What makes a certification worth it? #
You might have been here before: looking at a certification that needs to be renewed, wondering if it’s worth it. Maybe the last MSP you worked for required you to carry a Palo cert just, in case their Palo guy needs a hand once in a while. Or maybe, like me, you’re looking at the CCNP Enterprise (previously Route Switch) you’ve had for almost 9 years, wondering if it still matters.
It’s not that I don’t find value in knowing how their solutions work. Quite the opposite - although I’ve heard mixed reviews from folks who have implemented DNA Center (It’s actually called Catalyst Center now), on paper it’s a great looking solution. The full integration of all components, from the switching hardware, to the policy engine ISE, WLC, etc all wrapped up in an API is exactly what an enterprise IT team wants.
A reflection of real world circumstance #
The environment I work in is mostly Juniper these days, though, and that’s of course where my study focus has been. Juniper’s Datacenter certification track has been a great time to learn, and overlaps heavily with the environment I work in day to day. When I passed the JNCIP-DC, it wasn’t a surprise - I was confident walking into that test, because I had production experience on just about the whole blueprint.
The CCNP on the other hand, outside of the generic traditional routing and switching knowledge, has almost no overlap with my working experience these days. Having to re-learn the specifics of LISP, the names of all the Cisco SD-WAN components (formerly Viptela), the way that their WLC architecture fits into SD-Access - it’s a lot of knowledge to refresh.
So I could just cram for the test, right? Spend weeks reviewing their product terminology, lower-level details of their solutions and all that. That wouldn’t make me happy though, if I passed after that. I’d feel fake. Does that make sense?
To me, the value of certification blueprints is having that structure of what is needed to be successful. Understanding whether you actually know how their stuff works. It matches up with how the vendor prefers to have their solutions deployed. Holding that certification should mean I can walk into a production environment and have no issues understanding how it works - assuming it’s been documented appropriately ;)
Which is why I’m glad in a way that I have to re-do my CCNP certification track. It expired the other day, just after a last-minute attempt at taking the test. Which I failed, as expected. I didn’t have the time to study in advance (life’s been real busy this last year), and accepting that I might not pass I gave it a shot anyway. Just as anticipated, I had gaps in their product-specific knowledge.
Be honest with yourself, and others #
It’s alright though! I’m not working at a place where I have to maintain that certification, and I have confidence I would pick back up the Cisco specific knowledge no problem. That’s one of the keys to IT after all - demonstrating over and over again that you can keep up to date with knowledge, along with consistent quality output (and other things of course). Honesty about where you have gaps goes hand in hand with that.
You might have a brain that can retain technical theory and product names for years after the first time you read it, and if you do then know I’m incredibly envious! For me, if I don’t work on it day-to-day, there’s regular upkeep involved. Considering I enjoy having a life outside of work, there’s only so many hours a month I can devote to additional study time. Ultimately, I think I’ll work my way back up the Cisco Certified Professional track. It’s just not going to be done within the next few months.
I think I’ll use this as an excuse to go the CCNP Service Provider track. MPLS has always seemed fun.