Cisco Cert Exams need to be revamped

After a week of reading, taking notes, lab work, I wrote the cisco academy exams and hands-on skills, followed by the CCNP ISCW cert exam. I've been doing these certifications and exams for quite a long time now and thought while sitting here at the Calgary airport I may as well jot down a few observations and thoughts I've been mulling around as a result.

I just took a look at a  mock testing exam someone sent my way from Pass4Sure. Having just written the ISCW I was able to note that almost every question on this mock test was identical to what was on the certification. I was amazed! Someone, I think from China judging by the language on parts of the screenshots, had actually screen captured all the exam questions including parts of the testlets. I went through the exam to see how their answers matched to mine, and noticed a couple of the testlets were way off, but for the most part, the answers were fairly accurate. So, what does this mean? Well for starters, it definitely lowers the credibility of the cisco exams at the CCNA & CCNP level. The CCIE still holds its value due to the lab exam, but the written only parts for the rest of the cert exams have now been relegated to nothing more than a formality.

Although the cheat exams are not a new concern, I really haven't spent a any time thinking or caring about it until recently. As an instructor at a cisco academy, I think certificates and diplomas from accredited cisco academies are now almost a must have for students without previous networking experience. I believe this provides an employer with some substantiation as to the credibility of the certification designation for a potential employee. Obviously, if you have 5+ years of experience in the networking field, that will speak for itself, but for younger up and coming network engineers, the lab work and hands-on skill testing at an academy is invaluable. I discussed this point with a colleague who mentioned that in his CCNP classes, it is often painfully obvious the difference between students that obtained their CCNA after going through an academy program and those that followed a quick and easy do-it-yourself approach. Now this by no means means that you can't do it at home if you are a motivated individual with a good study plan and access to the hardware, but at the intro level this doesn't seem to be the norm.

So, lets focus on this for a moment. Most academies that I have talked weight their hands on skills much more heavily than the chapter and final assessments that are part of the cisco academy. As instructors, we are all aware that these assessments are readily available on the Internet if you know where to search, so we have to find ways of assessing the true knowledge of our students. Hence why we turn to hands-on practical scenarios that test concepts as opposed to the silly process of memorizing the default options or menu items in the cisco graphical configuration manager.  I found the ISCW exam to be riddled with very questionable pedagogical value. If cisco do not improve this, then their certifications will, and some would argue already have, relegate their intro and intermediate certifications to a laughing stock.

Now please don't confuse what I think about the cert exam questions with the material and skills you are expected to learn and master as part of the requirement for a cert such as the CCNP/CCVP. My issue and opinion is that the cert exams do not fairly assess proficiency. I have studied much of the CCNP curriculum backwards and forwards from having to teach it, but when I come out of the cert exams I almost feel ripped off in how little opportunity I had to demonstrate my grasp of the material.

I'm sure cisco have recognized these issues and are working on solutions, but here is my 2c. DYNAMIPS!  Building on the fact that the testlets appeared to be where the Pass4Sure exam was weakest, more simulation certainly appears to be attractive. I must also confess that I enjoyed the testlets. Granted they were fairly simple for the most part, but they were the questions I felt assessed my skills more fairly. The config type questions were probably the next best, but I think simulations could achieve the same assessment objective. So why not shorten the written section to about 20 or 30 GOOD individual questions or ones based on testlets/scenarios, and then tack on a 2/3 hour practical simulation? I realize the marking now becomes an issue, but I'm sure an assessment tool, similar to an improved version of what is available in packet tracer, could be developed. I suppose some would argue that this would increase the cost, but then and again my daughter's Royal Conservatory Grade 1 Music theory exam cost about $125 and that is manually marked! However, more importantly, I believe this would dramatically improve the credibility of the cert exams. Look at the respect the CCIE still garners! Although it is partly due to the shear quantity of knowledge and understanding one has to attain, I believe the prestige still comes from the fact that you have had to demonstrate your skills in a complex and challenging proctored hands-on skills assessment.

Well the plane is about to board so I'll end it there. Certainly some food for thought.

Another quick Social Networking Optimization

Made a quick foray into REDDIT. I thought it would be a great intermediate point to track articles I read, but not necessarily ones I want to share on GReader or bookmark on DIIGO. However I discovered I was limited to submitting articles every 9 mins. So I decided to forget that idea.

