Good news today. I passed the CCDE Written Beta Exam.
The question is - "can you?"
The beta period is over and Cisco, today, officially launched the CCDE Written exam. The CCDE Practical (lab) comes later this year.
In keeping with Cisco's intent to have the CCDE at the same level of the CCIE tracks, the CCDE written exam is tough. Cisco is expecting about 30% passing rate on the written beta exam. Taking a look at the blueprint shows a lot of topics that may not be common knowledge. Do you know what "fate sharing" is? How about "EIGRP considerations for point-to-multipoint" interfaces?
It's an impressive list that good network engineers and architects should know. As I wrote about before, the CCDE is separating the network engineers from the techs. Now, the CCIE makes you a technical expert. The CCDE makes you an engineer.
Will you step up to the challenge?