Cisco Monday updated the exams and courseware for its Cisco Certified Voice Professional certification to cover its Cisco Unified Communications Manager 6.0 product. The new exams and courseware are available now and replace exams and courseware that supported Cisco Unified CallManager 5.0.

Cisco will continue to support and make available exams and courseware for the CCVP certification based on the older Cisco Unified CallManager 4.1 product as recognition of the "many customers [that] have made significant investments around [CallManager 4.1]."

Candidates of the CCVP certification based on CallManager 5.0 will have until July 26 to pass the exam, says Mary Ng, senior manager of Cisco's unified communications and security portfolio marketing manager.

Cisco last refreshed its CCVP certification in late 2006 when it introduced the Implementing Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers (GWGK) and Cisco IP Telephony (CIPT) courses and exams. The CIPT courses will remain in the curriculum and exams for both the 4.1 and 6.0 products, but the GWGK course and exam have been merged into the rest of the courses and exams for the 6.0 platform, Ng explains.

Specifically, the courses and exams for CallManager 4.1 involve:

* QoS, Exam # 642-642.
* Cisco VoIP (CVOICE), Exam # 642-436.
* Troubleshooting Cisco Unified Communications Systems (TUC), Exam #642-426.
* Cisco IP Telephony 4.1, Part 1 (CIPT1 4.1) and Cisco IP Telephony 4.1, Part 2 (CIPT2 4.1), Combination Exam # 642-444.
* Implementing Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers (GWGK) Exam #642-453.

The courses and exams for Unified Communications Manager 6.0 involve:

* Cisco VoIP (CVOICE), Exam # 642-436.
* Cisco IP Telephony 6.0, Part 1 (CIPT1 6.0), Exam #642-446.
* Cisco IP Telephony 6.0, Part 2 (CIPT2 6.0), Exam #642-456.
* Troubleshooting Cisco Unified Communications Systems (TUC), Exam #642-426.
* QoS, Exam # 642-642.

Cisco says the update is less about learning how the products work and more about learning how to use the product in real-world networks, and this is achieved by introducing more practical and hands-on elements to the courseware. However, a practical element won't be included in the exam, though Cisco has stated previously that it will begin introducing practical tests to future Cisco certification exams in a bid to combat exam cheating.

Jon Brodkin is senior writer at Network World.