I'd like to apologize to anyone who might be offended: this article contains definite Marketing Content which is not technical. I've tried to approach this from the point of view of what each certification entails, with listings of relevant courses so you can tell what's involved in each certification. (Either that, or I've spent too much time teaching classes and think the world revolves around classes.) I've provided links wherever possible, to try to make it easier for you to drill down and get more information. (The online version will probably work better for this than you trying to click on the printed CiscoWorld article. See http://www.netcraftsmen.net/learn/welcher/papers/ciscocerts.htm .)
The next section contains some of my opinions about the best way to get certified. If you don't like the opinions, just skip ahead. But I'm including the advice since I've seen a lot of people trying to learn Cisco technology over the years, and I think I know what works well, and what doesn't work so well. And I'd like to share that with you.
Having said that, lately enough people are pushing for Cisco certification that we're hearing more about paper certifications. This has been a real problem in the PC world, where people take courses expecting to be given the answers to all the questions on the test. Memorize and you may not have to actually know anything!
That's not quite the way the Cisco certifications work. Yeah, you can memorize with one of the cram or course study books. I'd like to think the Cisco-certified training classes provide real value above and beyond that. (And of course, Mentor's provide exceptional value). If you haven't taken one yet, be aware the Cisco-certified courses are much more technical than some of the PC administration courses out there. They pack a lot of information into the week. So quite experienced people may find it useful to start at the beginning -- we've seen some folks just get overwhelmed by trying to skip to the intermediate level. This is because although they had some prior Cisco experience, they're not "fluent" enough in Cisco configuration to be able to just pick up and go.
I'm mentioning this because I think there's a bit of a tendency lately to read "cram books" or study guides, instead of taking an instructor-lead class. If you're on a tight budget, that makes a lot of sense. If you are reading the book because the instructor-lead training you tried wasn't much better -- well, maybe you went to the wrong company! Some of the non-Cisco-certified training can be pretty crude! (And I'm not just saying that, I know several folks that used to do such training.)
Overall, our experience has been that hands-on time with Cisco equipment is the key factor in all the certifications. If you're taking a class, make the most of the hands-on labs. Explore, see what works and doesn't work. In general, you should be putting in substantial lab time outside the classes. You may be able to pass the test without it, but you sure won't impress your employer for long if you just memorized answers.
I'll note in passing that one of our competitors has a $12000-plus CCNP Boot Camp. Let's see, they charge you extra for four classes, then blast through them in 12 days instead of 20. I can see why that's great for them. More money, less instructor/room/equipment time. What puzzles me is: why is this good for the student? You must be getting less instructor and lab time. Mentor's instructors add to the standard Cisco labs to try to make the most of your time in our training classes. We've thought about offering Boot Camp packages. We don't, because we don't think it's a good thing for our customers.
The reason I'm cautioning you about this is that we generally find lower satisfaction and less retention among people that try to take the regular, non-compressed classes all in a row, back-to-back. The issue is retention of material: it's just too much, too fast. Now speed it up some -- that just doesn't work for most folks.
For several years, our sales staff has been recommending that classes be spread out, ideally with a gap of a month or more between classes. The gap isn't just to "allow your brain to cool down", it's time when you should be hands-on with Cisco routers and switches, locking in that knowledge. Then when you take the next class, you'll be ready, you'll know the pre-requisite material solidly, and you'll get a lot more out of it. The need for hands-on time is also why we developed the VLAB product.
Books are of course the other great resource. And they definitely should play a role in your learning about Cisco technology and studying up for certification. Be careful, however, there are a lot of books that were just slapped together quickly. Ask around, check email lists, and use resources like http://www.groupstudy.com/ to make sure you spend your book dollars (and reading time) wisely! No, you do not want to buy/read every book published by Cisco Press. Life's too short! (Note: we bundle certain books with purchase of specific classes, see our web page for details.)
The following has links to Mentor Technologies (MT) pages for training courses we do offer. For information about other training courses, Cisco e-learning, etc., see http://cisco.com/pcgi-bin/front.x/wwtraining/CELC/index.cgi?action=CourseList .
