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In the spring of 1998, Cisco Systems announced the Cisco Career Certifications program. The program provides two paths— network support and network design—to the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) certification, Cisco's highest certification level. Taking a cue from Microsoft's successful MCSE certification program, Cisco has created a stepping-stone approach to pursuing CCIE certification that lets you attain various certifications on your way to the CCIE. In this article, I describe Cisco's approach to certification. I explain why Cisco certification can be a valuable addition to your career qualifications, and I walk you through some of the subject areas you need to master to pass the certification exams. Finally, I suggest some strategies you can employ to achieve Cisco certification.

Why Earn Cisco Certification?
In 1997, Cisco and Microsoft announced a strategic alliance to integrate directory services that resulted in the Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) initiative. DEN is a specification for a directory schema that will extend existing x.500 and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) specifications to include Cisco routers and switches. Eventually, DEN will let organizations extend not only Active Directory's (AD's) schema but also many LDAP-accessible directories' schemas to include information about users, applications, networks, and networking equipment. (For more information about the DEN initiative, see Dave Champine, "Directory Enabled Networks," February 1999.)

Because AD will eventually let you administer your routers and switches, you'll have more control over your users and their interactions with the physical network. For example, when you implement security in your NT network today, you first create physical boundaries, either with routers or with switches and Virtual LANs (VLANs). Currently, you base security policies on your source workstations' hardware and logical addresses. In the future, you'll be able to base security policies on users and groups.

Your users move around, and the domain knows how to find and follow them; DEN will take this facility one step further and teach the network how to recognize your users, no matter where they go. If you take this capability forward another step—to gain control of end-to-end network services and application management—you can store information about network services and applications in the directory.

What does all this have to do with you and Cisco certification? Plenty, when you consider that DEN and Cisco Networking Services for Active Directory (CNS/AD), in combination with LDAP, will create complex configurations. Who will design, install, and maintain these new databases of network services? Perhaps you—if you add the new Cisco certifications to your MCSE.

Cisco is creating CNS/AD, specifications to let APIs and Java APIs (JAPIs) communicate through the Cisco integrated office system to AD. By running CNS/AD on your Cisco devices, you'll be able to manage relationships between all network resources and use inheritance within AD's tree structure to control how AD applies policies stored in the directory to other objects. You'll be able to create a policy within the AD tree structure, then give users and groups rights to that policy. The policy will define the type of traffic and bandwidth that users and groups can use on the network—traffic that might include audio and video in addition to general data.

The New Cisco Certifications
The foundation of Cisco's network support path is the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification. To achieve your CCNA, you need to pass one Sylvan Prometric test that includes approximately 70 multiple-choice questions. This requirement sounds simple; however, the CCNA certification exam is more difficult than any Microsoft exam because it requires knowledge of advanced internetworking concepts. After you pass the CCNA exam, you can continue on to achieve the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) designation by passing four additional exams. Having a CCNP puts you one step away from the CCIE certification, Cisco's highest certification level. Let's look more closely at the CCNA and CCNP certification exams.

The CCNA Exam
To pass CCNA 1.0, Cisco Certified Network Associate, you must demonstrate proficiency in networking concepts. Four of these concepts are of particular importance. (Always check with Cisco for the latest test objectives before you take a certification exam. You can learn about the exam objectives for all Cisco exams at Cisco's Certification and Training Web site: http://www.cisco.com/warp/ public/10/wwtraining/certprog/ testing/exam_objective.htm.)

The OSI model. The CCNA exam's questions about the specifications of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model are the most difficult I've ever seen. You need to know more than the names of the OSI model's seven layers. You must know the specifics of each layer. For example, you must know that the application layer identifies and establishes the availability of intended communication partners and identifies what resources are necessary to communicate. Study all OSI layers thoroughly before you register to take this exam.

Internet protocols. The CCNA exam grills you on your understanding of the different protocols and their functions at each layer of the Internet protocol stack. For example, you must know how to use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to find a hardware address from a known IP address, and how to use Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) to find an IP address from a known media access control (MAC) address. In addition, you must know how TCP and UDP work at the transport layer, which includes knowing how to set up a reliable session, and you must understand how IP works at the network layer. You must also be able to determine how a frame, packet, and segment work together to send data across an internetwork.

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