Best/Cheap/Easiest Biz/IT Certifications that don't expire

Hello Everyone,

I've been looking around and mainly the CompTIA and MicroSoft Certifications expire.
The ones for CIW and smaller players/vendors doesn't seem to have expiry dates for theirs.

Which ones are best to have for someone getting into the industry that don't expire?
I was thinking of going for the A+/Net+ and other CompTIA's first.

If the Cisco ones expire after a few years, 3 I think, is it renewed by doing CEU's?
Or do we have to go through testing again for it?

Lastly, how do you guys keep up your certifications or do you let it lapse?
Thanks, Bjcheung77

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olaHalo

Most of the good ones either expire or the technology gets outdated.
Lots of people let their lower certs expire once they have the experience or higher level certs.

No reason for a CCNP to keep his Net+ active.

bluejellorabbit

You can renew all of your Cisco certs by taking any cert exam considered to be at the same level or higher. For instance if you have a CCNA R&S and you take and pass any of the four CCNP R&S exams, your CCNA is renewed. Or you could take the CCNA Security exam and pass it and you'll renew your CCNA R&S. Cisco makes it pretty easy.

As far as certs that don't expire, I don't know of many. I think Linux+ still has no expiration date, but I imagine CompTIA will change that eventually. Security+ used to not expire, but now it does. Not a fan of CompTIA's weird CEU program.

PCTechLinc

An organization's choice of making certifications expire is largely due to ISO. In order to be "approved" for world-wide recognition, recertification is a requirement. However, since CompTIA is vendor-neutral, they provide an easy way to recertify by getting other vendor certs. For example, getting your CCNA or higher will fulfill the CE requirement for Net+. With Microsoft, the certs don't "expire", but they lose their validity in the workplace. I'm certified in Server 2008 for life, but eventually no one will care, and I will have to upgrade my cert to Server 2012 or later.

The way Cisco does their certifications is a little different. Any upper level cert will renew a cert at the same level or lower (i.e. CCNP R&S will renew CCNA R&S, CCNP Security, and others). However, individual exams also count. CCNP R&S has the ROUTE, SWITCH, and TSHOOT exams. Each one individually renews the lower level certs. Anything at the Entry-level, Associate, and Professional level need to be renewed every 3 years. CCIE is every 2 years. CCAr is every 5 years.

Ideally, it "shouldn't" be difficult to keep your certs alive, depending on cost and who is paying for them (self or employer). CE programs usually involved getting other certifications, either from the same or different vendor. When I passed EC-Council's CHFI, it automatically renewed my CEH.

I hope that answers your questions sufficiently.

PCTechLinc

bluejellorabbit wrote: »

As far as certs that don't expire, I don't know of many. I think Linux+ still has no expiration date, but I imagine CompTIA will change that eventually. Security+ used to not expire, but now it does. Not a fan of CompTIA's weird CEU program.

Linux+ is provided by LPIC, and they require recertification every 3 years. A former student of mine found that out when she got hers, so she is currently studying for the next level up.

thomas_

PCTechLinc wrote: »

Linux+ is provided by LPIC, and they require recertification every 3 years. A former student of mine found that out when she got hers, so she is currently studying for the next level up.

Linux+ is powered by LPI. If you do the 3-in-1 certification and get the LPIC-1 when you pass the Linux+ tests then your LPIC-1 will expire in 3 years, but your Linux+ will remain active since it doesn't have an expiration date.

Go to the bottle m of this page underneath "Renewals"

https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/linux

LA2

I believe ITIL doesn't expire.

OctalDump

Mostly the Microsoft certifications don't expire. And the renewal process for those that do is pretty cheap and easy.

Cisco is generally fairly easy to maintain if you are working with networking regularly. You just take one exam at the same or higher level, even from a different track. So you can renew a CCNA R+S by doing a CCNA Wireless exam, or any professional exam. And it's just one exam you need to do, not actually a whole certification (most certifications need 2-4 exams). This is one reason you see Cisco network people with a whole bunch of certifications - they just take other tracks to keep their certs current.

CompTIA is usually not too bad to start with, since you can take A+, then renew it with Net+ (and have both), then renew with Sec+ (and have three) and so on. Once you are beyond CompTIA's tracks because you have higher level certs, then you might let them expire.

EDIT: M̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶L̶i̶n̶u̶x̶ ̶c̶e̶r̶t̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶-̶ ̶R̶e̶d̶H̶a̶t̶,̶ ̶L̶P̶I̶,̶ ̶L̶i̶n̶u̶x̶+̶,̶ ̶S̶U̶S̶E̶ ̶-̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶i̶r̶e̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶u̶l̶a̶r̶l̶y̶.̶

Lots of the softskills - ITIL, Prince2, various others, don't expire.

Then there's quite a few that just have a small annual maintenance fee and fairly achievable continuing education requirements, that anyone actually using these certifications can easily make.

