The Cisco Certification Program

Cisco has a three-level certification program, rising in technical complexity, depth, and breadth of knowledge from the Associate, to the Professional, to the Expert levels. The Cisco SAFE Implementation Exam, or CSI, is an intermediate-level exam, one in the series of five exams toward the Cisco Certified Security Professional designation.

The certifications you will most commonly see are these:

• CCNA : Cisco Certified Network Associate

• CCDA : Cisco Certified Design Associate

• CCNP : Cisco Certified Network Professional

• CCDP : Cisco Certified Design Professional

• CCSP : Cisco Certified Security Professional

• CCIE : Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert

The Associate certifications can be earned via one exam, although Cisco has recently offered the option of taking two exams to earn the CCNA (to break the material into two smaller, more easily managed portions). Professional certifications require you to pass several exams: three for the CCDP, four for the CCNP, and five for the CCSP. These exams are topical (limited to one general subject, such as routing, switching, VPNs, and so on), but they cover their one topic in depth. The multiple exam system ensures that those bearing a Professional certification have both breadth and depth of networking knowledge.

The Expert designation, CCIE, is one of the most highly respected and sought-after certifications in the IT arena. It requires you to pass two exams, a comprehensive written exam, and a day-long hands-on exam to demonstrate competence, given in a Cisco lab. The pass rate on the lab is said to be 20% of those attempting it for the first time. The CCIE exam has been separated into specialties; the original CCIE is the Routing and Switching CCIE, and there are also CCIE certifications in Security, Service Provider, and Voice.