As the technology landscape continues its rapid transformation, those who work in the industry are faced with the constant challenge of keeping their skills up-to-date. To address the needs of professionals looking to build, assess and continually reinforce wireless technology or network design expertise throughout the spectrum of their career, we are announcing updates to three of our training and certification offerings: CCDA, CCDP and CCNA Wireless.

Designing Tomorrow's Networks

Enterprise environments require networks designed for performance, availability and scalability with the flexibility to meet rapidly evolving demands. Skilled IT professionals are needed to plan, design and optimize today's enterprise networks. Cisco's Design certifications drive successful business outcomes by building and validating end-to-end network design skills.

The new training courses we are introducing teach Cisco network design principles that apply to enterprises of all sizes. This update to the curriculum extends the design perspective across all segments of Cisco's Enterprise Network architectures while adding focus on new and evolving technologies such as services virtualization and programmable controller based architectures. The updated training and certification offerings are:

• Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA)
• Cisco Certified Design Professional (CCDP)

Updates to the design certification and training offerings include:

• Teachings on current technologies and solutions that are leveraged in designing and optimizing reliable, scalable and resilient enterprise networks.
• Goals that align to the promotion of a modular network design that Cisco formalized and that remains applicable to new and evolving enterprise networks.
• Expansion of network design topics to include Network Programmability, controller based architectures and virtualized services that require a holistic design perspective in order to transform the digital enterprise.
• Elevating the focus to consider design dependencies and considerations that span across the campus, data center, WAN and branch segments of advanced enterprise networks.
• Additional aspects of the modular, hierarchical campus design, advanced addressing and routing to enable transitions to IPv6, optimizing WAN services, interconnecting data centers and improving overall network security.

Networking for the Wireless World

Wireless technology is evolving at a rapid pace, with the continued proliferation of the mobile workforce, and increased Wi-Fi coverage; enterprises are realizing productivity and cost benefits from Unified Access technology. IT professionals need the skills to deploy, configure, secure and troubleshoot wireless networks to enable anytime, anywhere access to enterprise resources.

Cisco has also updated curriculum for wireless certifications to keep pace with the evolving wireless technology landscape. This curriculum provides current professionals or those looking to develop Cisco wireless networking expertise within configuration, troubleshooting and monitoring for ongoing support of Cisco Wireless networks within small-and-medium-sized businesses and enterprise environments. The updated training and certification offering is:

• Cisco Certified Network Associate Wireless (CCNA Wireless)

Updates to the wireless certification and training offerings include:

• Focus on new cloud-managed and Unified Access wireless architectures, as well as the latest 802.11ac access points, controllers and wireless standards.
• Preparation of wireless network associates for the use, positioning, planning, implementation and operation of WLAN networks.
• Delivery of information and practice activities to prepare them to help design, install, configure, monitor and conduct basic troubleshooting tasks of a WLAN in SMB and Enterprise installations.

As a market leader in wireless and design technology, Cisco enables anytime, anywhere access to network resources. Ensuring networks are optimally configured, monitored and supported is paramount to achieving business outcomes and requires a workforce of skilled wireless professionals.