For many years, CCIE (Cisco Certified Internet Expert) Certification has been the highest level certification that network professionals dream of. At present, only a few people in the world have obtained this certification. Now, however, things have changed. On Monday, Cisco launched a new certification higher than CCIE – Cisco Certified Architect (CCA). Cisco tries to combine CCIE’s network engineering skills with MBA’s business talents through CCA Certification.
In Cisco CCA Certification, CCA will train candidates to work with chief business operations executives to transform business needs into effective IT systems. “Our research shows that if a company buys the wrong technology and services, they may waste USD 100 billion,” Cisco spokesman Fred Wieller said.The reason for this waste is that executives have a deep understanding of business needs, but lack of understanding of IT architecture, or have a deep understanding of IT architecture, but lack of understanding of business needs. CCA will train CCIE how to communicate with the above two groups.
Cisco’s newly-released CCA Certification is not only expensive, but also extremely difficult to pass. CCA Certification costs USD 15000. Candidates must not only have a CCIE or CCDE (Cisco Certified Design Expert) Certification, but also have at least 10 years of working experience in relevant industries. Candidates must apply, and then go through Cisco’s strict screening to participate in the training. Once allowed to attend training courses, candidates must propose an architectural solution for a range of business needs. At that time, the examination committee will question the trainers, and the trainers need to reply to the scheme and modify it. The examination committee is composed of world-renowned engineers and relevant experts in other fields, and the members are not only from Cisco.
In this regard, Wieller said that “this certification will encourage enterprises to regard the network architecture as a job function rather than a part of the job.” Once allowed to attend the training course, the certification process can be completed within a few weeks.
At present, industry analysts are very supportive of this new certification. Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of Yankee Group, a market research firm, said “CCIE is now the highest level of certification for network engineers. However, the newly launched CCA Certification will surpass CCIE Certification in level, which means that a network engineer with CCIE Certification will have MBA business talent. Many companies often buy some technologies and then figure out how to use them. This phenomenon is very common. Looking at these technologies by business standards is a very popular skill.”
Kerravala believes that CCA Certification will soon be as valuable as CCIE Certification. Since many system integration companies now have to show the proportion of their employees who have obtained CCIE Certification, Kerravala believes that system integration companies will be the first to send their employees to participate in CCA Certification. In addition, Kerravala believes that network engineers from large multinational companies will also be keen on this new certification. He believes that such certification may even replace some business graduate degrees in the future, and some companies cooperating with complex networks will be able to specifically seek such talents in the future.
Cisco said that in the future, CCA Certification will become an elite certification, and the number of people obtaining this certification will be very small every year. Sanjay Mehta, Cisco project manager, said that the number of people certified by CCA may only be in double digits in the first two years. Cisco will begin to accept the application for CCA Certification this fall, and the first batch of trainees will reply to their architecture solutions in January next year. spotodumps.com