How will we reach good fortune on this trade? It was once the query I contemplated twenty years in the past after I got down to take my occupation to the following degree and achieve what few have: the Cisco Qualified Internetwork Professional (CCIE) certification. 

Now main the CCIE program as Cisco’s Director of Certifications, I’ve skilled firsthand the innovative have an effect on of this program on my friends and the trade.  

This yr, we have a good time the 30-year anniversary of the CCIE certification. Let’s glance again at the place we got here from—and the way some distance we’ve come. 

Temporary Historical past of the CCIE Program 

• 1990: Networkers Customers Symposiums launches: As networking booms with new ranges of connection and extra demanding situations in connectivity, we release Networkers Customers Symposiums – sometimes called “Networkers.” The convention, later renamed Cisco Are living, permits consumers to be told, collaborate, and develop the trade in combination.  
• 1993: CCIE release: Cisco introduced the CCIE program publicly on September 27, 1993, when then-CEO John Chambers was once quoted, “The CCIE program starts the place different distributors’ certification systems go away off.”  
• Amusing reality: The unique identify of this system was once going to be “Cisco Best Gun.” Alternatively, the well-known Tom Cruise film through the similar identify had simply been launched. We figured there is also some criminal problems in the usage of that identify… so as a substitute, we selected “Cisco Qualified Internetwork Professional.”
• 1993: First CCIE Award: The CCIE program selected to begin its numbering device with 1024 (2 to the facility of 10). That quantity went right into a plaque at the CCIE lab itself in San Jose, CA, adopted through quantity 1025, awarded to the primary individual to earn the CCIE. And the remainder is historical past.  

My CCIE Adventure 

My pastime in changing into a CCIE began within the past due 90s. Tech was once very other from lately. The internet was once evolving, and networking was once an absolutely new thought. I used to be on the lookout for a problem to advance my occupation.  

When researching methods to take my occupation to the following degree, I came upon Cisco, a lovely new tech corporate on the time. No longer most effective did I give you the option to check my talents with the CCIE program, however a window of alternative. The examination ensured perfection, and I appreciated the problem.  

Changing into a CCIE opened occupation developments for me. No longer most effective was once I ready to obtain promotions with extra pay, however I additionally won extra peer recognize and popularity—as did my colleagues who won the certification. There’s a top degree of recognize for individuals who reach CCIE. You transform a part of an elite team.

On the whole, price is immediately an identical to the relevancy of a product. If the CCIE check was once beside the point to what I did in my activity, I should not have pursued it. And if it was once now not up to date to the generation of lately, this system would fail. I’ve been a CCIE for 20+ years and will nonetheless follow my learnings from this system. 

CCIE program is a real check of deep wisdom and revel in, an endorsement (validation) of being a professional – crème de l. a. crème! 

The CCIE Program’s Transformation Over Time 

As generation has developed, this system has modified considerably. Within the early days, the CCIE program was once a two-day check, the place applicants spent the primary day putting in the {hardware} and initializing the pod with elementary configurations. Then, applicants would come again for a 2nd day to accomplish extra complex configurations, spending the second one part of the day troubleshooting situations. 

Nowadays’s CCIE program has been streamlined to a one-day check, taking away the now trivial steps and focusing extra on community technique, structure, and the community lifecycle, together with making plans and designing to fulfill buyer necessities. The improved lab examination is concentrated at the end-to-end community lifecycle from Day 0 (making plans & designing), Day 1 (enforcing and deploying), and Day 2 (running & keeping up), trying out complete talents throughout all the spectrum of community answers. 

Beginning final yr, we offered Cisco Certification Roadmaps, an agile and iterative cadence-based style to replace tests extra continuously and incrementally, preserving them extra present and related, aligned with fast generation evolution, and making sure relevancy for lately. The roadmap will supply well timed and related data to stay you forward of adjustments being offered as you find out about for the CCIE examination and all different Cisco certifications.  

Sign up for the CCIE Party

Sign up for us in celebrating the 30th anniversary of this system and transform part of the #CCIE30 group! 

In June, we kicked off celebrations at Cisco Are living in Las Vegas, however we can be celebrating world wide all the way through the yr. Every CCIE lab web page will host “birthday” celebrations, bringing consumers and staff in combination to proportion tales and speak about how the CCIE program modified their lives.  

How Can You Transform a CCIE? 

This examination is ready validating your revel in—within the box and in actual existence. 

Most of the people who fail lack revel in. I might know. I failed in the past, now not because of loss of finding out however as a result of I used to be nonetheless too new in my occupation. When I began in fact doing the situations offered within the examination in my activity, my studying sped up, and so did my CCIE prep. It was once all about getting hands-on and training. 

Even upon getting preferably won 5 to seven years of revel in, you continue to should get ready. Changing into a CCIE is tricky paintings, however now we have assets to be had to you.  

Whether or not you’re for your adventure to changing into a CCIE or operating towards advancing your occupation generally, I go away you with this recommendation: Center of attention on pursuing excellence, and good fortune will practice. 

Sign up for the CCIE Group at the Cisco Finding out Community. | Join Cisco U.

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