Cisco Certified Architect

Cisco announced today a new credential available to network professionals. The Cisco Certified Architect is designed to meet the demands of today’s business markets and marries the implementation and design aspects of the Architect level job role.

Key Facts/Highlights:

    * Advanced technologies such as Cisco Unified Communications,
      Cisco TelePresenceTM and mobility are converging and
      increasing the opportunities for innovation and
      collaboration while adding to the complexity of enterprise
      networks.
    * According to IDC, "With many existing certifications
      focused on point technologies, architect-level
      certifications bring together project management, business
      needs analysis, and IT elements into a true solutions
      framework and validate a candidate's ability to address
      planning, design, interoperability, and connectivity
      issues."
    * Gartner reported in its 2008 IT market compensation
      study (U.S. based), that "IT organizations continue to
      have difficulty in finding skilled IT professionals,
      especially enterprise architects, network architects,
      project managers and Web application programmers." **

Cisco Certified Architect:

    * The Cisco Certified Architect certification recognizes
      the architectural experience and competency of
      network designers who can support the increasingly
      complex networks of global organizations and effectively
      translate business strategies into evolutionary technical
      strategies.
    * Cisco channel partners play a critical role in enabling
      customers to deploy advanced new technologies supported by
      professionals with the skills required to use these
      innovative solutions.
    * The certification stands above the expert-level CCIE®
      certification in terms of difficulty, with an emphasis on
      expertise in network infrastructure architecture and a
      proven ability to work with executive-level customers to
      ensure that business requirements are incorporated into
      successful designs.

Certification Process:

    * The Cisco Certified Architect certification will be
      administered as a board exam.
    * Candidates will propose and defend an architecture
      solution to a set of business requirements, and the
      candidates will be asked to modify their proposals "on
      the fly," based on additional requirements presented by
      the board.
    * Prerequisites include a CCDETM certification, approximately
      10 years of industry experience, and acceptance into
      the program via an application process.

From the perspective of a technologist who recently acquired the CCIE credential, I breathe a mild sigh of frustration.  But then, I take a moment and recenter myself in the world that actually exists and realize that the market is in great flux today.  Stakeholders, business market groups and technologists alike are looking for that all or none solution when it comes to talent.  Talent is hard to come buy by, and the CCA will be well worth their weight.