Whenever I recommend the CCNA training to any IT person, this is inevitably the first question that I get asked. Many people get out of college with their CIS degree and really don’t know what they want to get into. Some of the lucky ones get in an IT leadership program at a large company, but others still need direction to determine which side of the IT business they want to be on.
Cisco offers five levels of certification, of which Cisco Certified Network Associate is second. Associates specialize in SP operation, design, voice, security, and wireless. However, the most basic CCNA certification denotes a specialty in routing and switching.
By Matt Murren
If your are currently an IT professional looking to advance your career, you should take a hard look at Cisco Certification. Cisco is the leader in networking and switching technologies. With VOIP and other growing internet technologies the use of networking equipment is only going to grow. There are a wide range of jobs that can be leveraged by obtaining a Cisco certification. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by.
The format and difficulty of computer certification exams is constantly changing. When I took my first certification exam (Novell NetWare 3.1x CNA, January 1997), there was no such thing as a simulator question, and my practical skills really were not tested. The exams then were much heavier on memorization.
One factor that helped make up for that was that the Novell exams were adaptive. If you missed a question on a particular topic, you would continue to be asked questions about that topic until you got it right. You couldn’t afford to be weak in any topic, because the exam would most likely find that out and keep hitting you with questions on that topic until you failed.
As a follow-up to our announcement in January, CompTIA is updating its certification policy for CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+ certifications. Starting Jan. 1, 2011, individuals will need to complete continuing education to maintain certification.
The new policy will only apply to candidates who:
So why did CompTIA change the policy?
Changing the policy brings CompTIA certifications in line with the practices of other major providers of certifications for IT professionals, such as Cisco, Microsoft, Project Management Institute (PMI) and Linux Professionals Institute (LPI).
Additionally, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+ are accredited by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a standard-setting institution which approves the procedures used by personnel certification bodies. ISO requires that CompTIA provides candidates a way to renew the currency of their certification on a regular basis. In CompTIA’s case, that renewal will occur every three years from the date the certification is earned.