CCNA Career – Why You Should Think About The CCNA Voice Certification
by abpalancajr on
in ccna career
CCNA Voice Certification – What Is It?
The CCNA Voice certification is a relatively new Cisco certification in the market, and was introduced together with the rest of the new CCNA specializations (CCNA Security and CCNA Wireless). Previously, to be Cisco certified in Cisco voice technologies, you would take the CCNA to CCVP to CCIE (Voice) path. With the introduction of the CCNA Voice certification, you have to take the CCNA Voice exam before moving on to the professional level certification (CCVP). Passing the CCNA (Routing and Switching) exam is a pre-requisite for taking the CCNA (Voice) exam.
Why Specialize In Cisco Voice Technologies
Pursuing a Cisco Voice technology certification (or any other VoIP, IP-PBX certification) is one of the specializations you should consider. Many large companies and corporations are moving to IP-PBX technology for several reasons. IP-PBX and VoIP technology is considered superior to traditional PBX systems because they are cheaper, easier to maintain, has better cost controls in place and offer many other enhanced features (usually in the same package). It also provides increased infrastructure resiliency. From a market perspective, this market is set to grow strongly over the coming few years as companies look to reduce costs and also have better cost-control. All this means that it is definitely a good market niche within the networking world to go into.
In terms of market share, Cisco is currently one of the major 3 players in the IP-PBX market (the other 2 being Avaya and Nortel). Nortel filed for Chapter 11 bankrupty protection earlier this year so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. I believe that Cisco will leverage its position as the dominant player in the enterprise IP networking area to increase its market share for Cisco voice technologies.
How To Learn More About IP Voice Technologies
If you are interested in learning about Cisco voice technologies, or your employer is already deploying (or in the process of deploying) a Cisco IP-PBX, the logical way to do this would be to pursue the recommended certification and training path from Cisco. You’ll need to pass the CCNA exam first, which provides a foundation for the basic IP and ethernet technologies that an IP-PBX runs on. After that, you will be eligible to take the CCNA (Voice) exam, and from there, even pursue the CCVP and futher higher level Cisco certifications.
Think About Specialization In IP-PBX technologies
In today’s competitive marketplace and economy, it is important for your career to have a specialized skill set. In the technology job market (specifically the IT networking market), one of the choices would be Cisco voice technologies, which I believe is set to grow. If you don’t specialize, you might find yourself lagging behind your peers when they move ahead of you when the economy picks up.
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Cheers,
Francis (@SavvyNetCert)
