Have you heard that Cisco changes its CCIE and CCDE exam policy? If you are planning to take or re-take CCIE or CCDE exams – written or lab- any time soon, be sure to keep the changes in mind. This especially concerns the cases of retakes (when you initially fail your exam). While we all hope to pass from the first try, the following information is definitely worth keeping in the back of your head.

Written Exam: Retakes

There is no limit to the number of attempts that can be made on the written exam, but it is compulsory to wait at least 5 days between exam attempts. Once you pass a particular written exam, you cannot retake it for 180 days (not that many candidates would choose to do it anyways, but sometimes, in light of recertification or the need to improve the score, some people do that).

Starting August 2, 2014, the following Cisco policy changes come into effect:

• Candidates who fail any CCIE or CCDE written exam must wait for a period of 15 calendar days, beginning the day after the failed attempt, before retaking the same exam.
• Candidates may attempt any CCIE or CCDE written exam up to four times per rolling calendar year. Candidates cannot retake the same written exam more than four times per rolling calendar year regardless of passing or failing the exam.

All candidates must wait 30 days between CCIE lab attempts. Please note that the 30-day period starts from the day after a failed lab exam.

Candidates who do not pass the CCDE practical exam can retake it during the next scheduled exam administration.

Effective August 2, 2014, the following policy changes will be enforced:

• Candidates who fail any CCIE lab exam on the first attempt must wait for a period of 30 calendar days before scheduling a second attempt at the same lab exam.
• Candidates who fail the second attempt at any CCIE lab exam must wait for a period of 90 calendar days before scheduling any further attempts. The same wait time will be applied to subsequent attempts until the fifth attempt.
• Candidates who fail a fifth attempt at any CCIE lab exam must wait for a period of 180 calendar days before scheduling any further attempts.
  NOTE: There is no wait time between a passed qualification written exam and the first lab or practical exam attempt. However, candidates must make an initial attempt at the CCIE lab exam or CCDE practical exam within 18 months of passing the CCIE or CCDE written exam.

Do you have any ideas? Please feel free to share them in comments.

Cisco strives to improve the flexibility of your CCDE exam experience by, firstly, increasing the number of exam locations from 8 to 275 (and counting). Secondly, when choosing your location, you will be able to register up to one day before the test date. Yet, Cisco encourages candidates to register at least 45 days in advance to ensure the exam site you need will be open for the required nine hours to administer the CCDE practical exam.

CCDE Practical Exam Topics:

1.0 Analyze Design Requirements – 36%

1.1 Analyze business requirements, conflicts, and constraints

• 1.1.a OPEX and CAPEX
• 1.1.b Project goals
• 1.1.c Lifecycle and return on investment (ROI)
• 1.1.d Business environment
• 1.1.e Compliance and policy

1.2 Analyze technical requirements, conflicts, and constraints

• 1.2.a Application requirements
• 1.2.b Compliance and policy

1.3 Analyze physical requirements

• 1.3.a Topology implications
• 1.3.b Operational requirements
• 1.3.c Analyze business and technical risks

1.4 Analyze existing network

• 1.4.a Network documentation
• 1.4.b Network infrastructure and its effect on network design

2.0 Develop Network Designs – 39%

2.1 Identify the technology to resolve a specific design problem

• 2.1.a Functional specifications
• 2.1.b Network designs
• 2.1.c Operational considerations

2.2 Analyze the effect on the existing network and services

• 2.2.a Functional specifications
• 2.2.b Network designs
• 2.2.c Operational considerations

2.3 Incorporate best practices within the network design

• 2.3.a Avoidance of over-engineering
• 2.3.b Consistent and modularized solution sets throughout the network
• 2.3.c Industry best practices

2.4 Incorporate business requirements within the network design

• 2.4.a OPEX and CAPEX
• 2.4.b Lifecycle and return on investment (ROI)
• 2.4.c Compliance and policy

3.0 Implement Network Design – 13%

3.1 Analyze implementation options

• 3.1.a Effect on design
• 3.1.b Effect on performance, availability, and network management
• 3.1.c Effect on the business
• 3.1.d Risk and consequence for a given implementation plan

3.2 Design an implementation plan

• 3.2.a Interdependencies between services, failure domains, and other architectural elements
• 3.2.b Implementation timeline and steps
• 3.2.c Contingency plans for network restoration

4.0 Validate and Optimize Network Design – 12%

4.1 Analyze design choices based on specifications

• 4.1.a Effect of implementing changes to the original design
• 4.1.b Effect of different design solutions created by new drivers

4.2 Validate design

• 4.2.a Test strategy
• 4.2.b Performance metrics and baselines

4.3 Optimize design

• 4.3.a KPI
• 4.3.b Baselines

9 HOURS???

The Cisco CCDE Practical Exam lasts 8 hours. This is a scenario based design exam that aims to assess the candidate’s ability to analyze design requirements, develop network designs, justify design decisions, and validate and optimize a network design that is based on best practices. You will be expected to demonstrate your ability to apply your specific body of knowledge into current business problems of technical network design. The exam, however, does not test for any product-specific knowledge including version of code, implementation and operations specific concepts (assuming you know this already if you’ve made it that far up the Cisco certification ladder).

