CCDE Experience - Free Webex Session

The next CCDE practical exam will take place on 20th February 2014 at 275 Pearson Professional Centers (PPC) testing facilities worldwide. I'm planning to conduct free webex session of "CCDE Experience" on next Sunday 9th February at 6 am UTC to explain about CCDE program, how to prepare for it, and tips and tricks based on my personal experience taking the exam several times.

The webex session will be conducted in English. This is my personal initiative to promote CCDE program, with disclaimer: no guarantee you will pass the exam after you follow my suggested study plan. I use public material for the session. And I will use the opportunity to introduce my idea of Project DEW. Anyone can join this webex, you just need to register using the link below. I expect no NDA question during the session.

Topic: CCDE Experience
Date: Sunday, February 9, 2014
Time: 10:00 am, Arabian Time (Abu Dhabi, Muscat, GMT+04:00)

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To register for this meeting
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1. Go to https://cisco.webex.com/ciscosales/j.php?ED=253413112&RG=1&UID=2234307082&RT=MiMzNg%3D%3D
2. Register for the meeting.

Once the host approves your request, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the meeting

Why We Need to Learn During Weekend

We are group of design architects/consultants who do network design in daily basis. We are spread in different countries across Asia, Europe and Middle East. We happen to have CCDE certification too. And all of us have the same dream to build the community filled up with real design experts, those who actually do design work to solve real world's network design problems. And we want to teach real design skills based on our experiences. To help those who want to become the next design architects/consultants, or to pass CCDE exam. To achieve this, we conduct design expert workshop in various locations, during the weekend.

Wait. What?

Why do we need to learn during the weekend?
It might be a good workshop. It might be an opportunity to hear real world's network design examples. It might be a good chance to meet another design professionals.
But come on, attending technical workshop during the weekend?

I hear you. I know how it feels.
After long hours of work during weekday, we deserve our weekend. When we need to learn something related to work, we should do it during workday. When we need to learn design, we can ask the company to send us for bootcamp training.

Here is my argument:
1. You want to learn design from design architects/consultants
2. These design architects/consultants do real design work everyday
3. It means they won't be available during workday to teach
They may take days off to conduct workshop, but there are only limited number of days off and most prefer to use them for some other activities.

It's not easy to everyone. It's hard to attend workshop during the weekend just as it's hard to conduct workshop during the weekend. But sometimes we have to try something different to achieve our dream.

The good thing about it? If the system works, once the community is built, you may be able to have this kind of workshop with design architects/consultans in your hometown in your native language (for non-English speakers).

Please send email to info@jawdat.com if you are interested to attend Design Expert Weekend in Dubai or in another locations in the future.

(Picture taken from devianart, found using Google Image)

DEW: MPLS/Tunneling Design in Dubai!

Update: I received lots of request to reduce the fee. After considering it, I decided to create "DEW - No Frills". The fee is now 30% lower but please don't expect fancy hotel meeting room, no lunch included, no coffee break, no print out, no notebook or other gift to attendees. It will be only geeks in a room discussing network design.

After the first Design Expert Weekend in Riyadh focusing on IPv4/IPv6 Routing Design, the second DEW will be held in Dubai, UAE, for MPLS/Tunneling Design.

What:
Design Expert Weekend in Dubai on 24-25 January will focus on MPLS/Tunneling Design. Agenda will cover:

- MPLS Refresh
- MPLS L3VPN Design
- MPLS L2VPN Design
- MPLS VPN Inter-AS
- MPLS Traffic Engineering
- MPLS VPN Resiliency
- IPv6 over MPLS
- Other non-MPLS Tunneling: GRE, L2TPv3, IPSec, DMVPN, IPv6 Tunneling
- CCDE exam tips and tricks
- CCDE sample questions and scenario to practice ability to analyze design requirements, develop network designs, implement network design, validate and optimize network design

The other two DEW are held in separate session:
DEW:Routing Design (IGP IPv4/IPv6, BGP, scaling, inter-AS, HA, and include PIM, ASM, SSM Multicast)
DEW:SP Design (Physical, L2, IGP/BGP/MPLS/PIM as transport, MPLS-based services, Internet, IPTV, HA, QoS, security, management)

Why:
To help network engineers to gain real design skills. DEW can help with CCDE exam preparation, and beyond.
Our main goal is not to make you certified. But to give the real knowledge. The real skills. Then to be certified or not it's your decision not ours.

Who:
Any network engineers/architects who want to learn design skills can join the workshop, even we prefer you to have several years of experience working with network devices.
Himawan Nugroho will be the mentor for this DEW. He holds three CCIE#8171 in R&S, Security, SP track and CCDE#20130018. Himawan has total 14 years experience in network design, with the last 7 years working for Cisco Advanced Services as Solutions Architect. He has worked in many design projects for Cisco important customers in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Where:
Training room in Dubai, UAE.

When:
Friday-Saturday, 24-25 January 2014 from 8 am to 5 pm.

How:
2-day workshop to discuss design aspect of MPLS/Tunneling technology in detail. The class will be small (4-6 max) to ensure lots of interaction. Expect to see heavy discussion on design options for each technology covered. There will be discussion of CCDE exam tips and tricks, sample questions and scenario. Materials used for this workshop will be public material (non-NDA). Anyone who joins the workshop will be part of DEW community that will be formed as follow up after the workshop.

There is fee to attend each DEW that will be used to cover the expenses such as renting the meeting room for 2-day workshop, wireless Internet, lunch, coffee break, effort to build workshop material and so on. And after all the expenses, the remaining will be used to fund my organization back home.

The reservation is first come, first serve.
And your seat will be guaranteed only after you have completed the payment.
Please send email to info@jawdat.com to get more detail information.

Not Another CCDE Study Group

The world needs more network design experts.

That's what I believe. That's what I see.
I will not call myself as a design expert. But I've been traveling intensively the past 6 months, meeting different customers in different countries, to conduct design workshops in multiple projects. I may not be the best but it seems like not many people can do what I do. Or willing to do what I do. Or combination of both.

No certification program can make you a design expert. Not even CCDE. You need all of the following three instead:
1. Network
2. Skills
3. Experience

Network or strong connection to many subject matter experts is crucial because I don't know anyone who is an expert in all the technologies and in different vertical industries. You need to know whom to ask. An expert is not the one who knows all the answers, but the one who knows how to find the answers.

Experience doing various design work can't be replaced with any certification. Experience to lead design workshop can't be tested in the exam. Experience to capture customer requirement, to present the proposed solution, and to defend it, is very difficult to be simulated in any classroom training.

Technical skills that relevant are still required. The skills must be broad and into not only deep understanding of how the technology works, but as well as why, when and where to apply it in different situation and scenarios.

In short: you may start with building the technical skills. Then you get experience by doing real design work. You gain more experience by doing more design work. At the same time you build your network, your connection. You build reputation. And someday, your customers and peers may reward you by calling you a Design Expert.

