Cisco to change the certification progam

Recently Cisco has announced changes to their certification program – from the CCNA level upwards. Are these good changes ? I think so. Here are the highlights from the recent announcement:

1. CCNA and CCNP certification will NOT require you to have done any previous level exams to sit and complete them. This is a step in the right direction – if you are good enough to go straight to the CCNP study and learning level, you don’t have to wade through the the more basic CCNA level knowledge that you may already have.
2. There is a new DevNet certification that has arrived (finally !). This is much more in line with future trends in the network engineering industry, with DevNet skills becoming a standard requirement of all engineers across teams. Cisco did a few really good sessions at Cisco Live Melbourne this year, where they detailed the 2 year Cisco journey for their internal engineers to move them to DevNet skilled engineers, rather than Network or Software engineers being a separate team member. DevNet can be done at the CCNA and CCNP levels at present.
3. Cisco has also introduced a specialist level certification. This is an interesting one and aligns with Juniper that has the JNCIA, JNCIS and JNCIP levels before the JNCIE. It looks like Cisco will use this to align with their partner certifications and for non standard tracks, as well as their normal certifications.
4. CCIE will now have a lifetime tenure for 20yr members who maintain for the whole time (im a while away form that one…).
5. Routing & Switching is now getting a re-brand to Enterprise Infrastructure, and Wireless is similarly being renamed to Enterprise Wireless. These are good changes, to reflect what the actual certification is geared towards.
6. They are also making the validity period 3 years for re-certification. This is great for CCIE’s – the 2 year re-cert is well known to be a bit excessive as it stands now.

These changes are due to start in early 2020, so for any current programs that are being undertaken you can continue, as any certifications will be moved across to the new equivalent automatically after this time.

The full Cisco page and further information can be found HERE