Some important news that affects CCIE candidates may have slipped under the radar (I certainly missed this and just happen to stumble across it here). If you go to 36 minutes into this video you will see first hand details of the policy changes.
CCIE Written Exam
Candidates will only be allowed to sit the same Written exam 4 times per calendar year. This applies regardless of whether you pass or fail.
Also if you fail a Written exam you are going to have to wait 15 days to resit (as opposed to 5 days).
CCIE Lab Exam
This is a big change. There could be folks out there who sit the lab every 30 days on an ongoing basis (for questionable reasons). It won’t be possible with the new rules since the 30 day policy will only apply between attempts #1 and #2. There is a 90 day window that needs to elapse before attempt #3 can be made. The 90 day window applies between attempt #3 and #4 and also attempt #4 and #5. Thereafter, you have to wait a whopping 180 days for every subsequent attempt. These changes apply for all tracks and are applicable from Aug 1 2014.
So let’s just pretend poor Jo Blo passed the lab on the 7th attempt. He would have passed the lab 660 days days after his first attempt (give or take a few days since I think the countdown starts the day after each lab attempt). How did I get 660:
