* Cisco provides further details of Cisco Certified Design Expert program
Cisco is formally launching its much-discussed Cisco Certified Design Expert program at this week’s Networkers Europe 2008 conference in Barcelona, Spain. The program was first discussed with a few Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert at Networkers U.S. last summer and Network World and its Cisco Subnet bloggers since have written extensively about the new certification. But there are still questions surrounding the new program, mostly around how it fits with Cisco’s CCIE certifications, whether Cisco partners and resellers are required to have x many CCDEs on their roster, how the lab portion of the exam would work, and how Cisco would be raising awareness of the program among businesses and employers. Cisco last week spoke on the record about the program.
CCDE is on par with the CCIE designation and demonstrates that individuals understand complex network design and architectures. Although holding a CCIE is not a prerequisite, CCDE candidates are expected to have at least 7 years of networking experience. They’re also expected to be in roles such as senior network designer and architect, network leader for the enterprise IT infrastructure team, or network contributor for the enterprise architecture team. The CCDE is not meant to replace or be regarded as a higher designation than the CCIE as Cisco feels that both fulfill different roles in the organization. CCIEs are the hands-on experts that have deep knowledge of routers and switches, storage networks, service providers, security or voice. CCDEs are their equivalent but with network design as their deep knowledge. David Bump, portfolio manager of Cisco Learning’s design track likens the CCDE to a chef’s role and the CCIE to a cook.
Cisco will award the CCDE designation to individuals who can demonstrate expertise across voice, video, data and storage; design multivendor network architectures that are adaptable and scalable; have the ability to use advanced technical networking knowledge to solve business problems; and be able to troubleshoot architectural design flaws.
Like the CCIE exam, the CCDE encompasses a 2-hour multiple choice written exam – Exam # 352-001 ADVDESIGN (Advanced Network Infrastructure Design Theory and Principles), available this week via Pearson VUE, and an 8-hour proctored practical exam to be available by November, according to Bump. Cisco is still working on the practical exam, which it says will be scenario-based that tests for advanced insfrastructure design knowledge. Candidates will be asked multiple questions based on scenarios. “There will be no equipment in the exam – no routers,” said Bump. A beta of the practical exam is expected in June.
One of the major challenges of the practical exam is the subjectivity of network design, an issue that was raised by Cisco trainer and Cisco Subnet blogger Wendell Odom in response to one of the many blog posts that fellow Cisco Subnet and CCIE Michael Morris has written about the CCDE. Odom writes: “Both CCIE lab exams and the new CCDE practical ‘interview’ have some subjective components, but I think it’ll be more difficult to remove the subjectivity from the process for CCDE, as compared with CCIE lab exams. I can imagine ways to do it, but it’ll be hard work.”
Cisco says this is not the type of exam that you can study or cram for and that there would be questions that only someone with 7-plus years experience would be able to answer correctly. “It tests principles of good network design – you either know it or you don’t,” says Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, Learning@Cisco general manager.
To the question of how Cisco will test for the soft skills required of network designers who meet with business managers and understand business needs and translate that to a usable system, Beliveau-Dunn said: “Stay tuned. We’ll be using Cisco vide technology to enlist those skills.”
For Cisco partners, having a CCDE on board would count toward their required expert-level quota. Cisco won’t insist that a company should have x number of CCIEs or x number of CCDEs, said Beliveau-Dunn.
There have also been questions about how deep a CCDE’s knowledge should be about specifics such as routers and switches, network storage and so on – the technologies that CCIEs should be experts in. Beliveau-Dunn said: “You can’t be caught up in that way – all the topics integrated. The question is not about routers and switches but what are the design parameters to build a highly resilient and scalable network that integrates wireless and QoS.” She says knowledge of management techniques such as the Common Information Model () and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) would be useful.
Cisco says one of its biggest challenges is to get the right caliber folks to become certified. It also has plans to market the certification to prospective employers and businesses by promoting the program at roadshows, explaining its virtues to analysts, and reaching out to CIOs via live Cisco TV events and Q&As. Beliveau-Dunn says the CCDE would be a “high value, low volume” program and expects the number of CCDEs to only reach a quarter of the number of CCIEs around the world today (around 13,000).
Click on the following links for more discussions about the CCDE:
* More thoughts on network engineers and the CCDE
* Separating Network Design and the CCIE
* Took the CCDE written beta test today
* Cisco prepares written exams for pilot certifications
* Insight on the new Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