In order to maintain some semblance of productivity, I'm trying to discipline my reading and information gathering time during a day. Friendfeed is a part of my personal learning network, but I find the noise a little too much right now. I went through a major hiding spree a while ago, and although it trimmed the feed down dramatically, I'm still finding a very high Signal to Noise ratio. As a result I'm likely going to cut back even more on who I subscribe to and whose friends of friends I see. I find that I still get a lot of what I need news wise from GReader. I find most of the usual A-list FFeeders just regurgitate information I would have come by anyway, and most of the comments are just fluff. I do wish there were more people I connect with in my real life community using Friendfeed. I would probably find the comments at that level to be much more fulfilling. Maybe I'll try using FriendFeed as part of one of my classes this fall. I'll have to think about it.

Municipal Fiber

I thought I would write down a few points made at the BC Broadband conference on Municipal fiber while it is still fresh in my mind. I certainly don't need to redefine the idea of municipal fiber and the concept of Fiber to the Home (FTTH). There are so many resources on the topic that I couldn't possibly do it justice.

However one thing that came out loud and clear from the conference was that open access to the last mile is a recognized problem and something ISPs and CLECs are beginning to move into their agenda. Although I have been evangelizing the need for fiber to the home for the past decade, the options and designs on how to make this a reality are still viewed as being immature at this stage. However I feel that with some of the measures being taken by municipalities like Coquitlam and Kamloops, we may start seeing some solid movement on this front. Most municipalities I have dealt with still refuse to see the vision and grasp the necessity of why it is so important to initiate a municipal fiber infrastructure strategy for the community. If there is no champion to take on the charge within the city, then it is almost impossible to make anything happen.

Some of the points made at the conference were as follows:

• More freedom is required to work around the Rights of way and building access within municipalities
• Municipalities should not put themselves in the position of competing with service providers. That being said, provision of the layer 1 infrastructure is not classed as competing for services, but rather enables access to clients for ISPs & CLECs to offer competitive & advanced broadband services.
• We need a more competitive network and telecom services market place.
• It is not enough for a municipality to just provision the fiber with a 'build it and they will come' strategy. In order to be successful, there must service providers willing to commit to offering the advanced high speed services. In my opinion, High Speed broadband is not the ADSL & Cable Modem speeds we have today, but more along the lines of 100Mb/s to the home.
• A Municipal fiber strategy is hard to justify if the business case focuses only on local businesses and schools. HIgh density multi-dwelling units are the easiest to start with. Nevertheless, there are a lot of tangible un-quantifiable benefits of a municipal fiber infrastructure strategy that a business case can't address.

A productive broadband conference

I'm here at Vancouver airport having just spent the past couple of days attending the BC Broadband conference. I'll be honest, I hadn't really known about Open Source Solutions before this event and I must say it was well worth the visit to connect with some of the small ISPs in the province as well as the decision and policy makers of Network BC. As is always the case with these events, you end up hitting it off with peers you would never have had the opportunity of meeting otherwise.

On Tuesday morning I spoke on a panel for municipal fiber. I actually didn't realize I was supposed to present until the afternoon before which didn't leave a lot of time for prep; especially since I was busy 'networking' until the wee hours of the morning on Monday. Having attended a number of conferences in the past decade, I really can't emphasize enough the doors one can open at these post conference soirees. They are great opportunities to communicate in a more relaxed environment and sometimes off the record.

But back to the presentation. I definitely can't say it was the best spiel I gave, but I'm hoping I managed to cover most of what I was hoping to get across. Hindsight is always 20/20 and you always look back and think of additional points you would like to have made or had expressed more eloquently. One of downsides to not being prepared. Nevertheless I think the most important aspects were brought to light between the four of us on the panel. I'll save my thoughts and summary of the points made for another blog post. I'm looking forward to engaging some of the contacts made at the conference over the next month.

On a personal note, I ended the evening attending the Iron Maiden concert. I've, always enjoyed their music, but this was my first opportunity to see them live. Words can't really do the experience justice, Spectacular performance, effects and artwork! They are as tight as they ever were and Bruce's voice is still going strong.