Narbik + Cisco 360

UPDATE:

The cost is NOT going up $1000!!! Read closer, its just going up $495!!! Thats less then $500 more and you get all of Narbik 2.0 AND 360. Retakes are always going to be free, the cost I was talking about is for the 360 materials, NOT retaking the class.

So since Narbik announced he was going to join 360 there has been much speculation on what that is going to mean. So far all the details that have come out came from the best source, Narbik himself. You can read those comments here: http://groupstudy.com/archives/ccielab/200906/msg01672.html

Well that was about a week and a half ago and today I started my bootcamp with Narbik. This is my 2nd time to sit the class so I knew what to expect going in and was really wondering about what the 360 program would do to the class. Narbik started the class just like last time talking about himself, his background and his teaching style. This lead into him talking about 2.0 class and 360. This class is 2.0 beta, meaning the 2.0 workbooks are not 100% final and this class was still geared at the 3.0 blueprint but we have beta volumes 1-8 of 2.0 workbooks. Starting in August he will move to his new Best of the Best class which is Narbik 2.0 and Cisco 360, both of which will be for blueprint 4.0. His workbooks will be 12 volumes! This included new volumes on the new topics which I don’t know the full breakdown but its MPLS, Traffic Engineering, Layer 2 & 3 VPN’s, EIGRPv6 plus a brain teaser volume of crazy hard scenarios. I know the LDP and TE topics are pulled directly from his forthcoming SP class so this material will go way beyond what is needed for R&S. In addition to those new Narbik 2.0 volumes you will also get the current official 360 books. The cost will go up to $2995, I really can’t remember what he said. Really a small increase for added a 2nd vendors program it and the cost is not going up the full close to $1000 per student he now has to pay Cisco.

As for the class room portion the format will stay the same but will use his 2.0 materials, he still will not use the overhead projector at all, the schedule will be the same with adding MPLS and L3 VPN on Wednesday (if you have taken the class, you know the rest of the scheduled). He is going to add a 2nd bootcamp that is calling series 2 with series 1 being what he has always done. Series 2 will be more along of the lines of a mock lab experience week but he is not calling them mock labs. Basically he will lecture though the entire lab then you will do the lab. This again will be material he has written, not from the official 360 books. He said series 1 will will be all details on a scale of level 1-10 with series 2 being 11+ and the actual lab being a ~7. More details on that later.

Now why did he do all this? Well it sounds like as most people he feels two vendors is the way to go so rather then saying go get IPx, INE or whoever the student ends up with he is providing that second vendor. That way he will know the material and can help his students with getting that second perspective on things. He at first said he did like the 360 program but of all the vendors besides him he felt it was the best, thus the name of his new program the best of the best. What about the whole regional specific nature of the official partners? Well now he has to change his web site, he can’t have all the countries in one place. You will now have to click to the country you are in then you can get to classes in your region. What about retakes? He students still get FREE retakes, just if you want new workbooks printed will be a cost (as has always been the case.)

Now he said all that first thing this morning I have sat though hours of lecture and done over 150+ pages of labs so my memory on the details may not exact. He does have a new web site coming as early as next week with all the details on it so think of this as a preview where details may change. Bottom line is from what I have heard him say I am still going to 100% recommend this new class to anyone, Narbik is one of the best instructors out there and really cares about his students. Now its a few more labs for me then its off to bed to do this all over again tomorrow.

About the author

Steve is a Network Engineer/Architect based in Dallas working in the financial services industry. He has worked for enterprises, non-profits, service providers, as a freelance consultant and even a short time at Cisco, deploying and maintaining networks. When not being a geek he is a avid supporter of Arsenal football club and makes regular trips to Europe to watch them play. The best way to interact with Steve is on Twitter, you can follow him as @steve.