In one fell-swoop Cisco Systems has realigned its certifications to reflect the evolving IT worker.
The San Jose, Calif.-based vendor announced a job-role-focused training and certification program to be administered by its Cisco’s learning and training partners.
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The new program will feature a Career Certification portfolio consisting of Cisco CCNA Data Centre, CCNP Data Centre and CCIE Data Centre certifications.Antonella Corno, product manager for Data Center virtualization and cloud product portfolio for Cisco, said the complexity and richness in today’s networks have moved from a box centric environment to dealing with a limited number of devices along with more connected, complex situations such as VoIP, wireless, security, telepresence systems, unified communications and the cloud. “As we move along this path, the IT talent has to evolve and Cisco wants to support this evolution at the customer and partner level to fill in the knowledge gaps so that they can fully leverage these technologies,” Corno said.
According to the Cisco Global Cloud Index, annual global data center IP traffic will reach 6.6 zettabytes by the end of 2016 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31 per cent.
The growth of data and these new technologies affects not only IT systems and infrastructures, but also the practitioners that design, install, operate and manage them. New job roles are emerging that require next-generation skill sets.Corno added that the majority of today’s IT workers learned how to configure a network, but the evolving IT worker must also know how to reduce the cost of operations and how to fully exploit the network.
With that Cisco will now offer these workers a new line of data centre training and certification that will match the company’s recent offering of Nexus 1000V, 2000/5000, 7000, MDS, and UCS.
And, the new program will enable IT workers to customize their data centre education that align best for the specific job functions that address network design, implementation and troubleshooting. These certifications will be for three years and individuals must pass exams developed by the Cisco Learning Network.
Exam topics will cover areas such as troubleshooting, fiber channel over Ethernet, storage networks, UCS installation and configuration, and UCS connectivity on SANs, LANs and VLAN. CCNA Data Center and CCNP Data Center exams are now available through Pearson.
Corno said that these courses are typically between three to five day courses with hands on lab. There is a fee for taking the exam.
