

Pash

Many grats Aldur, superb achievement. Any certs up again soon?

gorebrush wrote:

Aldur wrote:

gorebrush wrote:

How difficult is Juniper to pickup for say someone who is educated to CCNP/CCIE level?

I think for somebody who had an CCNP/CCIE level of networking knowledge would be in a great position to pick up Juniper equipment. I've talked with many ppl who took that route and they said it wasn't bad at all, they already understood the technologies and so it was just down to understanding how Juniper implements it.

Thanks Aldur - will bear that in mind

Scott Morris (one of the more documented multiple CCIE's) is also a juniper nut. Sometimes he reads these boards (at least he has in the past), he would be very qualified in answering that question I think

zoidberg

gorebrush wrote:

How difficult is Juniper to pickup for say someone who is educated to CCNP/CCIE level?

As for going from Cisco to Juniper... routing is routing, switching is switching. Most everything is standards based these days, so if you know how things work, you just need to learn the new commands. Some of the implementtion will be different, and there may be things Juniper does slightly different than Cisco, but still, OSPF is OSPF, and BGP is BGP. A CCxP/CCIE shouldn't have too much difficulting learning some Juniper. I did all my Cisco stuff, then went Juniper crazy, and it worked out well for me. Now I'm trying the reverse and looking at the CCIE R/S and SP. Need to learn all those IOS commands again

For those new to JUNOS, the command line difference may appear to be a challenge. Stick with it though, because once you're used to it, the command line is awesome, and everything is structured, organized, and easy to use. Also, all the out of print, yet free to download from juniper.net, JNCIx books from Sybex were excellent! Their newer Enterprise Routing book and JUNOS Cookbook are great as well. Unbelievably, there's even a newly released JUNOS For Dummies. I couldn't resist, so I picked it up as well. I love the contrast of having an IE plaque and a Dummies book next to each other

I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but it does cover both routing and switching. Might be an excellent Intro to Juniper book for most, and I think it only set me back $16? Yikes, maybe I am turning it a marketing guy. I gotta go cleanse my soul and log into some routers ASAP!

zoidberg

Aldur wrote:

haha ya I kinda am a sucker for punishment and I am seriously thinking about pursuing the IE-ER, I have 5 j2300's at home right now so I'd just need to get together a few more. I have heard that test is amazingly impossible though so I really doubt I'd be able to knock it out in one shot like the IE-M, but who know's its worth a shot

Remember how I said the IE-M was fun? Well the ER broke my brain :P Haha. It is a big exam, and apparently it was even bigger when the beta testers did it. Yikes. You're at least 2/3rd of the way there though. I started looking at the ER immediately after finishing the M, well, maybe a month or two break. The knowledge gap between the M and ER is not huge, so it can be done without too much difficulty. The ER book is a great guide. If you do try it, check out the little sports pub they keep mentioning the book. One of the co-authors of the book and the exam has a nice little pub in San Fran. I actually got a chance to meet him there the day after the exam and tell him how evil it was

Yup, that's how big of a nerd I am :P

mamono

Then would you recommend CCNP level before attempting any Juniper JNCIA's? I'm not too fond of the idea of getting confused and being caught red handed for typing JUNOS CLI commands on a Cisco IOS. My goal for 2009 is CCNP/CCDA, but I've been looking at Juniper a lot lately and have always heard good thing from colleagues.

darkerosxx

mamono wrote:

Then would you recommend CCNP level before attempting any Juniper JNCIA's? I'm not too fond of the idea of getting confused and being caught red handed for typing JUNOS CLI commands on a Cisco IOS. My goal for 2009 is CCNP/CCDA, but I've been looking at Juniper a lot lately and have always heard good thing from colleagues.

The JNCIA's are much easier than CCNA right now, or so I hear.

Uber-Geek

Pash wrote:

Scott Morris (one of the more documented multiple CCIE's) is also a juniper nut. Sometimes he reads these boards (at least he has in the past), he would be very qualified in answering that question I think

I occasionally pop around.

As noted, if you have a good networking base knowledge, hopping from one vendor to another is merely the semantics of the command line. OSPF is still OSPF for the most part.

I tend to "think" in IOS since that's what I do more of. Although for MPLS stuff, I "think" more in JUNOS. Experience I guess.

I still remember my JNCIP-M exam though... No matter how hard you try, typing "show ip bgp" doesn't work on JUNOS!

But otherwise, it's a fairly simple thing to hop back and forth once you get used to it.

I haven't bothered to sit down and study for the JNCIE-ER yet, although it's on my roadmap of things to do. I want to try to wait till they have a few more who have passed though. I'd like to sync my numbers up (JNCIE-M #153) so that I can abbreviate my signature (smirk)

Scott

Pash

You got some good answers from zoidberg and uber-geek himself there gorebrush

Good luck on your Juniper endeavours guys, please keep us posted on the Juniper forum with progress!

ccnpninja

The JNCIA's are much easier than CCNA right now, or so I hear.

yeah it's true. JNCIA does not include sims by the way.