Last week I launched Project DEW to help with the technical skills part. During DEW workshop expect to see heavy discussion on design options for each technology covered. There will be exercise using CCDE-like design scenarios to gain the required skills: ability to analyze design requirements, develop network designs, implement, validate and optimize network design. And it's a weekend workshop program to help those who can't be off from work just to attend classroom training. The program is created to help network engineers to gain real network design skills. You may not do design work in daily basis, this workshop is for you. You may not have chance to meet another guys who design the network at your current work, well this is your chance. You may not want to take any certification bootcamp that focuses only to pass the exam, DEW is definitely for you.

But even DEW can provide some level of experience with exercise to analyze requirement until proposing design to answer it, you still need more. You need to be surrounded by design experts. You need to start building your connection. You need to hear and learn from others' experiences.

So other than Project DEW, I'm also launching Design Expert Warriors - DEW Community. It's a group filled up with design experts and those who want to be one. You can join if you are a CCDE, or you have taken any of DEW workshop, or you have the real design skill and extensive experience in network design, and willing to share it.

This is not another CCDE study group. This is a global community consists of those with real design expertise who are willing to share their experiences, and those who want to get the connection, who want to acquire design skills, who want to learn from others' experiences. It's a collaborative effort to become successful together.

I can help you with CCDE preparation but I want to do more. I don't want to see more design certified people. I want to see more Design Expert Warriors.

Who's with me?

And please contact info@jawdat.com if you want to join DEW workshop.

Design Expert Weekend - 5W1H

This post is related to my new initiative called Design Expert Weekend.
The pilot workshop for DEW: IPv4/IPv6 Routing Design, will be held in Olaya, Riyadh, on Friday-Saturday 3-4 January 2014.

What:
Design Expert Weekend in Riyadh on 3-4 January will focus on IPv4/IPv6 Routing Design. Agenda will cover:

- IGP IPv4 and IPv6 Design (OSPF, ISIS, EIGRP)
- BGP Design
- Routing scalability and Inter-AS
- Traffic Engineering
- Routing Fast Convergence and High Availability
- Multicast Routing Design
- CCDE exam tips and tricks
- CCDE sample questions and scenario to practice ability to analyze design requirements, develop network designs, implement network design, validate and optimize network design

The other two DEW will be held in separate session:
DEW:Tunneling Design (MPLS-based L3VPN/L2VPN, tunnel protection/MPLS TE, other tunnelling include IPv6 transition)
DEW:SP Design (Physical, L2, IGP/BGP/MPLS/PIM as transport, MPLS-based services, Internet, IPTV, HA, QoS, security, management)

Why:
To help network engineers to gain real design skills. DEW can help with CCDE exam preparation, and beyond.
Our main goal is not to make you certified. But to give the real knowledge. The real skills. Then to be certified or not it's your decision not ours.

Who:
Any network engineers/architects who want to learn design skills can join the workshop, even we prefer you to have several years of experience working with network devices.
Himawan Nugroho will be the mentor for this DEW. He holds three CCIE#8171 in R&S, Security, SP track and CCDE#20130018. Himawan has total 14 years experience in network design, with the last 7 years working for Cisco Advanced Services as Solutions Architect. He has worked in many design projects for Cisco important customers in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Where:
Holel meeting room in Olaya, Riyadh, KSA.

When:
Friday-Saturday, 3-4 January 2014 from 8 am to 5 pm.

How:
2-day workshop to discuss design aspect of IPv4/IPv6 routing in detail. The class will be small (4-6 max) to ensure lots of interaction. Expect to see heavy discussion on design options for each technology covered. There will be discussion of CCDE exam tips and tricks, sample questions and scenario. Materials used for this workshop will be public material (non-NDA). Anyone who joins the workshop will be part of DEW community that will be formed as follow up after the workshop.

There is fee to attend each DEW that will be used to cover the expenses such as renting the meeting room for 2-day workshop, wireless Internet, lunch, coffee break, my accommodation, effort to build workshop material and so on. And after all the expenses, the remaining will be used to fund my organization back home.

The reservation is first come, first serve.
And your seat will be guaranteed only after you have completed the payment.
Please send email to info@jawdat.com to get more detail information.

Project DEW

I don't want to claim myself as Global Consultant anymore. It seems like many people have problem with that. Some called me showing off, some said I'm too proud with that title. Others even said I spent so much time marketing myself. Blah blah. Ok, ok, I get it.

But here is the fact: since I joined Cisco in 2006 I've traveled to many countries to do consulting projects. Below you can see some Cisco customers in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa that I worked with in the past. And most of the time my role in the project is to lead the design work: to capture customer requirements and provide technical solution to address them. In many projects I also lead the implementation and migration. For some projects I'm responsible to lead the whole engagement from project scheduling, managing resources as well as quality assurance for deliverables. So call me anything you want, even Janitor, but it seems like I have some experiences working on design consultancy project, globally.

And actually before I joined Cisco I had already done many design project as well with many customers. I invented my own methodology and workflow for design work. I call the methodology as - I bet you are going to like the name - CISCO way. Yes, I'm not joking. You heard it here first. And I'm sharing it here now.

My CISCO way is actually an abbreviation of the following:

C - Capture customer requirements, current network design, today's challenges and future requirements

I - Identify what customer wants vs. what customer needs, identify the root cause of today's challenges

S - Solve today's challenges, address current and future requirements with the proposed solution design

C - Communicate the proposed design to customer to get feedback and discuss more design options

O - Optimize the design to achieve the best solution for the customer

I have been involved in many design workshop with customers. I have spent countless hours discussing design options for different technologies and customer industries, and writing both high level and low level design documents. I won't call myself as a Design Expert even with total 14 years experience in the field as network consultant and solutions architect. I also happen to have CCDE certification. And from my observation, as well from many emails I received, I understand there is a need for many network engineers to get design skill and get certified in CCDE if possible.

So today I want to launch my personal initiative to the world that I call Project DEW.
DEW stands for Design Expert Weekend.

It's a 2-day onsite workshop during the weekend to discuss various design technologies just as what CCDE covers. There will be discussion about multiple design options. There will be discussion about tips and tricks and my personal experience taking the exam several times (without violating the NDA). There will be discussion about CCDE-like scenarios. The workshop will be inline with skills expected from a CCDE: ability to analyze design requirements, develop network designs, implement network design, validate and optimize network design. The workshop can help you to pass CCDE. And even beyond.

In my previous post, I mentioned you need the following to pass CCDE practical exam: 

1. Technical Skills, in L2 Control plane, L3 Control plane, Tunneling/Virtualization, QoS, Network Management and Security
2. Design Experiences, in multiple technologies as well as from vertical and different industries like SP, Enterprise, Financial, Retail and so on
3. Customer skills, such as ability to capture and analyze requirement, to propose design, to explain and justify the design, and to plan for implementation

DEW will try to cover all three points above as much as possible. Obviously nothing can replace the real design experience with the real customers, to achieve point 2 and 3. But the workshop will cover the technical skills in depth from the design perspective. DEW will not only explain What the technology is, but also Why it is required, How it works, Where to implement the technology, and When to use the technology compare to the alternatives. I will also share my view when looking at technology based on my design experience. And there will be discussion using CCDE-like design scenarios, so hopefully it can provide some level of experience in designing as well as some exercise to analyze requirement until proposing design to answer the requirements.

