Wow, a lot has changed in the past 5 years in the route/Switch field. With the advent of virtualization and faster and faster data center interconnects, one not only has two worry about simple routers and switches anymore but more advancements such as FCOE, Data center birding, TRILL. One has to refresh his or hers abilities to keep up with the times. When I started this site, I was married then divorced and then married again. There wasn't even a DC CCIE certification. The more things change the more the stay the same with the value that is placed with individuals with a CCIE certification. Everyone in the field knows what dedication and just plain hard work it takes to achieve this certification, I believe that one has to have the correct mind set in order to start down this long road. I'm finally ready (9/2/2013) to take the plunge and dedicated the next year in a half to studying and then studying more to achieve this goal. I'm planning on taking the CCIE DC written exam in December 2013 or January 2014 and attempting the CCIE DC LAB in December 2014 or January 2015. It's weird; while I was still studying the material anyways I took the CCNA DC tests. Can't believe they make you pay for both tests just to see what kind of material was on the test. Both tests where relatively easy, and I passed the last one on August 30th 2013. To my surprise when I received that certification document in the mail I also received the title of Cisco Data Center Unified Fabric Design Specialist. I'm not sure how this happened, I'm guessing with my previous DCIU tests and the CCNA DC test combined for the UF specialist, but I'll take it all the same.