So, it'd be possible to have quite a long list of certifications and not even have to pay $200/year to keep them all current. For example, you could have CISSP, CCNP Security, CCNA R+S, CCNA Wireless, CCNA Sec, MCSE Server Infrastructure, RHCE and your annualised costs would be under $200 for maintenance fees and exams.

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong about the Linux certs. LPIC has 5 years, RedHat has 3 years. SUSE doesn't appear to have an expiry. The SUSE exams are fairly cheap.

PCTechLinc

thomas_ wrote: »

Linux+ is powered by LPI. If you do the 3-in-1 certification and get the LPIC-1 when you pass the Linux+ tests then your LPIC-1 will expire in 3 years, but your Linux+ will remain active since it doesn't have an expiration date.

Go to the bottle m of this page underneath "Renewals"

https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/linux

Ahh, thank you for the clarification. I admit, my entire post was based off memory, and I didn't realize that about the Linux+. It is a little confusing since not all CompTIA certs have expirations. I'm just glad that I certified all mine before recertification was required.

aderon

The linux+ cert is pretty good and doesn't expire.

jdancer

OctalDump wrote: »

...Most of the Linux certifications - RedHat ... don't expire, but do get updated regularly...

RedHat certs do expire after 3 years after you get them.

Experienced_ISN'T_old

Bjcheung77 wrote: »

Hello Everyone,

I've been looking around and mainly the CompTIA and MicroSoft Certifications expire.
The ones for CIW and smaller players/vendors doesn't seem to have expiry dates for theirs.

Which ones are best to have for someone getting into the industry that don't expire?
I was thinking of going for the A+/Net+ and other CompTIA's first.

If the Cisco ones expire after a few years, 3 I think, is it renewed by doing CEU's?
Or do we have to go through testing again for it?

Lastly, how do you guys keep up your certifications or do you let it lapse?
Thanks, Bjcheung77

3 words
New 3.0 CCNA

or ONE

CLOUD

TechGuru80

Eventually certain certifications become irrelevant for your position.

Cisco certifications are renewed through retesting...any equal level of difficulty or higher renews anything at the same level or lower for the same period (3 years or 2 with CCIE).

MCSA doesn't expire but you have to retest for any MCSE and when the version is no longer supported, your status goes to retired / legacy.

Frankly...easiest / best / cheapest...are different categories because it depends. Easiest would be CompTIA but the exam itself isn't the cheapest...probably the least expensive to maintain however. The best certifications...Cisco, Microsoft, CISSP, etc...will run you probably at least $500 because of books, videos, simulators, and equipment that you may get to help you learn...and the prices could get into the several thousands for higher level certifications.

After all this information it should be pretty clear that the best certifications will require an initial and continuous investment into your career...

fmitawaps

If you have a CCNA R&S 2.0, for which testing stops later this year, and next spring you go get something like CCNA Wireless, which presumably won't change between now and then, would that renew your CCNA R&S 2.0 to the new 3.0 standard?

Or would you have to take the CCNA R&S 3.0 to have the 3.0?

OctalDump

jdancer wrote: »

RedHat certs do expire after 3 years after you get them.

You are right. I had something else in my head when I wrote that.

OctalDump

fmitawaps wrote: »

If you have a CCNA R&S 2.0, for which testing stops later this year, and next spring you go get something like CCNA Wireless, which presumably won't change between now and then, would that renew your CCNA R&S 2.0 to the new 3.0 standard?

Or would you have to take the CCNA R&S 3.0 to have the 3.0?

The certification itself doesn't carry a version. What you will have is CCNA Routing and Switching, and that will get renewed when you pass the CCNA Wireless exam. In fact you can collect a whole bunch of certifications to keep the renewals going, and have a valid CCNA R+S where you haven't done the CCNA R+S exams for 10 years.

ItsmHarun

I think ITIL is best it could not be expire.

The_Expert

I do not believe that you can have all three things you are looking for (best, cheap, easiest). I would focus on getting the best, which of course is not going to be easy to obtain or cheap to achieve. Starting out in IT - I would recommend going the CompTIA route. Get your A+, Net+, Sec+ then some type of OS level Certification either CompTIA Linux+ or Microsoft.

The Net+ can also be swapped out for Cisco CCENT -> CCNA if you desire to get heavy into networking.

CompTIA certs will get you started in IT. They are not the be all, end all of certs. But, I know plenty of folks who have gotten decent jobs with just CompTIA Certifications.

Renewing them are not difficult. I used to be confused by the CompTIA CEU program, but I receive so much formal training on my job that I can easily renew them in 1-2 years time.

Good luck to you!

scaredoftests

LA2 wrote: »

I believe ITIL doesn't expire.

Yup, they don't.

Mike7

Offensive Security certs such as OSCP does not expire.

Bjcheung77 wrote: »

Best/Cheap/Easiest Biz/IT Certifications that don't expire

This is probably the best, not the cheapest and definitely not the easiest IT cert that do not expire.