There are different types of DEW and each takes 2-day during the weekend:

DEW:Routing Design (IGP IPv4/IPv6, BGP, scaling, inter-AS, HA, and include PIM, ASM, SSM Multicast)
DEW:Tunneling Design (MPLS-based L3VPN/L2VPN, tunnel protection/MPLS TE, other tunnelling include IPv6 transition)
DEW:SP Design (Physical, L2, IGP/BGP/MPLS/PIM as transport, MPLS-based services, Internet, IPTV, HA, QoS, security, management)

The pilot for DEW:Routing will be held in Riyadh in two weeks. The class size will be small and limited to ensure lots of interaction. There is fee to attend that will be used to cover the expenses to conduct the workshop such as renting the meeting room, projector, accommodation and so on. And after all the expenses, the remaining will be used to fund my organization back home.

My main goal is not to make you certified. But to give the real knowledge. The real skills. Then to be certified or not it's your decision not mine.

If you are interested to join the first DEW:Routing in Riyadh, KSA, on 3-4 January 2014, please send email to info@jawdat.com to get more detail information.
See you at the first DEW!

How to Prepare for CCDE Practical Exam

I was a bit harsh when I wrote: you have to be CCIE to pass CCDE. Couple of friends of mine, who are not CCIEs, came to me after reading that post and said I had demolished their hope to pass the exam.

I won't lie. It's easier to become CCDE if you have already had a CCIE. But fear not, there is still chance for non-CCIE to pass CCDE exam as well. And several guys who are not CCIE but able to put their name in this Hall of Fame is the proof.

The next CCDE practical exam date is on August 27. So there is still time for both groups of CCIE and non-CCIE to pass it, and here is another version of "how to prepare for CCDE exam" that may help to do so:

1. You still need a good reason to do it
You need a good reason as your main motivation to keep continue pursuing this certification, after you fail the exam. Or after you fail the exam several times.
So find your reason.

2. You still need the experience
You can't skip experience. I'm not kidding.
From CCDE Techtorial it says "CCDE Practical is multidimensional, each question or problem must map to all three blueprints"
And the three blueprints are:
- Task Domain
- Job Tasks
- Technology

Scope of Job Tasks:
- Analyze design requirements
- Develop network designs
- Implement network design
- Validate and optimize network design

You can try to learn those from case study, you can try to practice using sample scenarios from books or from training material, but the best resource to learn the above is always the experience.

It's recommended to have 7+ years related experience, as shown in table from Cisco Learning below, with multiple technologies covering from Routing and switching, Security to Data Center.

It's easier to get opportunity to work with the design of those various technologies if you are a CCIE. Ok, nevermind, I will stop pushing it.

3. Learn the technology 
First, you have to do "self assessment" by checking your current knowledge against the technologies listed in CCDE Written blueprint. From CCDE Techtorial, the technologies include but not limited to:

- Layer 2 control plane (STP, Fabric, Down detection, Failure domain, multicast, FHRP etc)
- Layer 3 control plane (OSPF, ISIS, EIGRP, BGP, PIM, Modularity, Hierarchy, FC/Resiliency, Core topology etc)
- Network virtualization (802.1q, MPLS L3VPN, L2VPN, L2TPv3, IPsec, GRE, routing, scaling, inter-AS, traffic engineering etc)
- Quality of Services (classification, CBWFQ, WRED, shaping, policing, QoS model, hierarchy, QoS inside tunnel etc)
- Network Management (FCAPS, SNMP, Syslog, Netflow, RMON, In band, OOB, baseline etc)
- Security (DDoS, GTSM, RPF, IPsec, Infrastructure security, QoS as security tool, RTBH etc)

Assess yourself to identify the technology that you are already familiar with, the one that you heard about it before but need more time to study, and the technology that is completely alien to you.
Once you have the result you will know where you should put your focus on.

4. Read or watch
Well, August 27 is near so I guess there is no time to read all the books in CCDE Practical Reading Booklist. But at least you should read Russ White's CCDE Quick Reference, for written exam, and Optimal Routing Design book. And you can skim the scenarios in Definitive MPLS Network Design book. Those three books are the only ones I read during my study.

And nowadays if I want to learn something new, or to re-fresh my mind, I prefer to watch Cisco Live 365 recorded session instead of reading books. I actually watched more than 40 videos during my preparation, and some of them are not relevant to CCDE exam.

So even if you have to watch 40+ Cisco Live sessions like me, you still have more than 40 days to do that until the next exam date.
Watch one video per day, at least.
And focus on why and when to use the technology.
If you have spare time, spend at least another hour per day to read CVDs/Design Zone.
Remember, stay away from CLI but you still need to understand on which device to enable the features.

I use iPhone as my daily phone, but to watch Cisco Live sessions I use HTC One black edition. No, you don't have to buy one to become CCDE. And I have no affiliation with HTC. I'm just happy to use it to watch any videos while on the move.

5. Remember Task Domain during your study
The third blueprint is Task Domain blueprint:
- Merge/Divest
- Add Technology
- Replace Technology
- Scaling

Try to consider the third blueprint when learning about the technologies, for example:

- Merge/Divest
How to merge two L3 control plane? What is the implication? What are the steps required to implement?

- Add Technology
What will be impact to QoS if customer adds new technology like Telepresence? Any security concern when adding new services?

- Replace Technology
What is the best network virtualization technology to replace the current physical technology e.g. TDM? Which one is better to the other, on which type of scenario?

- Scaling
How to scale each IGP? How to scale virtualization technology like GRE or L2VPN?

6. Master the skill of skimming
Make sure you are used to read many information within short time, skimming rather than reading completely, and find the information that's important.

I think that's all.

And below are some of Cisco Live sessions that I watched during my study:

To refresh the IGP, Tunneling, and WAN Concept design:
- BRKRST-2310 Deploying OSPF in a Large Scale Network
- BRKIPM-3010 Which Routing Protocol? IPv4 and IPv6
- BRKIPM-2444 EIGRP – An in depth look at the Protocol
- BRKMPL-2101 Deploying L2 Based MPLS VPN
- BRKCCIE-3345 CCIE Candidate Introduction to MPLS L3VPN
- BRKCRS-2041 Enterprise WAN Architectures and Design Principles
- BRKMPL-2109 MPLS Solutions for Cloud Networking
- BRKRST-2042 Highly Available Wide Area Network Design

To refresh Campus design and QoS:
- BRKCRS-2661 Designing Layer 2 Networks - Avoiding Loops, Drops, Flooding
- BRKCRS-2031 Multilayer Campus Architectures and Design Principles
- BRKRST-2501 Enterprise QoS or BRKCRS-2500 Campus QoS

I did "speed watching" the following:
- BRKSEC-4054 DMVPN Deployment Model
- BRKRST-2301 Enterprise IPv6 Deployment
- BRKSEC-2000 Secure Enterprise Design
- BRKMPL-1261 IP Multicast Concept Design and Troubleshooting

Some Cisco Live sessions that were not recorded, but I went through the slides:
- BRKRST-2335 IS-IS Network Design and Deployment -
- BRKIPM-2261 Deploying IP Multicast
- BRKMPL-2105 Inter-AS MPLS Solutions
- TECSEC-2011 IPSec and SSL VPNs

Good luck and let me know when you get your number!