The exam consists of four sections, and each section contains 25 to 35 queries focused on a different scenario. The total time allotted for the exam can be up to nine hours when the lunch break is included. Candidates can take a lunch break after they have completed section 2 of the exam. Do note that if you return early from lunch, this will not increase the second four-hour block. If you return late, however, your second block will be shorter by the time you’ve been late for. So just don’t be late.

Remember that you won’t be able to go back to a previous query if you have already moved to the next one. Scenario documentation is presented at the beginning of each section. Additional scenario documentation will appear throughout each section – you’ll be getting notifications every time a new document is available for your reference.

You’ll be able to access your results in about 48 hours after completion of the exam by logging in to the Cisco Career Certification Tracing Stem. Don’t be worried, however, if you do not see your results in 2 days as they may take up to 10 business days to appear. Results are Pass/Fail and failing score reports indicate major topic areas where additional study and preparation may be useful. Cisco no longer mails hard copy score reports.

So, as Cisco brings the CCDE practical exam closer to you, it can become just another motivation to boost your career in network design.

This is no secret that Cisco has significantly revamped its certification program, especially CCENT and CCNA, earlier this year. Originally announced in late March, the changes and new CCNA tracks were fully implemented this fall.

So, these are the Cisco certification levels we’re looking at now:

Entry Certifications

• CCENT
• CCT (CCT Data Center; CCT Routing & Switching; CCT TelePresence)

Associate Certifications

• CCNA Routing and Switching
• CCDA
• CCNA Data Center
• CCNA Security
• CCNA Service Provider
• CCNA Service Provider Operations
• CCNA Video
• CCNA Voice
• CCNA Wireless

Professional Certifications

• CCDP
• CCNP
• CCNP Data Center
• CCNP Security
• CCNP Service Provider
• CCNP Service Provider Operations
• CCNP Voice
• CCNP Wireless

Expert Certifications

• CCDE
• CCIE Collaboration
• CCIE Data Center
• CCIE Routing & Switching
• CCIE Security
• CCIE Service Provider
• CCIE Service Provider Operations
• CCIE Voice (Retiring February 13, 2014)
• CCIE Wireless

Architect Certification –  CCAr

What has changed in 2013?

If you are collecting information about CCENT and CCNA from message boards and brain dumps, be sure you’re looking at the updated 2013 data. This is important as CCENT and CNAA appear to have been changed the most.

What we hear may be sad news to many out there: CCENT (ICND1; exam 100-101, which can also be part of your CCNA R&S) has gotten harder – significantly. Subjects added, especially the labs, go more in depth and cover a lot more aspects (including lots of IPv6 stuff) compared to the old CCNA. CCENT Certification hasn’t been a joke before and it has gotten much further from being one now! This certification is also now a prerequisite for most CCNA certifications (except CCNA R&S, CCNA Data Center and CCNA Service Provider).

The Associate level programs, according to Cisco, have been redesigned to better fit the industry needs and the roles networking professionals need to fill. Yes, it means even more practical hands on stuff. To achieve advanced technology certification in an accelerated manner, you now need to pass only two required exams.

As upper certification levels haven’t been affected by the changes to such a degree (we’ll go over them in separate articles), another change to the Cisco certification structure would be the new recertification timeframes.

Renewal and Recertification Timeframes

If you decide to settle on your already achieved certification and do not intend to go up another level any time soon, keep in mind that Cisco Entry, Associate and Professional level certifications last for 3 years. When this time is up, you will have to renew it. Meanwhile, all CCIE and Specialist certifications last for 2 years. And in you’ve made it all the way up the Cisco scale and are now Cisco Certified Architect (no words are enough to express the respect you deserve for that!), your awe-inspiring certification will need to be renewed after 5 years.

A gentle reminder that if you do not register and pass your Cisco recertification exam before your certification expires, you will have to repeat the entire certification process. Now, you do don’t want to challenge yourself this much, do you?

And for those of you planning to recertify, here’s your Recertification Roadmap:

Specialist Recertification Roadmap

Collaboration  

• Cisco Unified Presence Specialist
• Cisco Unity Design Specialist
• Cisco Unity Support Specialist

Data Center      

• Cisco Data Center Application Services Design Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Application Services Support Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Storage Networking Design Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Storage Networking Support Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Design Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Support Specialist

Operating System Software     

• Cisco IOS XR Specialist

Security              

• Cisco ASA Specialist
• Cisco Firewall Security Specialist
• Cisco IOS Security Specialist
• Cisco IPS Specialist
• Cisco Network Admission Control Specialist
• Cisco VPN Security Specialist

Video  

• Cisco Video Network Specialist
• Cisco Rich Media Communications Specialist
• Cisco TelePresence Solutions Specialist

Retired Certifications

This year, Cisco has retired 6 certifications:

• CCIE Storage Networking
• Cisco Data Center Networking Infrastructure Design Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Networking Infrastructure Support Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Storage Networking Design Specialist
• Cisco Data Center Storage Networking Support Specialist
• Cisco TelePresence Installations Specialist

All of these retired certifications have relevant replacement available, so you can easily find a new destination for your Cisco journey.

Which Cisco certification do you have your eyes on now? Feel free to tell us in the comments. And – although the road can get bumpy sometimes, remember to keep your eyes on the prize.