Studing for the CCIE Lab Exam is a lonely journey! You have to make little choices, like, study, or spend some quality time with family, go out with friends for a couple beers, or sweat a little more in front of the computer. Little things like that… :)
But, that is just the study part, what happens after the certification?! Well… I´m personally not there yet, but I have a few friends who are! And they always tell me that there´s where all the fun is!
Nobody calls a CCIE Engineer to rack and stack new equipment, or to simple change an interface IP Address, no no no! They all expected CCIEs to be the “super hero” that will save the network from the evil monster “malfunction” or his partner “not working at all”!
CCIEs will face all kind of stress situations, financial centers experiencing down time due to poor configurations, people running insane due to the interruption, and things like that! The CCIE Engineer must have more than High-Level Technical Knowledge! He needs to be cold to focus on the problem, and forget about everything else! He needs to be a detective, to find out what went wrong! Interviewing all the witnesses who never saw nothing: “It was working just fine when I arrived today, nobody touched the routers! I don´t know why that happened! I´m loosing millions! Please help me!“
That´s more likely a CCIE job!
Projects, consulting, maintenance, if there´s a CCIE in the team, the final words will belong to him, always! He´s the one expected to validate everything! But wait! How about the implementation?! Who´s going to be in charge of that!? Hmmm… good question! Is it a difficult one?! Or even better, any non-expected interruption can cause customer a huge loss?! So… guess who is going out after hours to do that?! Yeah… you probably know the answer… The CCNA/CCNP guy that is in charge for the implementation PLUS the CCIE Engineer during the changes! Others will prepare everything according to the plan, but, when the time comes, the CCIE is expected to be there! If his original action plan was carefuly made, he´ll just be there for a while, quick chat with the guy in charge for the turn-over and run some final tests to check everything. Otherwise, the CCIE is expected to show all his knowledge and mitigate what went wrong, fixing it, before the maintenance window expires!
Also, do not expect to get a new job, the one of your dreams, just for been a CCIE. Not at all! Companies who hire CCIEs already have CCIEs in their staff, and guess “who” is going to interview you?! Yeah… you´re right, one or more CCIEs, and, I don´t think that will be easy!
So, been a CCIE Certified Engineer is not a walk in the park! But it is so FUN! All the new stuff will come to you, dangerous situations (try to bring a customer down, and see if you can walk out there in one piece! Just kidding! Don´t do that! They´ll really hurt you! lol).
But really, the greatest part of it?! Been better than yesterday! Just remember: Getting CCIE Certified is an ardous task, but, honor it after you pass the lab exam is even more difficult!
Good lucky for everybody!
Cheers!