Requirements for Certification
There are no formal prerequisites for CCIE certification; other professional certifications or training courses are not required. Instead, candidates must first pass a written qualification exam and then the corresponding hands-on lab exam. You are expected to have an in-depth understanding of the topics in the exam blueprints and strongly encouraged to have three to five years of job experience before attempting certification. You can review the exam preparation materials included on this page for more information.
Step One: CCIE Service Provider Written Exam
You must pass a two-hour, written qualification exam before you are eligible to schedule a CCIE lab exam. Currently candidates may choose from among eight different SP written exams--Cable, Dial, DSL, IP Telephony, Optical, WAN Switching, Content Networking snd Metro Ethernet--on which half the questions cover general IP concepts and the other half focus on the specified topic. Effective October 1, 2006, Cisco will introduce a single, comprehensive written exam which focuses on packet architecture and the technologies used to support rich managed services. Between October 1, 2006 and February 1, 2007, this new exam will be offered as an additional option among the existing written exams. Effective February 1, 2007 however, the new SP written exam will replace the eight single-topic SP exams and become the only exam which qualifies candidates to schedule an SP lab exam. Candidates interested in taking one of the single-topic SP written exams should schedule a testing date prior to February 1, 2007.
