CCIE

Cisco reaches 1 Million certified, CCIE R&S Program Update, and NEW CCNA Voice Option

1. Cisco recently announced that, to date, they have certified over 1 Million individuals and over 20,000 people with CCIE certifications. WOW - can you believe that there are over 1 million people in the world who are Cisco certified? Pretty amazing!

When I achieved my CCIE, there were about 5,000 CCIEs. Now, 7 years later, there are 20,000.

2. Cisco announced changes changes to the CCIE Routing and Switching written certification test. In the latest revision, dubbed “4.0″, the new test will have hands-on troubleshooting and will now cover MPLS and VPN. This new version will come on line October 18, 2009.

To me, personally, this is critical news as I will have to take this test to keep my CCIE. I have to do this prior to May 2010 so stay tuned for news about this test as I will be following it closely.

3. Cisco has announced changes to the CCNA Voice certification. There will now be two options available for candidates wishing to achieve their CCNA Voice certification: A commercial option and an enterprise option.

Cisco launches new CCNP & CCIE Wireless Ceritifications

Just launch, Cisco’s new CCNP and CCIE Wireless certifications offer wireless experts a chance to prove their expertise!

For some time, Cisco has offered the CCNA Wireless certification. Starting in June of 2009, Cisco will now offer a CCNP Wireless certification. This will fill the hole between the CCNA Wireless and the newly created CCIE Wireless.

Speaking of the CCIE Wireless,the new Cisco CCIE Wireless certification has also been officially launched. The writtern/qualification exam 350-050 was just made available this month, February 2009.

Good luck wireless Gurus!

CCIE Security lab exam to be refreshed in April, ‘09

Are you interested in obtaining a CCIE Security certification? I have taken the lab and I can tell you it was very tough. Well, its about to get even harder. Cisco made this announcement concerning big changes to the Cisco CCIE Security lab exam…

Effective April 2009, important content changes will be implemented in the CCIE Security Lab exams. Candidates for lab exams scheduled mid-April 2009 or later should prepare using the v3.0 Lab Equipment and Software Versions and v.3 Blueprint. Candidates prior to mid- April 2009 should continue using the v2.0 Lab Equipment and Software Versions and v 2.0 blueprint.

Cisco CCIE History

Being a CCIE myself, I just love CCIE History. I read a great article over at NetworkWorld submitted by Brad Reese.

Here are some cool things I learned from the story:

• The CCIE was announced on September 27, 1993
• Now the very successful CEO of Cisco Systems, John Chambers was insturmental in getting the CCIE certification launched. Back then, Mr Chambers was a “merit vice president”.
• The very first CCIE number was 1024 and was assigned to the testing lab. They did not start the number at 1.
• Stuart Biggs (who designed the lab and wrote the test) was assigned CCIE# 1025
• The first non-Cisco employee to achieve the CCIE was Terry Slatterly, with CCIE# 1026.

You can read more about Terry and the history of the CCIe at Terry Slattery - the very first Cisco CCIE in history and at Terry’s Blog.

-David
Personal Website: HappyRouter.com
Checkout David’s Video Training:
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Would you “Rent” your certification?

I heard about a website that connects people who have certifications with Microsoft and Cisco resellers who need certified people, on the payroll, to achieve a certain level of reseller status.

How this works is - say that I sell Cisco equipment but I want larger discounts from Cisco (so I can make more profit when I sell it). To be a higher level of reseller (Silver, Gold, or whatever), you have to have a certain number of Cisco certified people on the payroll. For example, maybe you need 2 CCNA, 1 CCNP, and 1 CCIE.

Many up-and-coming resellers cannot afford to do this so the idea came that they could pay people who have these certs a flat monthy fee to register their cert # under the reseller’s name. Not a bad idea, I suppose, unless Cisco or Microsoft stop them.

And now an even better idea - www.rentacert.com

This site connects the people who have the cert with the resellers who want to “rent” it. The site makes a profit by taking a commission.

If you work for a company that is NOT a reseller but you have a cert, I suppose it would be nice to make some extra cash off of it and do nothing. It seems that both the renter and rentee would benefit but, I suppose the customer of that reseller looses out because the reseller really doesn’t have as much experience on hand as, perhaps, the other resellers at a similar level.

What do you think?

Would you rent your cert?

David Davis, CCIE

Personal Website: HappyRouter.com - home of Cisco how-to articles & videos
David Recommends:
HappyRouter Cisco CCNA & CCNP Video Training Series
Cirro - Quote Telecom Internet, Voice, and Data T1 circuits from an unbiased source