CCIE Recertification - Do it early

Today i got the official verification of my CCIE recertification:

Dear XXX:

Congratulations, you have successfully recertified as a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert! Periodic recertification ensures that the CCIE designation remains a valid measure of expertise in the networking industry.  

Your next CCIE recertification deadline will be January 18 2012. Current recertification policies require you to pass one written CCIE exam within the 24 months preceding your deadline. However, you may not schedule the same exam you just passed for at least six months. You may take the written exam for a track different from the one you are certified in to meet the recertification requirement. Written exams are scheduled through Cisco's authorized testing partner, Pearson Vue.

As you can probably see, it's much preferred to do your recertification (at least the first ones) as early as possible, since you'll probably remember most of the stuff. I had the option of doing it till January 18 2010, but i decided to give it a try now, because it was free (due to networkers) and i wanted to avoid the coming written exam changes. It doesn't really matter when you do it, because the 2 year period counts from the day of your initial certification. So in my case, i have 1 year due to initial certification plus 2 years due to the recertification, till it expires.

According to Cisco:

Subsequent recertification deadlines are always based on your original certification date, not on when you took your last recertification exam.
...
Candidates can only apply one passed written exam towards recertification for every 24 month recertification period.

If i do my next certification after 1 year, i'll have 2 years due to the current recertification plus another 2 years due to the new recertification, till it expires. After that i'll have to do it every 2 years.

So, in my case, it goes like this:

2008 CCIE certification - certified until 2010
2009 CCIE recertification - certified until 2012
2010 CCIE recertification - certified until 2014
2011
2012 CCIE recertification - certified until 2016
2013
2014 CCIE recertification - certified until 2018
2015
2016 CCIE recertification - certified until 2020
2017
2018 CCIE recertification - certified until 2022
...
The recertifications after 2010 need to be done after the corresponding initial certification date (Jan 18), in order to have less than 24 months till the next expiration.

If you decide to recertify every 2 years, then you'll go like this:

2008 CCIE certification - certified until 2010
2009
2010 CCIE recertification - certified until 2012
2011
2012 CCIE recertification - certified until 2014
2013
2014 CCIE recertification - certified until 2016
2015
2016 CCIE recertification - certified until 2018
2017
2018 CCIE recertification - certified until 2020
...
All the recertifications need to be done before the corresponding initial certification date, in order to have less than 24 months till the next expiration.

As you can see, by doing a per-year recertification in the beginning, you'll have a 2 years advantage until the expiration of your certification. Of course, you can choose the per-2-years model, change to the per-1-year model sometime in the future and then move back to the per-2-years model again. But i believe it's easier to do it in the beginning.

You just might want to keep all that in mind.