Anybody Avaya certified?

N2IT

I have a friend who does telecom/system adminstration, but their phone system is set up with Avaya. He really enjoys it and when he utilizes his employee tuition/certification reimbursement plan he always flys out to Denver Colorado and takes Avaya training. This coming year will be his 3rd training, each time getting another certification. Each time moving up, first starting at the bottom/entry and moving on up to specialized aspects of the technology.

I was wondering how big this technology is, (Market Share). I don't see it mentioned much on here. He has daily exposure to this technology. Is there some ROI in him doing these certifcations? His boss was pushing him to get the 2008 server certifications, in fact he purchased him the MS 2008 deployment training book, but he really takes too the Avaya phone systems. I don't think he has even cracked the MS book to be honest, but if it's Avaya he is all over it.


Best Regards,
Patrick

QHalo

Our phone system is Avaya, but I don't think any of our telecom people are certified or have sought becoming certified. They both have like a combined total of 30+ years experience and the other Avaya shop I worked at most of them had been doing it for well over 15 years each. Telecom was one of those niche areas that you see a ton of old heads running around in it. The last 3 places I've worked, 2 have been Avaya and the other Nortel. I think they have a significant market share, but probably behind Cisco.

[Deleted User]

I haven't seen many people seeking the certifications for the Avaya products. They do seem interesting enough though. I would say he is better off seeking the MS certifications as far as ROI would go. But if you are passionate enough about something and know what you're doing with that technology you are probably bound to find a job even if it takes a little bit longer.

hypnotoad

Avaya has always been big. They licensed a bunch of technology from AT&T in the 80's. Their stuff is really reliable. They recently bought Nortel and have unveiled some new very capable enterprise switches.

Some of the Avaya techs consult for $250 an hour. I believe Avaya itself will charge you $500 an hour for their top-tier tech support. So you can make money at it.

I think avaya has a greater market share than cisco. I see Avaya IP Office setups everywhere and some of the new media servers, as well as older partner and definity TDM systems.

That being said, the Avaya GUI on all versions of their CM for the last like, 15 years, is incredibly ghetto. It's not easy to learn. I have a complete set of Avaya Definity manuals in my basement. It's over 9000 pages. And dont ever try to build an Avaya lab to study on, because while you can get the hardware cheap, there's no way to get around their crazy licensing.

networker050184

Avaya is huge in the business world. I really don't see much interest in the certs on here, but a lot of the guys running the Avaya stuff I've met are telecom guys and not big into the IT side like the crowd here.

Turgon

N2IT wrote: »

I have a friend who does telecom/system adminstration, but their phone system is set up with Avaya. He really enjoys it and when he utilizes his employee tuition/certification reimbursement plan he always flys out to Denver Colorado and takes Avaya training. This coming year will be his 3rd training, each time getting another certification. Each time moving up, first starting at the bottom/entry and moving on up to specialized aspects of the technology.

I was wondering how big this technology is, (Market Share). I don't see it mentioned much on here. He has daily exposure to this technology. Is there some ROI in him doing these certifcations? His boss was pushing him to get the 2008 server certifications, in fact he purchased him the MS 2008 deployment training book, but he really takes too the Avaya phone systems. I don't think he has even cracked the MS book to be honest, but if it's Avaya he is all over it.


Best Regards,
Patrick

It's pretty big and just another reason not to get hung up on Cisco hippie talk about total solutions. Avaya is a force to be reckoned with in voice and Cisco have a lot of catching up to do on Storage. In my last contract Avaya Voice gateway's were deployed in the DCs I designed. Other than IP transport to the chassis cards from the remote IP phones right through MPLS to the DCs and some QoS considerations everything was covered by our Avaya voice specialist in terms of encoding and call routing.