What difficulties would you face after the changes in the Cisco certification exam?

Cisco’s Intent-Based Networking would have created a massive shift in the job role of networking professionals as well as the way they would be performing the networking. This shift is from the manual as well as time-consuming tasks to the world where IT, Applications, DevOps as well as Cloud Developers who would be working together, could fully leverage the capabilities of the new network. Cisco’s Certification, as well as Training Program, would be including the DevNet Certifications for optimizing and writing applications for the new network and choose the skills for the development. The DevNet Program would be enabling the usage of best practices as well as collaborations for pioneering automation capabilities. The first difficulty which would be faced by the candidates would be the change of exam versions. For example, let’s have a look at the version change in the CCIE Exam.

CCIE Version Replacement as per Domains

Domains

Old Version

New Version

CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure

CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0

CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure v1.0

CCIE Enterprise Wireless

CCIE Wireless v3.1

CCIE Enterprise Wireless v1.0

CCIE Data Center

CCIE Data Center v2.1

CCIE Data Center v3.0

CCIE Security

CCIE Security v5.0

CCIE Security v6.0

CCIE Service Provider

CCIE Service Provider v5.0

CCIE Service Provider v5.0

CCIE Collaboration

CCIE Collaboration v2.0

CCIE Collaboration v3.0

To understand how these changes are going to affect the candidates, let’s have an overview of the changes which are going to be there. Below we would be looking forward to the changes in CCIE Certification. If you are willing to go for any Cisco Certification, it is recommended for you to get yourself enrolled in the training courses offered by the SPOTO Club.

Changes in CCIE Certification:

Certification Focused on End-to-end Life Cycle

There would be different phases in the Network Life Cycle. The initial phase is considered to be the planning and designing the network and then later on implementing the solutions which would be developed in the network. After implementation, there comes the optimization and troubleshooting if any. The new Certification Evolution would be focus precisely on the same path, which is believed to be the Design, Deploy, Operate, and Optimize.

Five Architectures Alignment

Enterprise, Service Provider, Data Center, Security, as well as Collaboration are the five architectures of Cisco. CCIE Enterprise would be now branched into two sections, namely, CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure and CCIE Enterprise Wireless. CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure would be namely Routing and Switching, but along with Software Defined Networking, Controller-Based Architecture and Automation. CCIE Enterprise Wireless would be including the syllabus similar to the earlier CCIE Wireless but more in terms of evolution and automation in the Wireless Industry. Hence Automation would be an integral part of the entire curriculum.

Design Section as an Integral Section

If you wish to specialize in designing the network at the CCNP level you would be able to choose one between enterprise design and wireless design, but in CCIE there isn’t any choice but learning design skills for planning, deploying, and while maintaining the network.

Effect on CCIE Certified Candidates

It won’t have any effect already certified candidates as the certification structure would be remaining the same. Hence once a candidate is certified with CCIE would always stay a CCIE Certified. But there would be some amount of transition. For example, if you are a CCIE Routing and Switching Certified Candidate, then Cisco would be transiting you to be a CCIE Enterprise Personnel or If you would be a CCIE Wireless