How to Become CCDE

Wow. I still can't believe it.

The moment I clicked Next at the end of the CCDE practical exam today in London, and it showed Congratulations word, I was literally jumping out my chair. It was a bad move, I admit, because it was really distracting and it made many other candidates in the room to look at me furiously since we still had more than an hour to complete this 352-011 exam. But I couldn't help it. I passed!

I'm a CCDE now. Part of the group consists around 100 people only, in the world. Wow. Thank God.
(I haven't received my number yet. So I hope CCDE team don't change their mind)

How did I prepare for CCDE exam?

Well, it's been a long journey. I passed my first CCDE written exam four years ago. I have taken the practical exam when it was version v1.0. And now I passed with v2.0.

Before I took the exam today I thought I would have lots of things to write about my preparation for CCDE exam. But I'm typing this while having my "CCDE dinner" at Hard Rock Cafe in London, and I can only came up with these 10 points on How to Become CCDE. It might be completely useless, but hey, you must be desperate looking around for anything that may help with CCDE preparation, then end up reading this post. And desperate time calls for desperate measure.

1 - Get your CCIE first
I don't care if you shout "Himawan, don't talk rubbish! You don't need CCIE to become CCDE!" I have already had CCIE (three!) before going for CCDE. Most people who passed so far have CCIEs too. The folks who created the exams are CCIEs.

To pass CCDE yes, indeed you need to know more than "what, how" and focus on "why, when, where" to use the technology to answer business and design requirements. CCIE can help you with the what and how, so once you have it you just need to focus on why, when and where.

And trust me, during CCDE journey it's more fun if you are already a CCIE. It will even give you more chance to do point number 2 below. So get CCIE first, at least one.

2 - Get real experience with network design
You can't skip experience to become CCDE. Period.

And I suggest to have network design experience for at least several industries. For example, I used to work with Enterprise, Education and Government customers before I joined Cisco. With Cisco I've been involved in many design projects, mainly with Service Providers as well as large Enterprise.

CCDE covers various technology from IP/MPLS to Data Center to Campus Network to Remote Access and so on. The best way to learn about the solution, architecture, the design and all technologies around it is through the experience.

3 - Ask yourself if you really want to become CCDE
If you are a CCIE and you have extensive design experience as point number 2 above, why do you need to become CCDE?
Design skill is shaped with experience working with real customer. You will be known as design expert due to the reputation and real design you built in the past. Not from passing an exam.

If you ask me, I've been chasing CCDE because I'm a big fan of Cisco certification program. I call myself CCIE evangelist. I support the program with all my heart. But I do network design everyday, and I have solid 14 years experience, I don't really think my design skill needs to be 'certified'.

It doesn't mean the CCDE program is no good. I took CCDE practical exam v1.0 and yes, I have to admit it was terrible. The current version v2.0 is much better. It won't be able to simulate the real design project, but it's getting closer. It forces the candidate to think about why, when, and where to use which technology to answer business and design requirements. That's the essential skill every network designer must have.

So I'm doing it just because. Now it's time for you to think about the reason why you want to do CCDE.

4 - Pass the written exam and book the seat
I don't need to tell you how. If you are a CCIE, and you have extensive experience, it should be easy for you to pass the written exam.

If you still need to read book to refresh, take the CCDE Quick Reference and Optimal Routing Design book. Google them, I'm too lazy to create the link to amazon or Ciscopress website.

Once you pass the written exam, book the seat for practical exam. CCDE practical is not available every day, so you must check the schedule and the exam location nearby. This is the reason why you should pass written exam at the beginning of the journey and just book the practice exam, since you may not even get a seat and must wait for several months. And having a target date is always good to force us to prepare. Deadline always pushes to unleash the best of us.

5 - Understand the exam from those who created it
Russ White is the main man behind the exam.
Listen to his explanation of what CCDE is all about.
Google his interview on youtube.
Read his CCDE slides on Cisco Live 365.
It's better if you can take CCDE Techtorial at Cisco Live.
And btw, Russ wrote the two books I mentioned in point number 4 above.

This step is very important because in order to pass you don't design the network just like the real world. You design the network, or answer the design related questions in the exam, based on the scope and expectation from the author of the exam.
How to answer the question in the exam? Understand the author's mindset first.

6 - Read design guide, best practice and design case study
You can learn what and how from CCIE and real world deployment project. If you are lucky, you can learn why, when and where to use technology from experience too.

But it's always good to read someone's experience, especially the ones from Cisco stated as design guide, or best practice, or deployment case study.
One good resource is Cisco Validated Design. As well as Solution Architecture.
Google them.
And read many Cisco Live presentations with "Design", "Deploy", "Practice" and "Architecture" keyword for different technologies.
One good book with sample design case study is Definitive MPLS Network Design.

Well, if you have lots of time you can read all the books listed in CCDE Practical Exam Reading List.
I didn't have time. And I had read some of the books when I did my CCIE. So I spent most of my time with Cisco Live and design material available on Cisco website.

7 - Take the practical exam
This is it. As Sir Richard Branson said: screw it, just do it.
Go and take your first attempt. Heck you never know, you may even pass!

8 - If you pass, stop here. If you fail, at least you know what to expect next
Let's say you fail. So what? Many have failed. Only 100 have passed.
What matters is now you have seen the real exam. Once you see the way the exam is delivered, different type of questions, the flow of the scenario in the exam, you will understand more what Russ meant in point number 5 above.
And this is a very important piece to pass the exam.

Analyze why you fail. If there is technology you still don't understand, read them. If you are still confused to choose one technology to the other, study them and make the comparison. Once you are done, book another seat.

Keep taking it until you pass.
Same like CCIE, if you persist you will eventually pass.

9 - By now you should know how to pass
Or not? Or perhaps, you don't want to follow point number 1 to number 8? Or you need help to guide you through?

I just bought ccde33.com domain name, so you can guess what I'm coming up next. Watch this space.

And did I say 10 points? I was lying. Or probably I'm just too full since the nice lady at Hard Rock keep feeding me with lots of nice dessert.

 

You may as well want to read the post I wrote 4 years ago: CCIE vs. CCDE

Good luck.

CCDE, Shall We?

This week I'm in San Diego for Cisco Live US 2012.

It's been an amazing week. Even on last Saturday I had to fly 17 hours to reach Los Angeles from Dubai. Even then I had to continue driving 200 miles to reach San Diego. Even I didn't sleep at all during the flight, and I was able to sleep only 3 hours before my session. Even I had to deliver the 9-hour techtorial on the very first day of Cisco Live, together with the CCIE Program Manager and an expert from TAC team. Even I was completely dead and slept whole day after the session.

