powmia's CCDE marathon
I haven't seen anybody else start a CCDE journey thread. So I'll step out on the ledge. Primarily, this will be my reference to use after my practical exam (scheduled for August 27th). This will be a reference for one of two scenarios:
If (I pass)
I will use this as a reference of what worked for me. One of the first questions asked of someone passing an expert level exam is always "what did you use to study?"
else
I will use this as a reference of what I did wrong. After seeing the exam and failing, it will be good to either see that I left out some material, or that I was looking at the right material, but in the wrong light.
### Background ###
I am a CCIE (R&S). I am contracted out from the service delivery unit of a Cisco Gold Partner. In this position, I am the senior network engineer in the engineering & architecture branch of a large organization. We have ~50,000 users accessing multiple networks simultaneously. 9 data centers and ~300 sites (ranging from 10 users to ~10,000 user campuses) spread across ~30 countries. My work split is about 40% Data Center, 35% R&S, and 25% UC. 50% design, 20% architecture, 10% implementation, and 10% troubleshooting, and 10% training.
Before coming here, I was the lead engineer for a facility that was part data center for various enterprise networks, and part WAN hub for those and other networks. 50% implementation, 25% design, and 25% O&M.
Before that... blah blah blah, more network stuff... less interesting.
### Initial thoughts on the CCDE ###
Intimidating. Quite a few people holding multiple CCIEs have failed this practical exam... some more than once. A test that can get a 4x or 5x CCIE to go home empty handed is not one to be taken lightly.
I'm taking this as something to my advantage. It's easy to say, "oh wow, that guy has 5 CCIEs and failed that test, it must be impossible." I'm just going to assume that most of the guys like that thought they could walk into a design exam and put another knotch in their belt, no problem. The reason I passed my CCIE on the first attempt; I didn't take it lightly.
### Why I want to get my CCDE ###
There are currently only about 130 people with this cert. The CCIE count is exponentially increasing, and I feel the need to have something to set myself apart. To be fair... the IT industry is exponentially increasing, hence the growth in CCIE numbers. In no way, shape, or form, do I feel that the CCIE has any less value. I merely am not satisfied.
Instead of getting another CCIE, I've chosen to get the CCDE. Aside from getting another number to put in my sig block, I think this is much more beneficial to my career as a whole. Once you get a CCIE, it doesn't matter what track it was. There's no telling people, "R&S, I'm a CCIE R&S... hire someone else to do your UC." Service Provider, Data Center, Security, Voice, I have built networks using those technologies, no different than someone with a CCIE in that track would have. I am an expert implementer... If you throw something at me I'll get it done. This is exactly "why" the CCDE. I figure that a much more useful skillset to work on, is my ability to look at things from a different angle. A more top-level, yet more in-depth perspective of the big picture and all of its moving parts. I'll tell you now, I was 100% correct. I do some form of design/architecture work on a daily basis, but since I got hard core about the CCDE, the ability to do my job has increased 10 fold. This is definitely a skillset worth validating.
