A significant change to v3 is the delivery, the exam is now more aligned to a CCIE lab exam and administered and delivered in-house within Cisco with identical pricing and scheduling to the CCIE lab (the most expensive lunch you will ever have basically). Initially up to six administrations are planned per calendar year and results are delivered within 48 hours which is a significant improvement to the legacy delivery. There is now an increased focus on business strategies and the resultant impact on designs which can be challenging if a candidate is purely focused on technology in their day to day role. Core and Area of Expertise modules have now been introduced which allows an expert in a specific field to leverage their experience in a final scenario while the first three scenarios will be based around core competencies. Up until v3 the lab exam was purely vendor agnostic but Cisco specific technologies may appear in Area of Expertise modules. At exam launch the Area of Expertise options will include:
• On-prem and Cloud Services
• Workforce Mobility
• Large-Scale Networks
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