Other than my session, the inspiring keynote speech and demo by the CEO, all other great sessions for full week, Cisco store and all the parties at nights, I also had chances to meet many great guys. From book author to distinguished engineers. From customers in US and abroad, to one great guy who invented label switched multicast.

Two guys I met who reminded me to my past, because I used their book and guidance to become CCIE, are: Bruce Caslow, and Brian Dennis. Caslow is the author of the first CCIE book I read in 1999: Bridges, Routers, and Switches for CCIEs. Brian Dennis is the CEO and instructor from INE whom his video-on-demand and workbook I used to pass my third CCIE track.

There are many great guys I met in Cisco Live San Diego, but those two are special because they reminded me about the good old days, or the hard days, when I was trying to pass the CCIE lab. It would be complete if Halabi and Doyle came to the event too, but I guess that would never happen.

Meeting people from the past brought up some spark to my mind: how if I take one more certification, for the last time?

I'm quite excited about the new CCIE Data Center, but I know it won't be available soon. So the only option I have now is the CCDE. Yes, I failed it couple of times in the past, and it looks like I can get only one final free attempt from Cisco. The exam has been updated to version 2 now, and I heard there are some improvement from the version 1 that I hate, no, I meant, the version that was not to my taste :)

There are several reasons why I should not go for another CCDE attempt:

- I work as solutions architect for Cisco Advanced Services. I'm a tech lead in the project with Cisco customers. I do design. I always do. And I do many more than what CCDE can test in the exam: meeting real customer, capturing real customer requirements, leading design workshop, managing resources, discussing and listening, writing design document, and many other design related tasks. And I have already 3 CCIEs, I work for Cisco and I have about 13 years experience working in the same field. I don't think I need to get certified as a network design expert.

- CCDE exam test the knowledge in high level design. No low level design task. No product specific. No hardware architecture. I do low level design for real customers. I work with the details from physical link, IP addressing to low level configuration of IGP, MPLS, BGP, customer services, multicast, QoS, security and management, to migration strategy. I use best practices and the result from lab simulation and testing. I'm not sure if someone who works in low level design and such detail needs to get certified in high level design knowledge.

- As mentioned previously, I have two lives. I work for Cisco in the day, and I run my non-profit organization at night. Or probably the other way around :) But in short, I'm always busy. I travel from time to time. I also have a family I need to spend my time with, as well as all other activities like offroading on the desert or snowboarding in Ski Dubai. Every certification requires the most expensive investment we have to make: time. Time that may better be spent to do something else.

As you can see I can come up with many reasons not to take CCDE. And yet I can only come up with one reason to do it: because I'm a big fan of Cisco certification program. I call myself CCIE evangelist. I truly believe Cisco certification can help anyone to start or advance his/her career. I'm a living proof of this: everything I knew about computer networking at the beginning of my career, I had it because I followed Cisco certification.

Decision, decision.
So what's it gonna be?

My cool tattoo, thanks to Cisco Live.
Wondering if I can add another one next year.

Yet Another CCDE Attempt

I've just done my second attempt of CCDE practical exam. It's still a very long, painful 8 hours and frustrating exam. But even I spent only few hours last night to prepare for it I was much happier this time. Probably because I know what to expect.

As part of the NDA that I signed, obviously I can't share much information about the exam content here. But there are several notes I want to highlight from this attempt:

- There are more candidates taking the test in London, 26 compare to only 16 in August, and the administrator told me the testing center is actually capable to hold up to 39 candidates. Is this a sign that CCDE becoming more popular? I don't know.

- At the same time I heard the exam in Hong Kong was canceled due to the lack of demand. It was canceled over there as well on August with the same reason. So the exam is not that popular in the region where english is not the native language? Probably. Probably because this exam requires a lot of reading and number of questions (all in english) that we need to analyze in 8 hours.

- I feel like there were some modification in the questions. No more unnecessary jokes in the email conversation. And the questions are more straight forward. There are still some confusing questions that made me want to bang my head to the computer screen, but the number is much less compared to the previous attempt. Confusing because I can't agree with the options provided in the questions to improve the design. But hey, it was not a real world challenge. It was just an exam, and any exam is meant to be confusing.

- During this attempt I've just realized that this is the most 'vendor neutral' exam from Cisco. The only sign that showing it's an Cisco exam is only the router icon and lots of EIGRP questions! But the focus of the exam is the analytical thinking to provide the high level network design and to solve the problems caused by design flaw. No product limitation discussion. No specific hardware related to Cisco. No Cisco IOS configuration. I believe the skill to pass the exam can be useful and applicable even for another vendors as well.

-What make it difficult for a design engineer to pass this Design Expert exam is: because when we see the scenario in the questions we tend to relate it with the real world design challenge and start getting into detail. I believe that's not what it is expected by the exam maker. The technical scope in the exam is a broad and high level. The most important, I believe, is the ability to analyze the questions and select the answer from the options available.

- Lunch provided by the testing center in London is better than the previous attempt. At least now they have the tuna and vegetarian sandwich instead of ham only. For this attempt I was more prepared: I slept for 7 hours. I had a good breakfast in the morning. I didn't eat much during lunch because it would make me sleepy during the second half of the exam. Remember, we need to stay focus and maintain our sanity for 8 hours.

- Security in the testing center was really tight. Not only I had to show 2 government-issued documents to prove my identity, I needed to sign, got my picture taken, and both of my palm were scanned multiple times! And I thought a simple fingerprint scan was adequate, or perhaps because there are already so many movies showing how we can beat the fingerprint scan easily?

- Last but not least, there were 2 female among the candidates. Good. Another proof that the computer networking world is not solely dominated by men!

Well, the long and painful 8 hours is done.
Now comes the hardest part.
Waiting 8-12 weeks for the result.

Project London II

I got the CCDE result yesterday and it's negative. There are several things that I hate around the result other than the fact that I failed:

- It took about 3 months to get the result
- The result was delivered using a hardcopy letter (what happens to online result? Now I can see the status: Fail in Vue website but no email notification like in CCIE)
- The result only shows the percentage for few generic design tasks: gather and clarify requirement, develop network design etc.
So it does not list in detail the result per technology or per scenario that I believe will make it difficult for a candidate to know his weakness. Getting 50% in develop network design section, for example, I believe it's not a clear feedback in order to be more prepared for the next attempt
- And as per today I can't find any official statement that saying the minimum percentage to pass the CCDE exam. Is it 80% like in CCIE?

Indeed I have booked for another attempt on next Tuesday in London. But at the end of next week I have to submit lots of documents for the project I'm currently working on. And this weekend I have already planned to go camping with the kids.

I don't think I can give up either one for CCDE. So I will just walk in to the testing center and try to stay awake for 8 hours, and rely solely on my common sense.

Let's see.

