Darby Weaver has been a member of Groupstudy.com under either his own name or various aliases during the past decade since Groupstudy came online.
Darby Weaver has been a pretty active figure on Groupstudy since about 2006 using his own name. This includes answering questions, both on-list and off-list for many members of Groupstudy over the years; providing insight, and sometimes such as recently providing his own opinion and vantage point however controversial these points may be.
Darby Weaver has been banned from Groupstudy at least once before back in 2008 and now has not only been banned but has also been deleted from the archives based on most of his words and opinions expressed in this article which is his rebuttal to Rick Smith the Cisco 360 CCIE Program Manager referring to Darby Weaver as saying untrue and far off-base comments.
Darby Weaver contacted Rick Smith to ask for specifics. Mr. Smith did not have time to discuss as he had to travel. In the absence of a discussion, Darby Weaver was banned and since that his posts have been deleted the Groupstudy archives.
Note: This is only a part of this thread which lasted for over 100 posts and a little under 24 hours in duration making it one of the hottest threads in the history of groupstudy from 5:38pm on Sept 15 to 4:36pm on Sept 16. After which Darby Weaver was banned and deleted from Groupstudy and the rumor is others may have been too. Essentially people who commented on the Cisco Safe Lab Promotion and the Cisco 360 Learning Program in a less than favorable manner.
There are some comments that are direct quotes from others on that thread and they are listed from reference purposes.
Please enjoy and yes, Mr. Smith, there are things going on that you probably are not aware of from your Cisco 360 Instructors.
Lynryrd Skynrd: If you don't know what I mean you should stand up and scream, cause there's things going on that you don't know...
Now as for the background of Darby Weaver and various trainers and training companies. Well here's the list:
Netmasterclass.com -> 2 Weeks of Training + 1 Week of Labs $9500.00 + $7500.00 Travel + 3 Weeks of Vacation
InternetworkExpert -> 2 Weeks of Self Study and 1 Week of Remote CCIE Labs - $6000 - $7000.00 total including rack time and other upgrade purchases since 2002. 1 Week of vacation
Heinz Ulm -> 1 Week of CCIE Labs $2350 + $1200.00 Travel + 1 Week Vacation
Micronics/Narbik -> 1 Week of CCIE Training
IPExpert -> 1 Week of CCIE Training + Won the Blended Learning Solution (scheduled for 1 more week of Mock Lab in October 2009) -> $2000.00 Travel and Expenses for Week 1.
Trips to the CCIE Lab to date: 5 Trips to the CCIE Lab at a cumulative cost of about $10,000.00 and a cumulative total of 3 Weeks of Vacation (Usually travel for the week prior to the lab).
CCIE Accessor -> Practice CCIE Lab -> $495.00
CCIE Lab for Voice, Routing and Switching, Security, Wireless, Service Provider, Network Management, Forsensic Analsyis, and Packet Analysis -> Well in excess of $50,000.00+ (includes costs of upgrading the lab to meet current requirements from 2001 - 2009).
Personal Library -> 2000+ Books at a real cost of about $30,000.00 - 50,000.00
Cisco CCIE Beta/Prototype: $100.00 + $1000.00 Travel and Expenses and 1 Day of Vacation.
Misc. Expenses on various additional study aids vary.
Also several thousands of dollars maintaining the CCNA/CCDA/CCNP/CCDP/CCVP/CCSP and still one away from the CCIP and most of the Cisco Partner exams associated with these specialties.
Overall well over $150,000.00
One thing should be mentioned as well, Darby Weaver, has provided rack times, technical advice, career advice to many people of his own time over the past decade and is referenced by many CCIE's and is sought after by other CCIE's for advice in these areas and technical assistance in attaining their own credentials; as such, occassionally some CCIE's have publicly mentioned Darby Weaver when they have passed their own CCIE Lab.
Darby Weaver is also a moderator on public and private forums across the Internet and has been for a majority of this past decade providing assistance and in some cases inspiration to many who seek to become Cisco Certified Professionals.
Professionally Darby Weaver has served a few Fortune 500 companies or named/well-known companies with Campus or Enterprise Networks as the senior Network Engineer for the past 5+ years and a senior Systems Engineer prior to this for Campus Networks with up to 50,000+ users across several vertical markets. Darby Weaver has also served as an Instructor for colleges and professionally for companies he has worked with over the years resulting in several certified indivduals across various disciplines.
Finally, this article is Darby Weaver's sole opinion and does not represent anyone else's opinion and this was originally posted as part of a near real-time thread on Groupstudy, an email list server. I have further commented on various details after it was said that my statements were "untrue or off-base". You can see them and decide for yourself.
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