How Much Are You Worth?

"I have a CCIE. But why my salary is not as high as expected?"
"I've just passed CCIE. Why don't I get salary increase?"
"Why my salary as CCIE is far below the market's salary survey?"

Have you heard such questions before?
It's 2014 and I'm surprised I still get emails from time to time asking either one of those questions. I thought the answers are straight forward. But in case you are one of them who sent the email, please allow me to enlighten you.

Most companies pay you based on "perceived value". It's based on opinion of your value to the company. It may have little or nothing to do with the salary range in the market. And it depends on the your ability to satisfy company's requirements.

The opinion can be shaped based on the certification that you have. It may use the market's rate as guideline. It may include your experience into consideration. And usually the opinion is associated to the internal company's rank and salary range.

Now let's go through the following questions:

Do you think you deserve your CCIE?
Do you really have the skill set of a CCIE, or you just know how to pass the exam? Don't bother to answer or throw nasty comments here. If you don't deserve your CCIE, your employer will find it out. Either earlier during the interview process or eventually after you have to perform daily work. And honestly I have no further advice for you.

Are you in the right company?
Obviously if you are a CCIE but you work in company that does not require skill set defined by CCIE certification program, you should not expect much. Sample of companies that still require employees with CCIE skill set are: Cisco partners, Service Provider/Telecommunication companies, Large enterprise, training companies etc.

Are you in the right position?
Let's assume you are in the right company. You have multiple CCIE certifications. But you take a role in Network Operation Center to monitor daily operation. There is nothing wrong with the role, but such task can be performed even by someone who has lower skill set than a CCIE. Obviously to get raise or higher salary you have to move to more senior position in the NOC, or switch to another role like consultant for integration project that requires you to use your multiple CCIE skills.

Are you relevant?
Relevant can mean your skill set is updated with the latest industry's requirement. Relevant can also mean your skill set contributes directly to your company's business. For example: even if you work in large enterprise with complex network, even if your job is crucial to maintain the daily operation, but your company, while it indeed runs on top of the network infrastructure, it does not make money immediately from the network infrastructure but from other product or services, then unfortunately you may be considered as 'overhead' or 'cost center'. You may disagree, but compare the situation with a consulting company that sells your skill set to its customer and they charge based on the number of man days your perform the work. You get the idea.

In summary, if you can see direct link of your expertise and CCIE skill set with the business your company is doing, you should expect to get a better pay. Or you can simply move to another company that will value you more.

And my opinion about salary survey report?
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

DEW Testimony

Thanks to God !! Finally all the effort to be Design Expert is paid off!
I really appreciate to Himawan for his knowledge and passion about CCDE mindset, insight and learning strategy to help my CCDE journey.
They are really enlightening and accelerating.
“Learn from the best to be the best” really works for me.
Thanks Him, great to have you as my mentor!!
All the best, brother :)
(Hinwoto – CCDE #2014::4 / CCIE #15026 RS & SP)

Thanks, Hinwoto, for the kind words.
And congratulations once again for your CCDE.

I can't make anyone to pass CCDE. And I don't think anyone can give promise that he or she can make you pass CCDE exam. The only person who can make you become CCDE is yourself. I, and all other CCDE study groups, training vendors, or individuals who spend time to help others to pass CCDE, can only help with knowledge and tips to prepare for the exam. You are the one who has to push yourself to continue learning. You have to gain experience and real design skills. You are the one who will make decision to get certified or not.

I can only show you the door, Neo. You're the one that has to walk through it.

And as much as I like to see people who can pass CCDE after taking my advices or attending DEW, I would like to see more real Design Expert Warriors like Hinwoto.
Not only more certified people.

Are you ready to take the red pill?

DEW: SP Design in Jakarta - March 2014!

The final installment of DEW trilogy will happen in Jakarta, 15-16 March 2014!

After the first Design Expert Weekend in Riyadh focusing on IPv4/IPv6 Routing Design, the second DEW in Dubai for MPLS/Tunneling Design, the third and last DEW will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, for Service Provider Design.

Please note: this is NOT a free event. I'm going to visit several universities in Indonesia to share my knowledge and experience during the same week. The profits we make from this DEW will be used to fund my trip. If you have to fly from outside Indonesia to attend this, we will provide all the food and accommodation during the weekend.

What:
Design Expert Weekend in Jakarta on 15-16 March will focus on Service Provider Design. Agenda will cover:

- Physical Network Design
- Layer 2 Design
- IGP/MPLS/BGP/Multicast as Transport
- MPLS Based Services L3VPN, L2VPN
- Internet Services
- IPTV Services
- High Availability Design
- SP QoS Design
- Security and Management
- 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:MPLS/Tunneling Design (MPLS L2VPN, L3VPN, inter-provider, Tunnel protection/MPLS TE, other tunnelling include IPv6 over IPv4/MPLS)

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 Jakarta, Indonesia.

When:
Saturday-Sunday, 15-16 March 2014 from 8 am to 5 pm.

How:
2-day workshop to discuss design aspect of Service Provider 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.

For anyone interested with DEW for CCDE exam preparation, it's strongly recommended to go through "CCDE Experience" slides and webex recording prior to attend the event.

There is fee to attend each DEW that will be used to cover the expenses such as meeting room, wireless Internet, lunch, coffee break, effort to build workshop material. And after all the expenses, the remaining will be used to fund my organization.

The reservation is first come, first serve.
And your seat will be guaranteed only after you have completed the payment.
There is special discount for Indonesians who are willing to join this DEW.

Please send email to info@jawdat.com to get more detail information.

CCIE and CCDE Certificates

Which design do you prefer? My heart goes with the 2001.

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)

-------------------------------------------------------
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.