3 Types of Network Designer

The following writing is still related with the CCDE Practical exam that I took recently. IMHO, there are three types of designer for network infrastructure solution:

Designer for Solution: the one normally focuses on the high level solution, by considering customer business model, future growth and other non-technical stuff. The coverage of the design is usually broad, but not too deep, and the solution is for a complete infrastructure with all the supporting components, including the operational process and the operation management. Solution designer should be able to provide the high level topology network infrastructure with the technology to be used and the features need to be enabled, but neither is required to provide the details nor the exact hardware to be used. Characteristic and the features required from the hardware can be mentioned though, to make it easier for the hardware selection by later designer.

Designer for Pre-sales: similar with solution designer, but the coverage normally is less broad and more detail to support the sales activity. As example, while the solution designer may covers the whole infrastructure including the operational process, the pre-sales designer may cover only the data center but can provide the detailed topology for it. The pre-sales designer is the one who involves in the hardware selection, and she must ensure the hardware chosen can run the technology or features required in the solution. If there is capacity and future growth requirement in the design, it has to be considered as well during the hardware selection. The output expected from a pre-sales designer is high level design with the list of hardware required called Bill of Material.

Designer for Implementation: the one who focuses on the in-depth and bit level details of the design. Implementation designer must provide the low level design and make sure the solution can really be implemented using the hardware available. The list of hardware may have been decided by previous designer, so now it's time to make the solution really works. The coverage of the implementation designer can start from the physical topology and connection, module allocation in the hardware, IP addressing scheme, software to be used, up to the detailed configuration of each hardware. The technology and the features chosen may need to be adjusted accordingly based on the limitation from the hardware or the software architecture. And the configuration or the way to implement the technology or features is usually based on the best practices, lab testing or the previous experience in another networks.

One example when to use the different types of network designer is as follow: a solution designer is the one who builds the Request For Proposal (RFP) document for a complete solution including the operational support. So he stands on the customer side. A group of pre-sales designers, stand on the vendor side, can work to answer this RFP and each designer must provide the list of hardware for specific area that complies with the requirement. It is required for the pre-sales designer to submit the proposal explaining the high level design and how the proposed hardware can deliver the solution. And once the proposal is agreed, the hardware need to be ordered, and now it is time for the implementation designer to really make the solution works.

Which one of the designers is better? It depends.

As in the above example I mentioned, we can be the ones who set the direction of the new network infrastructure solution and technology to be used without having to know too much detail but instead must cover broader technology, we can be the ones who select the hardware and provide high level design to support the sales, or we can be the ones who work in low level design to implement the solution and configure the devices.

Sometimes a person must work as solution designer and pre-sales designer at the same time. And sometimes a person must even work as those three types!

Before I joined Cisco, I used to work as the solution designer, pre-sales and implementation designer role and my role may changed from one project to the other. Obviously at that time, as solution designer I gain benefit being outside Cisco because I was able to work even with the hardware from multiple vendors. But as implementation designer, I was not able to go deeper because I didn't have access to the detailed hardware and software architecture.

Since I joined Cisco Advanced Services about 3 years ago most of the time my focus has been in the implementation or after the list of hardware has been confirmed by the pre-sales designer. I must deal with the design limitation due to the hardware or software architecture. Most of my customers are Internet Service Provider or from Telecommunication industry. And in my last several projects I had to focus on the migration from the existing infrastructure to the new one, which means I have to deal more with the right methodology and the detailed procedures to transform the network without impacting the daily business of the customer.

The CCDE exam that I took few days ago covers the knowledge owned by the solution designer, and part of the pre-sales designer. It deals with the high level solution design. It is not required to know the limitation from the hardware, nor it is required to choose the hardware like what the pre-sales designer does. CCDE contents cover the different type of customer networks from different industry, from ISP to Retail, Financial, Media and so on. We don't need to know the in-depth and bit level details of the technology but we must know the reason why a particular technology is chosen in the solution.

So looking at the above facts, please allow me to make this statement even I haven't passed the exam to prove it: it is actually possible to just walk in to CCDE practical lab, without preparation, and pass it. As long as we have extensive experience with high level design for different type of networks. Plus we need the problem solving minded, the ability to capture only the related and important information, and a good stamina to stay focus with lots and lost of reading within 8 hours.

For me, if I really failed this attempt and need to take the exam again, at least now I know what to do. I need to get out from my current mindset that follows my current work where it is expected for me to focus in a very low level and detailed design, with a narrow technology area. I need to return back to my previous experience before I joined Cisco, when I used to support the pre-sales activities, and when I used to work with high level solution of multiple customer networks from different types of industry. Since my current work deals only with Service Provider networks, I may need to find some best practices documents, but not the in-depth implementation practices, but more like the high level design solution for different type of customer networks.

All of those will be necessary once I get the report 6-8 weeks from now, stating that I really fail. So let's just wait and see.

CCDE Practical, What (I Think) We Need To Pass It

I've just taken the CCDE Practical exam. The result will come only after 6-8 weeks, and frankly I don't know if I will pass or not due to the way the questions are presented. Mind you there are many questions require to drag-and-drop, fill in the table/matrix, re-ordering, and adding device/link into the existing network diagram, and in CCDE exam partial credit is possible.

For me, the content and coverage of the exam were a bit unexpected. So I wrote the following based on my own experience taking the exam today.

We Need a Very Good Stamina
- Surprisingly for the CCDE I found the time is not the main issue, 8 hours should be enough because we can't go back to the previous questions or re-check our work anyway. We just need to make sure to do each scenario within the average time allocated (if there are 10 scenarios, just divide 8 hours with 10 to get the average time we have per scenario)
- But what we really need is good stamina to be able to stay focus and concentrate after reading multiple different scenarios and hundreds of questions!
- Nice sleep and good dinner/breakfast is compulsory (in my case, lunch provided at testing center was horrible! And I was unlucky, I didn't have breakfast in the morning)

We Need to Have Broad "Design Experience"
- I believe there won't be any book or training to face this exam, the best practices design document or case studies may help
- We really need to have design experience and analytical skills, not as low level designer but more like as 'high level' solution designer
- Our experience and knowledge should cover the design for different type of customer network and industry, from ISP to Enterprise like Retail, Financial, Media etc in order to understand not only the challenges with the design of certain network type, but as well as type of the applications run and the network requirements of those applications that may affect the design decision

We Need to Understand What They Want
- Even we have extensive and broad design experience, our logic must sync with what the exam authors wanted
- Sometime there is more than one right way to solve the requirement, but we need to know which one is the expected answer based on the information provided
- Similarly, for re-ordering question, we need to make the order based on related information and which is the most correct (and for me it's still difficult to figure out the "right" order since I believe there is more than one possibility of the orders as the answer)
- CCDE Practical Exam Demo can show a brief example, the Networkers 2009 slides from Russ White can even provide closer view of the real practical exam

