The Cisco Certified Architect certification may well be the single biggest addition/change to the Cisco certification space since the introduction of CCNA and CCNP in 1998. In the space of two years, Cisco has taken the pinnacle of the Cisco cert space - the CCIE - and added another cert billed as equivalent for Design issues (CCDE), and then made a new pinnacle to the cert pyramid - the new Cisco Certified Architect cert - sitting on top of the CCDE.. Network World bills it as a Ph.D. in Cisco. I've been pondering this one in the back of my mind, and want to offer some perspectives, and give us a space to get a discussion started.
First off, "CCA" is already used by Citrix, so right now, Cisco has to spell out "Cisco Certified Architect". For the purposes of this quite informal blog space, I'm going to stick with the acronym CCA, just for convenience. Personally, I hope (clicking heels 3 times right now) that Cisco will change the name to a usable acronym. Note that CCDA is of course already taken as well, by Cisco. ;-)
I will summarize some relevant points about CCA, but for those of you with more interest, here's some useful links:
The world, she has changed. Once upon a time, IT was a cost center, something you had to have to get the work done. IT was operations, and not part of the overall business model. Over time, IT has developed into a strategic asset for many companies, with entire business models predicated on the role and function of IT. Over that same time, the complexity of IT has kept growing. Combining the fact that IT has not only visibility within corporate management of large companies, but may been seen as a strategic intertwined asset of the company, it's not a big surprise that Cisco has developed a certification aligned with those job skills.
Next, consider the typical number of job opportunities for CCIE-level network implementers/troubleshooters versus CCDE-level network designers. Certainly, most companies need more implementers than designers. Is the ratio 10:1? 20:1? That's not rhetorical, I'd really be curious as to what you see out there. Certainly, in many companies, 1 person fills both the role of designer and implementer, but then there might be several other folks who most do network engineering tasks, but fewer design tasks. So while CCA may be the cool new cert (and CCDE to some extent), the number of job roles for those with these design certs may be less than for CCIEs.
While the design-oriented CCDE and CCA and implementation/troubleshooting oriented CCIE are separate certs, the skills are related. The best network engineers have a good understanding of network design, and vice versa. Many people who do the network design were formerly doing network implementation - in fact, that was one motivation for adding CCDE and then CCA. So while the certs are separate, the skills are not completely separate.
The whole pre-req topic made for some interesting discussions out at Networkers last week. The new biggest baddest Cisco cert, and Cisco doesn't even require a CCIE as a pre-req. While at Networkers last week, I asked some Cisco folks about the whole CCDE and/or CCIE as pre-req for CCA thing, and the response was interesting. Although CCIE is not a pre-req, it's unlikely you'd pass the Board exam without CCIE level skills. So while technically the pre-req is CCDE, in practice the better candidates may be the CCIE/CCDE.
Practically speaking, making CCIE the only pre-req just didn't work, even if Cisco wanted to. For perspective:
With these numbers, Cisco just couldn't have made CCIE the only pre-req for CCA and also required a live, human board review. They would have way too little capacity to handle the board reviews. I personally would have preferred to see both CCDE and CCIE as pre-reqs. I even thought that Cisco should offer two options for pre-reqs - either CCDE or be a triple (or more) CCIE - but that would still leave us with too big a pool of initial candidates (353 today). I have no idea if Cisco discussed this internally, but it just wouldn't have worked.
Chime in, give your thoughts, and let me know what you think. Next post, I'll examine how all this matters to the general certification population.
Odom, CCIE No, 1624, splits time between writing books for Cisco Press and teaching classes for Skyline ATS. In his 25-ish years in the networking industry, he has worked as as a pre-sale and post-sale SE for a few networking vendors, as well as a network engineer implementing network technology. Wendell has spent the majority of the last 15 years teaching, consulting, and writing about networking technologies, most of which in some way relate to Cisco products. His books include titles on QoS, CCIE R/S, as well as several titles related to CCNA certification, including the September 2007 book CCNA Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (Read a sneak peek of chapter 7). Click for the list of current titles by Wendell.
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CCA certification goals
I only wish to add this: there is value to being a competent "generalist" in skills. The Cisco certs are way too narrowly focused on specific topics whose usefulness in specific situations is never focused on. The exams focus on the Cisco Way of doing things, with performance and the elimination of bottlenecks, the only criteria.
