Bcmsn

S0tt0

I need to re-certify to keep my current CCNA / CCDA certs and was thinking of taking BCMSN, BSCI and the new troubleshooting exam to obtain the CCNP.

Is this a valid certification route and more importantly what relevance will the old curriculum have in todays market?

I'm working in a HP house at the moment and haven't been exposed to Cisco for over 2 years, hopefully this is due to change as soon as I get my CCNP.

Forsaken_GA

it's a valid path, but you'd have to pass BSCI and BCMSN before July 31st, after that, they won't be offered anymore. If you think you can do both exams in under 3 months, go for it, otherwise you're pretty better off focusing on the new material.

As far as relevance, the new CCNP goes deeper, while the old CCNP is broader. There's probably not much lost in the case of relevance, as they've actually pulled a number of topics from the new CCNP, but it's not like what they pulled is outdated and useless, just covered by other tracks. So the old exams are still pretty relevant, it's not like the outgoing exams are testing on obsolete technology like IPX and ISDN.

Nuul

S0tt0 wrote: »

I need to re-certify to keep my current CCNA / CCDA certs and was thinking of taking BCMSN, BSCI and the new troubleshooting exam to obtain the CCNP.

That's exactly the path I'm taking. I'm just waiting on TSHOOT to be available so I can finially call myself a CCNP.

S0tt0 wrote: »

Is this a valid certification route and more importantly what relevance will the old curriculum have in todays market?

It will be in a few years time. After July we won't be getting any new "paper" CCNPs joining the crowd. That doesn't keep those that already have it from taking ROUTE or SWITCH to recertify, but it will still help thin the braindump population.

S0tt0 wrote: »

I'm working in a HP house at the moment and haven't been exposed to Cisco for over 2 years, hopefully this is due to change as soon as I get my CCNP.

I hear ya. Our server guys are big into HP. They used to buy HP Procrap switches for the blade enclosure servers. After a few issues and me saying "I don't have these problems with our Cisco gear, maybe you shouldn't be budgeting for this stuff with out asking me about it first huh." Needless to say all the blade enclosure switches are Cisco now and we've not had an issue.