CCNA vs CCDA for consultants

For those of you with an eye on consulting do you find that the CCNA is sufficient to deploy network designs for people, or do you think that the CCDA is a more useful certification for learning that part of consulting. I mean the part I speak of is network deployment, where you go to a business with no network and present them with an plan and initial design of there network.

Feel free to deep dive on this topic...

Find more posts tagged with

Save $250 on 2025 certification boot camps from Infosec!

Book now with code EOY2025

Button

Comments

shodown

Those certs will give some good foundation, but it would be best to work under an experienced network designer to really understand how to put together a network. The books will let you understand what they are talking about.

Dieg0M

Only experience will make you a good designer and consultant. None of these certs are worth anything in the industry.

TechGuru80

Take the Cisco associate network consultant job for example...get CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE written within first year. To be a consultant worth anything you need to have a wealth of knowledge because you would need to recommend protocols and many other things...being a consultant would not be "oh yes you need 10 routers and 20 switches." Next you would need experience actually designing networks. Having the knowledge is half the battle, being able to apply it is the other half.

nkillgore

Neither CCNA or the CCDA alone (no experience) are sufficient to be able to do much more than talk to Cisco TAC and pray to [insert favorite deity] that the tech you get assigned to your case can actually help. The DA is almost completely useless unless you are planning to go further down the design track.

Not trying to be rude here, but....

no consulting firm in its right mind is going to hire someone who has no experience. Most of the time when a business hires a consulting firm to deploy a network or system, the in-house staff either is not skilled enough to do it or there is no in-house staff. No matter what, as a consultant, you need to walk in the door knowing what you are doing. A CCNA (or even NP for that matter) is not going to give you that level of knowledge. It takes time and hands-on experience.

RouteMyPacket

Dieg0M wrote: »

Only experience will make you a good designer and consultant. None of these certs are worth anything in the industry.

This! NA level is not going to land anyone a design role in a company. Again, certifications are supplements to experience. Design is a whole different ball of wax and most Engineers that I know who have attempted it were already multiple time IE's and went over and did the CCDE Written then Lab

It would be cool to work your way up through DA, DP but again Design is all about experience..it's probably the toughest track and I shutter thinking about the stories I have heard about the CCDE lab.

egrizzly

...after I finished my CCNA I was able to design a network from scratch using the standardized instructions provided in the CCNA Study Guides. (e.g. when given a business of 20 people design a network with 4 subnets. One for Accounting, Sales, Marketing, and IT). I was able to do this basic network. Of course it does not have super-advanced features like multiple redundancy, VLANs, security on switches, e.t.c, but it is an example of a network I was able to design, complete with documentation and all.

So are you saying that the CCDA does not then provide such knowledge and that you have to wait for experience?. Surely it should be able to give a network pro some type of step-by-step/best practice guidelines on how to design and deploy standard networks like that. you're saying its completely useless?

tjh87

It is not completely useless. It does give a broad overview of design best practices; however, the Design path does not involve any implementation. That is left up to the CCNA's/P's/IE's. Just like all of the associate level certs from Cisco, it is meant to be somewhat introductory. The meat and potatoes of the design track (from what I have heard) is in the CCDP and CCDE.

And yes, just like any other area of IT, experience is better than any cert. There is no way someone with just their CCDA is experienced enough to go design an in depth network for a customer. Now someone with 10 years experience designing networks, who just so happens to have their CCDA or CCDP, would be a different story altogether.

RouteMyPacket

egrizzly wrote: »

...after I finished my CCNA I was able to design a network from scratch using the standardized instructions provided in the CCNA Study Guides. (e.g. when given a business of 20 people design a network with 4 subnets. One for Accounting, Sales, Marketing, and IT). I was able to do this basic network. Of course it does not have super-advanced features like multiple redundancy, VLANs, security on switches, e.t.c, but it is an example of a network I was able to design, complete with documentation and all.

So are you saying that the CCDA does not then provide such knowledge and that you have to wait for experience?. Surely it should be able to give a network pro some type of step-by-step/best practice guidelines on how to design and deploy standard networks like that. you're saying its completely useless?

Why did you segment the network into four separate networks? Did you design a three tier network or two tier, and why? What IP range did you chose for the design, how did you subnet it? What is the benefit in segmenting the network when a flat network (1 VLAN) would suffice for 20 users? Where is your L3 routing taking place? Did you chose a dynamic routing protocol, why or why not? Did you design a network that is modular? What will happen if the company expands by several departments and adds 100 users? How are you protecting the network edge?

^That is design, "why".."when".."where". "Designing" a network that simply "works" versus one that follows best practices and is modular are two completely separate things.

Design is experience and study...most Engineers move over to design after years in the game. It's an exciting track but it's extremely difficult because again as an Architect (Designer) you need to know why, when and where.

Congrats on your network design, good stuff but try to answer my initial questions based on your network design you implemented for a customer.

xagreus

I would highly recommend looking into BICSI's RCDD (Registered Communications Distribution Designer). From BICSI's website:

The RCDD status conveys instant advantages over the competition:

A professional designation of excellence
A highly regarded status recognized and mandated by many private and state organizations
A noted mark of design knowledge valued internationally
An indication of experience and knowledge known throughout the ITS industry

To sit for the RCDD credential, you must have at least one of the following:

Five years ITS design experience
Two years verifiable ITS design experience and three years additional ITS equivalents chosen from combinations of experience, approved education and approved ITS license/certification

Design includes the development of design plans for ITS integration. This includes site surveys, user needs analysis, work print creation, project specifications, RFP creation and pre-project coordination with PEs, architects, AHJs, etc.

Sounds like it might be just what you're looking for.

With these requirements, it's more of a long-term goal, but well worth it (judging from the comments of a couple of former supervisors of mine, both of whom were RCDDs, and other co-workers who had earned various BICSI designations).

FYI, the RCDD complements the CCDA:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-13157