Am I looking at this right?

According to Cisco, there was almost exactly 20,000 CCIEs at the end of June: CCIEs Worldwide - CCIE RESOURCES - Cisco Systems

Internetwork Expert is listing numbers in the 25,000s: CCIE Lab Training | Routing and Switching - Voice | Internetwork Expert

Did the number of CCIEs really increase by 25% in the last two months?

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kalebksp

I think Cisco only counts active CCIEs, not those who's cert has expired. Plus they may not have started numbering at 1.

dynamik

I believe numbering began by assigning the lab itself #1024 and then going from there. Regardless, that would still be an enormous increase in two months. You're probably right about them only counting those who are active. DT got his in Feb, 2008, and he's just shy of 20,000.

kalebksp

dynamik wrote: »

DT got his in Feb, 2008, and he's just shy of 20,000.

Wow, 5000+ more CCIEs in about a year and half does seem like a lot. Maybe more are going for it because of the economy?

networker050184

kalebksp wrote: »

Wow, 5000+ more CCIEs in about a year and half does seem like a lot. Maybe more are going for it because of the economy?

I think all the vendor material and dynamips is what has caused the huge spike. It just allows for much easier preparation I think.

Probably one of the main reasons for all the changes to the CCIE is to slow the rate at which CCIEs are being pumped out.

mikej412

Well, the CCIE has become so "easy" that even 16 year olds can do it

leecom3025

mikej412 wrote: »

Well, the CCIE has become so "easy" that even 16 year olds can do it

not easy come on -_- ....

i told you i studied network for 3 years 18 hours per day

if it is easy, why everyone want to be CCIE?

Turgon

networker050184 wrote: »

I think all the vendor material and dynamips is what has caused the huge spike. It just allows for much easier preparation I think.

Probably one of the main reasons for all the changes to the CCIE is to slow the rate at which CCIEs are being pumped out.

There has been an increase. There are a number of reasons for it. More people than before are studying for the certification. There are also more testing centres and lab slots than before and it's been increasingly difficult to get lab slots because of demand. The plethora of training materials have brought the CCIE experience to the masses as opposed to it being an arcane pursuit like the old days. Dynamips has provided a platform for many more people to study for the test than before. The cost of equipment or rack hire was prohibitive in the past for many wannabes. I don't know about easier preparation though. You still have to put the work in and have aptitude. We still have experienced engineers requiring multiple attempts to get their number and working very hard indeed to achieve it. Reallabs are a problem. A number of people obtain labs, memorise them and pass. Written dumping is off the scale these days. Those two things more than anything else are the reason why I have OEQ and MPLS to look forward to in the winter

Getting a number is still difficult though. In spring 2008 one of the wags on groupstudy predicted 30000 by end of 2008. It's late 2009 and we are at 251xx. Numbers will suffer with v4 for a while until the vendors catch up.

networker050184

Turgon wrote: »

There has been an increase. There are a number of reasons for it. More people than before are studying for the certification. There are also more testing centres and lab slots than before and it's been increasingly difficult to get lab slots because of demand. The plethora of training materials have brought the CCIE experience to the masses as opposed to it being an arcane pursuit like the old days. Dynamips has provided a platform for many more people to study for the test than before. The cost of equipment or rack hire was prohibitive in the past for many wannabes. I don't know about easier preparation though. You still have to put the work in and have aptitude. We still have experienced engineers requiring multiple attempts to get their number and working very hard indeed to achieve it. Reallabs are a problem. A number of people obtain labs, memorise them and pass. Written dumping is off the scale these days. Those two things more than anything else are the reason why I have OEQ and MPLS to look forward to in the winter

Getting a number is still difficult though. In spring 2008 one of the wags on groupstudy predicted 30000 by end of 2008. It's late 2009 and we are at 251xx. Numbers will suffer with v4 for a while until the vendors catch up.

I didn't mean that the material was easier, I just mean the ability to obtain quality material has become easier. More resources available now.

Turgon

networker050184 wrote: »

I didn't mean that the material was easier, I just mean the ability to obtain quality material has become easier. More resources available now.

Yes lots to choose from today. Dynamips has taken a lot of hassle out of rack scheduling and what have you.

Forsaken_GA

Turgon wrote: »

The plethora of training materials have brought the CCIE experience to the masses as opposed to it being an arcane pursuit like the old days. Dynamips has provided a platform for many more people to study for the test than before. The cost of equipment or rack hire was prohibitive in the past for many wannabes.

Basically, what you're saying is that some folks recognized there was an industry to be made out of CCIE preparation, and capitalism did the rest.

CCIEWANNABE

+1 for dynamips, if not for dynamips, my pursuit for the CCIE would be a lot more expensive and may never have happened!

+1 for CCIE training vendors. those guys make great material. a lot of times people will post on their webpages saying that the "actual" lab they took was about a "7" on their 10 point scale. that is awesome to hear that they have such challenging labs. I can't wait to start labbing this fall.

Either way you look at it, a CCIE is a CCIE and most everyone in the I.T. field knows about it and respects it. That will never change, no matter how many people become CCIE's.

There was a comment on this thread about the economy causing more CCIE's. I do agree with that. That is one of my main reasons, job stability. Especially working for the gov't, CCIE is gold. Also, a lot of jobless people who may have nothing else to do but study for CCIE may have been caused by economy.

It doesn't really matter though, bottom line is go run a search in monster with CCIE as keyword, that should be enough motivation right there :]

Turgon

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Basically, what you're saying is that some folks recognized there was an industry to be made out of CCIE preparation, and capitalism did the rest.

I suppose so, although even from the earliest days there were bootcamps and practice labs which most candidates used. It's just expanded as more people have moved into the training sphere to offer a range of professional products to choose from. Back in the day I used fatkid (defunct) and ccbootcamp. Mentortech did bootcamps and workbooks if you could afford them. Historically I dont think the CCIE was really envisaged as a track for the non Cisco/Cisco Partner employee hence the development of inhouse prep material like ASET labs. With the goldrush in the late 90's it was clear many non Cisco folks aspired to obtain it.