The Network Installation and Support area contains CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE levels of certification. For Service Providers, there are the WAN Switching variants of these.
For Network Engineering and Design Certifications, there are the CCDA, CCDP, and CCIE Design certifications. There is currently also a CCDP WAN Switching.
There are also Cisco Qualified Specialist Designations in Cable, Security, and SNA/IP.
Recommended courses:
Two of these are already Cisco Qualified Specialist programs, no longer requiring CCNP:
Advice I've been giving now for several years: think of the CCIE as a marathon. It's nice to be a marathon winner, and that's a good long term goal. If you try to sprint in a marathon, you just end up with shin splints, and probably don't even finish. The practical application of this to CCIE: if you try to sit a lot of classes, and if you don't take time to read, understand, and above all, work hands-on with equipment ... well, all you may have to show for that is butt blisters, and not a CCIE. We'd love to have you in classes, but that's only 50% or less of what it takes to prepare. Training companies that even imply anything else are doing you a disservice.
The same goes for taking and retaking the lab until you pass. I've seen people do this. Generally, it is self-defeating. You spend a lot of time and money traveling and testing, that you could have spent learning something. And your relatively thin knowledge is visible to your employer or potential employers later, even if you pass the test.
The following material covers the most popular enterprise CCIE certification, Routing and Switching.
As far as courses go, the official list differs somewhat from my own personal opinion. My personal list of recommended courses:
No, ECP1 is not the sort of Boot Camp I advised against elsewhere in this article. It is a concentrated lab experience with instructor discussion, using a unique format to prepare you for the CCIE lab. We don't publish the percentage of those who take ECP1 and then pass the CCIE lab. That's because in many cases, taking ECP1 lets folks know they have to go back and do some more preparation before they're ready for the actual CCIE lab. And no one or two week lab can possibly prepare you completely for the CCIE lab.
Officially recommended courses you might find relevant and useful:
Recommended reading:
Cisco's recommended CCIE reading list is at http://www.cisco.com/warp/customer/625/ccie/certifications/routing.html#34
If you haven't visited http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/ recently, you might want to. The two areas we'll look briefly at here are the Certification and Specialization links off this page.
The Certification area is the Gold/Silver/Premium/Authorized Reseller Programs information, http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/certification/ . These programs require the different levels of partners to meet various requirements, including number of certified staff. The Program Overview mentions however that there is an increasing focus on areas of specialization. This I presume is a recognition that Cisco technology is now too broad for any individual or small set of individuals to master.
The Cisco Channel Partner Specializations information is at http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/ . The current areas of specialization are listed and briefly discussed below.
They each have requirements for Account Manager, Systems Engineer, and Field Engineer. These involve training and exams. Any training courses mentioned are for the SE or FE requirements.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/ip_telephony/
CVOICE, Cisco Voice over Frame Relay, ATM and IP CIPT, Cisco IP Telephony EVODD, Enterprise Voice over Data Design
There are also online tutorials, links to which can be found at
http://www.netcraftsmen.net/welcher/papers/cw2000update.html
(end of the article).
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/sna_ip/Courses: unspecified, probably the ones listed for the Career Specialization above .
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/voice_access/
CVOICE, Cisco Voice over Frame Relay, ATM and IP
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/vpn_security/
MCNS, Managing Cisco Network Security CSIDS, Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/wan/StrataCom!
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/765/partner_programs/specialization/wlan/
Dr. Peter J. Welcher (CCIE #1773, CCSI
#94014) is a Senior Consultant with Chesapeake NetCraftsmen. NetCraftsmen
is a high-end consulting firm and Cisco Premier Partner dedicated to quality
consulting and knowledge transfer. NetCraftsmen has nine CCIE's, with expertise
including large network high-availability routing/switching and design, VoIP,
QoS, MPLS, network management, security, IP multicast, and other areas. See
http://www.netcraftsmen.net
for more information about NetCraftsmen. Pete's links start at
http://www.netcraftsmen.net/welcher
. New articles will be posted under the Articles link. Questions,
suggestions for articles, etc. can be sent to
pjw@netcraftsmen.net
.