Permanent Failure: JNCIE-SP #1999 Expired

I will only have JNCIE-SP status for a few more days. My renewal strategy of taking the JNCIP-SP exam to refresh myself on the structure and to determine my weak points in the exam was sound. But I decided much too late that I was going to try to renew my JNCIE and so the schedule did not allow for it. And so, this is the end.

I'm going to break this down for anyone looking to renew their JNCIE and this will likely be the final post I make on this topic.

The Policy As Written

Exam Retake Policies

Written Exams

Candidates who fail their first attempt at an exam can retake it at any time. However, for any future attempts, a candidate must wait a period of 14 calendar days, beginning the day after the failed attempt, before they may retest for the same exam. Once the exam is passed, the candidate must wait at least 18 months before retaking the exam, which would generally be for recertification purposes.

From: Network Certification Policies and Exam Security - Juniper Networks Certification Program - Juniper Networks

What You Need to Know

If you are renewing your JNCIE, what you need to know is that it will NOT be counted as your first attempt.

They don't reset the attempts counter after you pass. They don't reset it ever from what I can tell. The counter is permanent and for all time.

So, if you need to plan for taking the exam twice for renewal, please allow sufficient time for a 14 day waiting period in between your attempts.

Failing is Freedom

I didn't interpret the policy correctly and I failed the JNCIP with less than 14 days until my certs expire. According to the Pearson Vue scheduler, I will not be able to take the exam again until after the expiry date.

And so that is the end for me and the JNCIE-SP. It's liberating to know that I will not have to concern myself with rote memorization tests any longer. In our age, anything worth memorizing is worth looking up on Google. And the only exception is poorly formatted tests such as the JNCIP which do a better job of playing word games and testing memory than of testing your understanding.

(A proposal for alternate structure: The test might be better structured as a 30-minute test with access to Juniper documentation rather than a 120-minute test relying only on memory.)

My current focus on creative work that changes the nature of work for the better (the bits I publish to my blog and the code I write for network automation) doesn't require this kind of certification. There are no certifications that matter for creative work. There is only shipping and seeing if you have made any kind of connection and/or positive impact.

For those who are still interested to keep their certifications up to date, consider yourselves warned of a potentially nasty trap and disappointment. You have an opportunity to learn from my $300 mistake. You're welcome.

Expiring in 2 Weeks? JNCIE-SP #1999

I have now reached the point where I am in a 2 week countdown until my JNCIE-SP expires. I had been toying with the idea of letting it do so since I spend as much time coding these days as I do network engineering things and more of my energy is on the coding side.

But this morning I changed my mind.

I have decided to renew it for another 3 years as insurance. Increasingly, I dream of a sabbatical. And if I have to provide for this myself, that will mean taking myself out of the work force and then finding a way back in. Having a certification will help.

Renewing involves taking the JNCIP-SP written exam: JN0-660.

My guess is that I can make myself ready after a few days of of study. I plan to put in a couple of hours each day studying and then take and fail the exam a week's time or less. There is no shame in this.

Veterans of the JNCIE-SP practical examination are well aware that failing the actual test is a key part of preparation. This is true for the written tests as well. There is not a good substitute to get you into the flow of thinking like the test other than doing it.

Incidentally, many things in life are like this. The only way to get real and hard data is to actually do something with the understanding that it may not work, but that in attempting to do it, you will learn things.

So... Expiring in 2 weeks? Probably not.

#JNCIE-SP: Using "Show TED Database" to Troubleshoot CSPF

I’ve generally found the output of show TED database to be a bit cryptic. But I ran into an issue today which forced me to really buckle down and figure out what it means and I think I’ve got something worked out.

fluong@SPOCK-re0> show mpls lsp
10.0.0.110  0.0.0.0      Dn     0       -                SPOCK-to-SULU

It was a sad sight. The LSP was down and the log from show mpls lsp extensive only had one line:

     1 Jun 27 14:27:20.553 CSPF failed: no route toward 10.0.0.110[927 times]

I sanity checked my loopback addresses and made sure that family mpls was configured on all backbone interfaces and was included in protocols rsvp and mpls. Everything looked good on SPOCK.

So I started looking at “show ted database”.

fluong@SPOCK-re0> show ted database 10.0.0.110
TED database: 44 ISIS nodes 44 INET nodes
ID                            Type Age(s) LnkIn LnkOut Protocol
SULU.00(10.0.0.110) Rtr    475     1      2 IS-IS(1)
    To: KIRK-re0.00(10.0.0.5), Local: 10.0.0.170, Remote: 10.0.0.171
      Local interface index: 329, Remote interface index: 456
    To: SCOTTY.00(10.0.0.111), Local: 10.0.0.168, Remote: 10.0.0.169
      Local interface index: 327, Remote interface index: 3

Okay… looks like we’re getting to SULU via a couple of routers, KIRK and SCOTTY. So I logged into the next router down the line, KIRK, and I found that it’s LSP to SULU was also down. So I started sanity checking config.

fluong@KIRK-re0> show mpls lsp ingress 
10.0.0.110  0.0.0.0     Dn     0       -                KIRK-to-SULU

fluong@KIRK-re0> show interfaces descriptions ae1
Interface       Admin Link Description
ae1             up    up   To SULU, ae1

fluong@KIRK-re0> show interfaces terse ae1 | match mpls
                                   mpls    

fluong@KIRK-re0> show mpls interface       
Interface        State       Administrative groups (x: extended)
ae1.0            Up         <none>

fluong@KIRK-re0> show rsvp interface ae1
 <no output>

Bingo! Missing RSVP interface configuration.

It occurs to me that this could be very useful as a quick way to narrow down what interfaces may be missing MPLS configs. Here is my method:

If an LSP is down CSPF reports no route:

• verify loopback address and router-id on the far end
• use the output “show ted database” to trace through performing sanity checks on interface-specific MPLS configs.
  • show interface terse (check for family mpls)
  • show mpls interface (make sure backbone interfaces are present)
  • show rsvp interface (make sure backbone interfaces are present)
  • show ldp interface (if applicable, make sure relevant backbone interfaces are present)