We Need to be Able to Relate Only the Important Information
- There are lots and lots of information provided, sometime half of the information is not important (but we still need to read and screen it at least during the first reading)
- But sometime the information can be very minimum, for example, for some application it's assumed that we know how it works
- This is the point where we need the good stamina so we can still focus especially in the last few hours, we also need the ability to capture only the important and the keywords from the overwhelmed information provided, and possess a broad and high level design experience in different type of network and industry to make us familiar with the challenges

We Need to Do "High Level" Troubleshooting Too
- It seems like the exam maker thought it was not enough with only the number of design decisions we must do, we also need to do some "high level" troubleshooting
- We may be asked to figure out what's wrong with the network or design flaw causing network issues, and instead of doing debug we must analyze it from series of information provided (sometime we need to choose which questions and further information to ask to the customer)
- Again, I believe for this part we have to rely on the experience with high level design, the logic and ability to capture only the necessary information, and possess the knowledge of technology overview instead of in depth/bit level details since we can't do any debug

And In the End, When We Fail
- Unfortunately even if we fail we may not able to be more prepared in the next attempt
- At least in CCIE lab if we can't ping definitely there is something wrong with our setup, and after we fail in CCIE we are presented with the break-down score for each technology section so we know which part is our weakness
- The CCDE exam contains multiple scenarios and bunch of questions for each scenario. From one scenario the questions may cover the routing, security, tunneling, management and Quality of Services technology areas and personally I'm not sure how I can figure out on which part is my weakness if I really fail (unless the score report can break it down per technology area for each scenario)

In summary, I fully support the statement of CCDE practical exam is as difficult as CCIE lab, even their coverage is not in the same context. And it may be more difficult if we consider the fact that we won't know for sure if we make mistakes. Even I feel like the design knowledge required to pass is more on the high level, but the most important things to have are the designer logic, broad knowledge of technology areas and the ability to capture only the necessary information before making any design decision.

So I think we need the above points I mentioned to pass this exam. But I can be sure only after I got my CCDE number, either in this attempt or the next.

Here is a link to CCDE practical tips from another test taker.

Confession From London

I'm not ready.
I hate to admit but that's the fact.

I don't like to make excuse but let me try it once at least for this: after I got back from the previous project to Dubai last week I had only 6 days before the exam. And I used the first two days, obviously, to sleep and watch several HD movies, to compensate what I have missed during that hectic project.

So I had roughly only three days to review and read some books, and I was still managing the project remotely at the same time (it means lots of emails, webex meetings, phone calls, remote SSH session etc). Then this morning I took 8 hours flight to London.

As I said before, yes I'm really lack in my preparation but I'm not lack of confidence at all. But I guess I have to rely solely on my project experiences in the past and the knowledge I've gathered from the previous certifications.

Let's see how it goes.

CCDE Practical Exam Registration is Open!

The next CCDE Practical exam registration is open. There are only three locations around the world: Chicago, London and Hong Kong, and the exam will take place on 26th August 2009.

The way to register was not very clear too me, so let me share it here in case you are confused too just like I was.

1. You need to pass the CCDE qualification 352-001 exam first
2. You need to have an account in pearsonvue.com (you should have it by now, since you must create an account there to register for the qualification exam)
3. Go to Cisco Learning Network, CCDE, Practical Exam tab.
Or just click this link.

4. Click on one of the locations in Registration Steps point no.2.
5. The location you select will take you to pearsonvue.com website, login, then select the 352-011 CCDE practical exam. Follow the procedure to pay the exam.

I believe the seat is quite limited so please hurry if you are interested. And if you want to take it with me, please select London :)

CCIE vs. CCDE

Many people have asked my opinion about CCIE vs. CCDE from time to time. Which one is better? Should I take CCIE, or CCDE with some mid-level professional certification such as CCNP/CCIP? Which certification will give me more chance to get a job? And so on.

I don’t have CCDE yet, so my answer below can be considered partial. You know, I’m a kind of guy who thinks I should have done or completed something first before I can give my full review about it. Been there, done that, then write a review. But that’s just me.

This afternoon I passed the CCDE written exam. I didn’t spend much time to prepare. I was busy writing a low level design, network migration plan and pre-sales document for customers in three different countries. And I currently have personal issue that makes me really run out of time, so studying CCDE was my lowest priority.

No time to study, no practice test, no reading books at all.

What I did: looked at the CCDE written blueprint and realized I have done and implemented most of the technologies listed either in real world networks or during my previous CCIE labs. So I just spent a couple of hours during the weekend to read Networkers presentation to refresh my memory for some specific technology, then walked to the testing center. Networkers slides are priceless, since they explain in detail about the technology with implementation case study and best practice. Now the material is available for public called Cisco Networkers Virtual with only €200 for annual subscription.

I don’t know if it’s possible to do the same for CCDE lab later on. Ah, it is not a real lab actually, but computer based exam instead. I guess if in CCDE written the questions are just about the implication of the protocols or design as separate different questions that are not related one to another, CCDE lab should provide more like scenario-based questions where there are series of questions that we have to answer to build or improve the design. So knowing the implication of running one protocol is not enough, we must know the implication in specific topology and scenario, where there are different requirements and other protocols running too. And the scenario in CCDE lab will start from gathering information about the requirements, before we can decide which design can fit to answer the requirements.

There is a practical exam demo in Cisco Learning Network, as well as some sample questions in Networkers presentation. I encourage you to check the slides and do the demo.

So here is the fact: CCIE was made with main focus on building a complex network with practical implementation in the lab, and troubleshoot the issues during the process. We can only troubleshoot something if we know how it works in normal operation. So by studying CCIE can make us understand how the protocol works in detail, know the limitation and implication of running multiple protocols at the same time, give us hands-on experience to implement them, and able to decide what is the best way to enable the protocols or features to answer the requirements.
But it is not a design exam.

The requirement stated in CCIE questions is not to test the design skill, but to ensure the candidates have deep understanding of the topic. What kind of design we can do with less than 10 routers anyway? We will surely utilize all the lab routers to enable the required protocols and features, without having to know the best practice design and the implications of running those chosen protocols in real world scenarios.
That is where the CCDE comes into play.

Most of the folks who built the CCDE program have CCIE and started their career as TAC engineers, who know how exactly the protocol works and how to implement it, as well as have seen how the network fails, before they all moved to become design engineers. They got design knowledge by implementing and troubleshooting the real world networks, with different topology and requirements. And personally, I believe this is the best way to become a real design expert.

So what is my answer to the original question? Which one is better, CCIE or CCDE? Well, it depends, as always :). To get a job in current situation you may want to get CCIE or multiple mid certifications such as CCNP/CCIP as well as other vendor certifications, depending on the requirement listed in the job description. Especially since CCDE lab will still need time before it’s available world wide. But if you really want to become a network designer with a solid knowledge and experience, why don’t you follow the path that was taken by most network designers, including those who made the CCDE program: take the CCIE first, get implementation and design experience from the real world, and then take CCDE in the end to backfill the missing knowledge, or to certify our skills as network designer, or just for fun.

I suggest you to read the Networkers slides about CCDE or check out the Cisco Learning Network to get more information.

