[Asterisk-Users] OT: DCAP Certification

[steve at daviesfam.org]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Patrick wrote:

> (continuing topposting for readability)
> 
> Frankly having to know RFCs intimately sounds a bit over the top to me.
> I took the RHCE exam which is seen as one of the toughest exams in the
> industry and never had to study RFCs. I don't know any other exams that
> require you to do so (based on experience with Cisco, AIX, DB2, Novell
> and dare I say Microsoft training). Imagine having to study all relevant
> RFCs for RHCE. I would prolly have to start at 1 and end at whatever is
> the highest number :)
> 
> I would be interested to learn what the rationale is of having to know
> these RFCs. If the exam were aimed at certifiying someone as an advanced
> Asterisk developer like Olle than I can understand that. But what about
> the many people that "just" manage the system? Do they really need
> intimate knowledge of RFCs 2543, 3261, 1889, 2327 etc? If they do than I
> guess they should call their vendor. Good for business too :) Perhaps
> the certification could be split into Certified Asterisk Engineer and
> Certified Asterisk Developer or Certified Advanced Asterisk Engineer.
> 

Well - I tackled the dCAP in LA at the pushing of my business partner @
Connection Telecom.  Last thing I needed at the end of Astricon!  I hadn't
done the training but did manage to pass both theory and practical.  
(Thanks for the plaque, Digium!) That's after working with Asterisk for a
couple of years; one year doing "real world" commercial implementation as
my business.  I've made some code contribution but I'm not really a
heavyweight Asterisk developer.

I don't know the RFCs intimately, that's for sure, and I've been "into"  
datacomms for years.  I do understand SIP, IAX2 pretty well, but I
couldn't tell you exactly all the protocol ins and outs of SIP transfers
or suchlike.

The theory was pretty broad - covering some (now) non-mainstream stuff
like H.323 IIRC.

Perhaps the theory could have a bit fewer "abstract theory" questions and
a few more "what's wrong with this extensions.conf extract" or suchlike
that demonstrate that you know how it all hangs together and that you know
the common traps.

Practical test does discriminate against those of us from the E1-world.  
But managed to cope.

So there's the 0.02c from someone who did the test.

Regards,
Steve