Ccde

my journey with expert-level Cisco certification began already quite far long time ago - 15 years. and with Cisco certification overall - even couple years earlier than that. I was finally able to get hands-on practice with Cisco Continuing Education program. apart from the fact, that trying to pass exams right now remotely during pandemic has abstract requirements I do generally believe it makes sense. one way or another - I’m recertified until April 2024. of course, as life goes on, I’ll be suprised to read this entry years from now thinking “how the hell did it go that fast?” ;) ...

it will be unique opportunity in Poland and in this part of Europe. with group of my dear friends and design masters - Piotr Jabłoński, Sebastian Pasternacki and Piotr Matusiak i’ll be delivering bootcamp-type of training for CCDE. we’re starting on 5th of may - and you can find more details here.

there’s a lot of wisdom in books, presentations and trainings covering “how to achieve success” (however we choose to define it). this can be applied to working with people, managing them - or companies. one of great books helps reader achieve the success by simply structuring it in a simple, three-step program: decide what you want to achieve prepare plan, that will help you achieving what you want execute the plan simple, isn’t it? what’s really interesting, it’s actually that easy. but people tend to get lost very quickly around point number 2, and spend most of their lives around number 1. ...

i’ve had a opportunity today to take the CCDE exam in London again. accompanied by two fellow SEs and one of the engineers working for Cisco Partner in Poland, we’ve took our chances. and it’s definitely better - feedback works. out of 6 scenarios you work only with 4, split statically by 2 for before and after the lunch. questions are more to the point, and there’s less of text to look for information from. there’s less of mistakes as well. finally it’s the exam you can pass, this time however it seems it is more focused on book knowledge not necessarily experience. ...

I’ve took a CCDE practical earlier today, and for the second time I’m pretty clueless how it went, however I have a strong feeling that it was similar to my first take: no go. this time I’ve spent 7 hours, not 5, to do the test, however most of the time I was trying to answer questions based on the small set of information provided. again I’m under strong feeling, that the set of information was not enough to judge on some of the questions, not to mention the effect Russ White describes as “you’d be confused for the whole time”. it basically boils down to the fact that you answer a question from the design that’s clearly up to the explicitly given scenario information, just to notice that couple of questions forward, the design, topology or set of “going forward” information is different. confusing, to say at least :) ...

today I’ve met CCDE practical exam heads-on in London. it’s a new one at the Expert level, focusing on designing and redesigning of the networks - according to the virtual needs of virtual customers. after the Networkers CCDE presentation delivered by one of the authors of the CCDE program - Russ White - it’s hard to expect anything different than what they say. it’s very focused on “why”, and “how” is touched only in some generic terms. in other words, CLI-masters will get bored, but you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about subjects like: ...