Huawei HCIE - The Journey continues Part 1

Recently I passed the Huawei HCIE Routing and Switching exam. There is not as much coverage of the HCIE process as there is with CCIE, so to give some guidance to other engineers who are studying (or thinking of studying) this IE path, let me provide some insights into the certification, how I studied, and how the testing works for the Written, Lab and Interview.

In terms of my previous study, I had already done the CCIE Routing and Switching in 2014, and completed the CCIE Service Provide in early 2017, so this provided me a strong technical background to move to the HCIE and not have to spend as much time learning theory as much as time learning differences between Cisco and Huawei. But that may not be your path - you may be working through HCNA/HCNP, or even in CCNA/CCNP. There is still a very good learning path you can take (which I completed as part of the teaching of the differences, to make sure I had a full understanding of how to produce the results needed in the lab).

Let me make one point first - Huawei give you every learning skill needed to pass. I say this because having come from 5 years of Cisco learning and certifications, where this is not as much the case, Huawei provide free video and written training, free mock labs, and online regular demo and updates on the lab, written test and interview. This was a pleasant change ! If you go through everything they give you and understand and can apply it, you will be in a great position come the lab.

HUAWEI LEARNING OPTIONS

The following is the learning process you have freely available form Huawei (register for a free account first to use the site):

1. Review all the parts of the training guide at http://support.huawei.com/learning/en/newindex.html

2. Have a look through the training material (look for all the HCIE tagged courses) at http://support.huawei.com/learning/NavigationAction!createNavi?navId=MW000001_term1000025144&lang=en
 
3. Specifically, do the complete video training course http://support.huawei.com/learning/nodeQueryAction!loadTrainProjectInfo?lang=en&pbiPath=term1000025144&courseId=Node1000010960&navId=MW000001

4. During your video learning, I suggest you go and install eNSP, Hedex so you can start to apply the theory that is being taught. Once you have finished the series, work through Mock Lab 1 and 2 @ http://support.huawei.com/learning/nodeQueryAction!loadTrainProjectInfo?lang=en&pbiPath=term1000025144&courseId=Node1000010960&navId=MW000001 This will 70% prepare you for the actual lab (and the walk-through videos and docs that accompany the mock labs are excellent)

WRITTEN TEST

5. If you have understood all the technologies, videos and the labs, now is a good time to sit the written. Its a 60% pass mark and from memory there was around 80 multiple choice (only) questions on the test which you had 2 hours to complete. I had not studied as much on IPv6 detailed theory so lost quite a few marks in that area (this is well covered in the training - I had not completed the IPv6 course learning before sitting the written).

6. Once you have passed the written and completed the mock labs, I would suggest you move on to the advanced lab that is sold by iNetZero (https://www.inetzero.com/product-category/huawei/hcie/). This covers even more config options than the mock exams and will give you more practice for the test. There are great walk throughs across a heap of mini labs, and then there is the 8 hr demo lab. For me that demo lab was longer than an 8 hour lab with much more content than I got in my actual lab, so just work through it at any pace and gain the understanding of how to do each part.

7. Now you need to get the speed part sorted - do the Mock1 and Mock2 labs from the question sets only (ie don't use the solution guide). If you can get through each of them in around 6-7 hrs from scratch, you should be ready for the lab !

In part 2 of this series, we will look at the actual lab and the interview process that follows.