We live in a world of constrained resources, as business always has. Network design is task of optimizing for the following constraints: monetary cost & capital budgets, political or organizational necessities, growth targets, sales targets, personnel skills, organizational development, geographical necessity, technology progression, vendor costs, and finally -- bandwidth and delay! The professional architect melds ALL variables into his/her thinking, and comes up with a constrained design that factors all these elements into a single design.
Having been an I/T Architect at one of the world's largest-ever enterprises, I can guarantee you that it's about time we stopped honoring narrow technicians (CCIE path) and began certifying those who can "marry the needs of the business to the technology possibilities".
Narrow technicians... CCIE. Hmmm...
Hi Anon,
Looks like you live the CCA life, in some regards at least, that Cisco's CCA is trying to certify. Thanks for the comments.
I agree that the skills encompassed in CCA are highly valuable. The skills are certainly beyond me personally, but that's just anecdotal. Does the marketplace value those skills more than CCIE? May be. It certainly a much more difficult skill set to attain, again in my opinion.
As for your "stop honoring narrow technicians (CCIE path)" comment, it shocked me, just because in my world, CCIE is not narrow. Narrow compared to all of IT, sure. Narrow in terms of breadth of topics that must be mastered, no, in my opinion. I think the breadth of topics in each CCIE track is one of the reasons CCIE remains a challenge. So, thanks for that comment in particular - it gives me a different perspective to think about.
Wendell
CCA
Cisco sales must be down and they needed another way to make some more money. What a joke! Come on Cisco Ph.D it is more like FBAR.
Probably still less $$ than CCNP even
Z,
I can read your sarcasm between the lines... but taken literally, with the low volume I think Cisco can support for CCA boards, they'll probably "make" less than they do say on any one of the CCNP exams. The $15K is probably for expenses to get the board together. I would expect them to use their Telepresence tools when they can to collect the review board. But I guess $100K here, $500K there, it might add up... ;-)
I'm trying to understand
I'm trying to understand what possible value a CCA could hold above and beyond having a CCDE, one or more CCIEs, and over 10 years of experience?
For 15k.. I'm not certain what that value could be. That is a significant gamble for someone who is already extremely qualified and probably making excellent money.
For the employer, again, what is the value going to be? As previously stated things like resiliency and redundancy and oversubscription are expressed in terms of risk. Managers these days are paid to bet against needing these things. While a network architecture and templates and all of those wonderful things (such as Michael Morris talks about) are great... Managers are willing to bet against needing it as long as they can hold vendors to SLAs. So again, what is this buying the employer for the risk of losing 15k... that a CCDE with multiple CCIEs and over 10 years of experience... isn't going to get them?
Is it a different argument than the age old "do certs matter"?
Derick,
Thanks for the comment.
I don't know the answer to my question in response to your post, but do the questions you hold have a different slant than just the traditional argument about whether we all need to certify at all? IE, same exact skills/experience, one guy is certified, one is not.
Just thinking out loud about it, I think that it may be easier to tell if the CCDE/CCIE 10+ years person has really been doing the things that CCA encompasses, than say figuring out if a CCNA had been doing much network engineering at their old job. The architecture work is so much more visible in a company that I think it'd show up if that person was a pretender. So, maybe that's an argument that while the CCA skills may be highly useful, a cert on those skills may not be.
Just my $.02 ramble in response. thanks for the post...
WEndell
I think "Value" is the key
Considering that Cisco can only anticipate to have less than 10 CCAs in the next year, is there any real value in having a CCA. There's a good chance 90% of employers will understand how UN-attainable the CCA is. In my honest opinion this certification may only have value to internal employees at Cisco, or may reseller/distributors who have deep relations with Cisco (e.g. CDW, Ingram Micro, etc.). This sounds comparable to the early years of the CCIE program, at first it was considered overkill and only available to internal employees.
By the way Wendell, any word if they are going to hand out personal numbers like the CCIE? Are they starting at 1?
A number, or just a name? Or double-0 status?
AS,
Maybe you get a James Bond number - 007 or something. Or, like CCDE, an 8-digit, with 4 digits for the year, and 4 for the number that year (teehe). I personally think that it'll be a small enough set so that they may not need a number - James Bond, Cisco Certified Architect may do it. But they've gotta fix the acronym issue! (imho)
shouldn't be an exam
Cisco knows the people who are qualified at this level. They should just make an honorary designation and keep it extremely limited in scope.
The basic flaw of this
The basic flaw of this approach is that it would bring personal bias, politics, and potential corruption into the mix if it were only a personal invitation to certain select few individuals. In order to have credibility, there must be an open access for qualified individuals AND an equally challenging board exam and review.
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