Hi there!
I’m a 28years-old Belgian network engineer working for a telecommunication company. I’m currently CCNP and as I don’t work on all technologies on my day-to-day job I found it great to get a full access on this website. I know this platform for a long time, I went here many times when I was looking to deeply understand some topics. Today I decided to be a part of it in order to enjoy all the shared information.
I’m actually not sure if I want to progress further on Cisco cert, I first thought I would give a shot on the CCIE written but at the end I’m asking myself if the EU market has a real demand about it. I would like to have your opinion about it
I’m in a point where I must define the next step, I’m currently working on Wireshark certification, the next step will probably be a security cert (from CompTia maybe) and then from specific vendor like Checkpoint of Palo Alto.
The CCIE written exam alone isn’t worth much, it’s a stepping stone to the lab.
Whether CCIE R&S is worth it or not is difficult to answer. I believe it’s not the holy grail it once was anymore but it definitely has value.
Any CCIE certification takes a lot of time. As a rule of thumb, I always mention it takes about 1000 hours to pass the lab. That’s a lot of studying…you can also spend this time learning about Wireshark, security, python, network automation, some other stuff and still have a lot of spare time. You can get a lot of different certifications in the time it takes to complete one CCIE track, and it’s probably easier to market yourself. CCIE R&S alone isn’t enough nowadays…
On the other hand, adding a CCIE number under your name works in your favor. It’s yours, as long as you re-certify every two years (that’s a pain). It’s similar to a bachelor degree, you add it to your resume and it helps to open doors. If you already have quite some certifications, CCIE is a nice personal challenge as well