Cisco announced the Cisco Certified Design Expert today. This is an excellent program that extends their certification programs. The Design Expert program is more about understanding network designs than about the nitty-gritty of network operations, which is where the CCIE applies. Cisco's press release is at http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=812773. I was asked to provide a quote for the program, which you'll see in the press release. My friends over at Chesapeake Netcraftsmen have been involved in the program and taking the beta versions of the qualification test. They have had good things to say about it. I recommend that you check it out if you want to validate your design capabilities. I'm certain that this will drive another level of salary growth for those folks who are doing more design work than operational work.
-Terry
About tslattery
Terry Slattery, CCIE #1026, is a senior network engineer with decades of experience in the internetworking industry.
Prior to joining Chesapeake NetCraftsmen as a full time consultant, Terry was the founder and CTO of Netcordia, and inventor of NetMRI, a suite of network management products. Terry started Netcordia as a consulting company in 2000 and transitioned to a network management product company in 2003. During the consulting days, he used his network design and implementation skills to lead a team in the design and implementation of a high availability network at a brokerage clearing house. Terry is the former President and founder of Chesapeake Computer Consultants, Inc., a networking and computer systems training and consulting company. He co-invented and patented the vLab(tm) internet-based remote lab system. He is co-author of the McGraw Hill text Advanced IP Routing in Cisco Networks. Terry led the team that developed the current Cisco IOS user interface under contract to Cisco Systems. Terry is experienced in the design and installation of large TCP/IP based networks and is a successful network protocol instructor. He is the second Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) #1026 and the first outside of Cisco. He enjoys membership on the Vanderbilt University Engineering School’s Industrial Advisory Board and the IEEE.