If you had asked me a different question: which one is better, CCIE or IE certification from other vendors such as the JxxIE or HxIE? The answer would be easy and straight forward: CCIE! Why, you may ask? Well, because those vendors even when they are hiring most of the time they write: CCIE preferable.

With that, I rest my case.

CCDE Practical

Okay, I have to make a confession first. I’ve just realized that I need license to ride two-wheel vehicle. I need license to ride my Ninja! Can you believe that? Yeah, it is true, even in this part of the world it’s still true. And the worst part, without the street license I can’t apply to get a special license that will allow me to ride my bike inside the circuit. Instead of learning how to turn in high speed corner just like Valentino Rossi, now I have to face the fact that I can’t even ride my Ninja outside my neighborhood.

So in between my boring time to just ride around my home every morning and evening, I start looking at what I should do for my personal development in networking. As you can see from my previous post, I need to catch up and re-fresh my knowledge to keep me in shape as consulting engineer. I used to think that I should take Jxxxx certification just for fun. Well, another reasons are to keep me busy as well and to re-learn anything I may miss during the previous CCIE lab.

But then CCDE came into the picture.

I wrote it once that I know it will be difficult to measure design skill of someone, so I would love to see how the CCDE team is going to do it. And looking at what they have prepared so far and tested as beta exam, it seems like they may be able to nail it down.

Let’s start with the written test. Okay, it’s just regular as another Cisco computer-based test. Think about CCIE written. Or, since CCDE folks said there won’t be any configuration nor bit-level questions in the test, and it will be focused on the design implication, I guess it will be similar as the ARCH in CCDP exams. Perhaps much deeper and the coverage is wider since CCDE is for large-scale networks. Oh come on, just read the blueprint! What is worth to discuss from the written test for me is passing it will re-certify my CCIE. Nice.

Now about the Practice exam. It’s 8 hours just like CCIE lab. But no, it’s not a lab. In fact, it’s a computer-based exam. Disappointed? Wait, there are more. It’s scenario based. It starts with some information, document and email conversation from the customer. Then based on those, we need to dig more information by asking the right question. Have you seen iRobot movie? Where the detective must ask the right question or the hologram of Dr. Lanning would say "I'm sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions." Well, it’s a bit similar like that. Or not.

That’s just the beginning. Once we get more and more information, we need to answer a series of question related to the scenario. We must choose the right features to accommodate the requirements. And we always have to think about the implications. So no configuration. But it will really test the knowledge how to make a design to answer real problems. And we have to integrate business problems into it too.

Sound easy? Let’s just wait until we have a chance to do this test. Remember, it’s an 8 hours exam. There are several different types of questions: multiple right questions, drag and drop network diagram, ordering a list, match two lists. And if you check the reading list, the coverage looks heavy. Remember, the exam is developed by the team consist of senior design engineers who have been working for many years in Cisco. So they know what kind of challenges normally any designer must deal with and they have done many designs from beginning until implementation.

Another reminder, passing the exam doesn’t guarantee that we are a damn good designer. Just like CCIE lab, we must build our expertise on top of that. Passing the exam is, as always, just a beginning. Our design skill can really be tested once we have to meet the customer in real world, deliver the design that can satisfy the requirements, and make sure it can be implemented smoothly.

So I think the good side about CCDE practical exam format is it can really test the knowledge of each candidate in analyzing, making design, knowing the implication, and justifying the decision of the design and features. It requires broad technical knowledge, even there won’t be any configuration, and integrate all pieces into a useful whole. It also means each candidate must be able to understand the relation of customer’s business in every design and decision when choosing the features to be implemented. O yeah, CCDE team mentioned the exam can be considered as vendor neutral. So I guess there won’t be any specific question related to Cisco hardware there.

The bad side, there is no other aspect of designer skills tested in the lab. Skill in leading a requirements workshop to gather information, for example. Based on my experience some customers are not quite open until I gather all departments and meet them and try to find the missing information by initiating the discussion. And no test of presentation skill either. It is required during requirement workshop as well as design workshop when normally designer must explain, justify, and defend the design. Last but not least, it’s a computer-based exam. I mean, unless the CCDE team has a huge bank of scenarios the questions may become popular and repeatable after some time and people may pass by just memorizing the answers. I hope they find a way to tweak and modify the scenarios quite often so this won’t happen.

Btw, from where I got all this information? Some Networkers 2008 slides. I think it was presented last month. And if you have registered to Cisco Learning Network you can get more information, and you can even enjoy the discussion with the CCDE team directly. If you are not lazy enough, you can also find some example of CCDE practical exam. Oh yeah, some folk even put link to my blog somewhere there.

I think this CCDE practical exam can set the benchmark of minimum knowledge required to become a network designer. Just as CCIE has become a benchmark for any network engineer nowadays. And I really think it’s worth to take it. I can’t wait for them to release the practical exam world wide.

Cisco Certified Design Expert

Just got internal email regarding the new Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE) certification. From the email:

"The CCDE certification recognizes those with expert-level knowledge and skills in Infrastructure Design. CCDE is parallel to CCIE in terms of the expertise required and certification difficulty. It emphasizes network design principles and theory at the Infrastructure Layer and recognizes designers with the knowledge to assess network business requirements and translate them into technical specifications for successful designs."

Hmm, interesting. Especially for a Network Consulting Engineer who must breathe and live with network design everyday.

From the email that is released to public:

"What is a CCDE? The successful CCDE-certified individual must have a demonstrated an ability to analyze and develop solutions which address planning, design, integration, optimization, operations, security and on-going support focused at the infrastructure of large 1000+ node customer networks."

So.. is it 1000+ node for Enterprise or SP customers?

"Why Cisco Created the CCDE Program? Cisco created the CCDE program to respond to market demand in recognizing existing senior-level Network Designers and Architects while simultaneously providing senior Operations Engineers and Support Engineers with a validated professional development path into an Architectural role."

I'm just wondering how the lab test format will be. From the written test information, it seems like the topics covered are more into technologies on Service Provider or large Enterprise that provides network services for another companies (i.e. network resiliency, MPLS, TE, VPLS, L2TPv3, MPLS QoS etc and no common campus network features such as VLAN and switching, trunking, DHCP snooping, port security, etc). So will the lab exam similar as CCIE SP lab plus some design activities? Or just testing the knowledge in deploying common features that normally are deployed in any 1000+ nodes customer network? How to measure the design skill from each candidate?

I believe the real design skill is on the capability to capture all customer requirements correctly and to select the right features to answer each requirement accordingly. Knowing how to deploy the features is important, but knowing which features to deploy to address the requirements is far more important. So in the lab there might be story based scenarios to explain customer requirements and the candidate must figure out which features to answer and able to deploy the features successfully in order to build a complete network infrastructure. If required, there should be a presentation session in the end of the exam for the candidate to explain why he selects certain features to answer the requirements. Whatever format the lab will be, this new CCDE program is a breakthrough step from Cisco to accommodate market demand on Network Designers and Architects.

Let's just wait until Cisco releases the lab exam blueprint.