Why I chose to re-certify my CCIE using Cisco U credits

There are 2 ways you can re-certify your CCIE certificate:

1. Exam only - whereby you have to pass CCIE lab, CCDE written or a combination of technology core exam and professional level concentration exam
2. Exam and/or continuing education(CE) combination - whereby you can pass an exam and accumulate CE points to reach at least 120 CE credits

I have always chosen option 1 but this time around I chose the option 2 where i only did the CE credits by going through 2 intense courses on Cisco U.

What was the motivation to go Cisco U. ?

The main motivation was to learn something new and in case it can contribute to my CCIE recertification it was a plus on top of that my employer had a Cisco U subscription. so I started searching which topics I had not explored in the last few years at least from a Cisco point of view. I also realized the Routing and Switch field has been revamped with few more details on Wireless, SD-WAN, SD-Access, DNAC..

Which course did I chose and what was my tactics choosing?

My main goal was:

1. to get 120 CE credits.
2. to learn something enjoyable and reinforcing my previous knowledge.
3. to find courses that can give me the max of credits even if I have to spend on them more hours
4. to find courses with enough labs to practice different learned topics

With this in mind I ended up choosing two courses which I believe the pretty much matched my 4 goals above:

• Developing Applications Using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs(64 CE credits)
• Implementing and Operating Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies (64 CE credits)

How was the experience compared to the previous recertification method?

I would say the overall experience is positive as I had to refresh my knowledge on several subjects plus doing several labs. And also this is a way to learn something new and get some credits to recertify my CCIE. The courses are well written with a lot of materials almost 100hours of reading and labs for the 2 course i took.

One thing I liked about "Developing Applications Using Cisco Core Platforms and APIs" course is their topics on software development this is a course I would recommend to many network engineers who want to get their knowledge upskilled in the new trends of Devops and automation.

Budgeting

For people who want to minimize the recertification budget , this approach I took is not necessarily the cheapest one but for those who want a cheaper option also there is a lot of course you can combine here and there on Cisco U. to get to the amount of credits you want without spending more than 700$(remember the exam cost more than that).

Conclusion

Overall the experience was enjoyable and this is an approach I would take next time to recertify especially when I find new topics added that are inline with my career development but I also find it can take more time that using the old ways of preparing exam through my notes and schedule the exam.