Networking Certifications 101: Juniper

Last week we took a look at one of the most well-known certification offerings in the networking world in Cisco's programs. This week we move onto rival, Juniper's certifications and learn a little more about the way IT managers and professionals can up their knowledge and accreditation base.

The Juniper Networks Technical Certification Program (JNTCP) is basically set up to allow those that take one of the many courses on offer to be able to configure and troubleshoot the vendor's security and networking solutions.

The courses available are offered from both Juniper and accredited partner training centres. In Australia a list of these centres can be found here.

Juniper splits its certifications into a number of tracks: Introduction to JUNOS, M Series and T Series; E Series platforms; Enterprise routing; JUNOS Security; Enterprise Switching; Firewall/VPN; IDP; SSL; WX; DX; Application Acceleration and Unified Access Control.

Each of these is offered at the entry-level of Associate (the JNCIA-certification). The Enterprise Routing, JUNOS Security, Firewall/VPN, M Series and T Series; E Series platforms and SSL tracks are also offered at the next level of Specialist (or JNCIS).

Next up the ranking is the JNCOP-M and JNCIP-E certifications, which are professional level of the M Series and T Series E Series platforms tracks.

At the top of the bunch, the Enterprise Routing and M Series and T Series tracks also offer an Expert level.

"If the person is new to networking, there's an introductory networking course called JNCIA-JUNOS: Networking Fundamentals.," Juniper enterprise channel manager, Rob Finn, explained. "You start by completing the interactive Networking Fundamentals e-Learning module, which people can complete at their own pace.

"It covers all the basic networking topics from How a Network works, to WAN technologies, IP addressing and everything in between. It's important that Juniper readily provides not only the introductory networking material but helps existing networking professional make the transition from other networking operating systems to JUNOS."

More information on the Juniper certifications can be found at their website here and those wishing to register can go to the FastTrack website. Certifications can be done by individuals or through company sponsorship.

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