Cisco Expands CCNA

It was a Networkers 1998 - Philadelphia, I believe - where Cisco first announced CCNA to the general public. Now, 10 years later at Networkers 2008 (aka Cisco Live), Cisco is announcing some major additions to CCNA.

I'm going to repeat this a few times so there's no question: the existing CCNA is NOT changing per Cisco's announcement this week. What is changing is that Cisco is expanding the CCNA program, adding three new certifications that have the CCNA name:

• CCNA Voice
• CCNA Wireless
• CCNA Security

Good old 10 year old CCNA keeps the same name.

First, to learn more, check out this web page. But for a brief intro, here's the highlights:

• CCNA Voice: Summary: Voice using Call Manager Express, Cisco Unity Express, and UC500. Includes: Traditional voice standards/protocols (eg T1 CCS), VoIP protocols (eg, MGCP), Voice Gateway concepts/config, Call Manager Express concepts/config, UC500 product details and GUI config, and Basic Unity Express concepts/config.
• CCNA Security: Summary: router-oriented security. Includes: Describe security threats and products, secure the router CLI with local usernames, configure the router IPS feature set, configure ACLs, security reporting, configure IOS Firewall feature set, site-to-site VPNs
• CCNA Wireless: Summary: describe, configure, and troubleshoot wireless LANs using Cisco gear.

More interesting, I think, is how these fit together: Good old, plain old 10-year-old CCNA is the Pre-req for each of the new CCNA certs. In short, if you want to get Cisco certified, the most likely first step is to get your CCNA. Then, the new CCNA Voice is a pre-req for CCVP (don't worry - I'm sure there's some accommodation for those in progress on CCVP.) Similarly, CCNA is a pre-req for CCNA Security, which will become a pre-req for CCSP. (For wireless, there's no Cisco CCWP cert, so there's nothing for which CCNA Wireless can be a pre-req.)

There's no point in repeating what Cisco's worked so hard to prepare on their web site. I'll give you folks some time to look at the collateral, and while I'm here at Networkers, I'll try and find out some of the positioning about what these certs are meant to be. If you have any specific questions, post them, and I'll see if I can get some answers while I'm here.