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Cisco CCNA Data Center Certification

Certification: Cisco CCNA Data Center - Cisco Certified Network Associate Data Center

Certification Overview

Cisco is the leading computer networks provider and producer, founded in 1984, with seat in San Jose, California. Today, it is even more famous for its excellent IT education academy that has learning and certificating centers around the globe. It is the most renowned certificate issuer in the world in the field of IT. This status is gained through their high quality training programmes and strict exam rules. Therefore, employers do know that if they have a Cisco – certified candidate, he / she will satisfy their IT professional requirements.

The Cisco certifications are divided into several groups:

  • Entry
  • Associate
  • Professional
  • Expert
  • Architect

In the Entry level, there are CCENT and CCT programmes. CCENT stands for Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician and CCT is Cisco Certified Technician.

In the Associate level, there are several programmes for engineers with certain experience. Those are CCNA Routing and Switching, CCNA Data Center, CCNA Security, CCNA Service Provider, CCNA Service Provider Operations, CCNA Video, CCNA Voice, CCNA Wireless and CCDA. CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate, while CCDA is Cisco Certified Design Associate.

In the higher level, Professional, there are the same courses as in the Associate level, except Video. The expert level offers trainings in Collaboration instead of Voice and Video trainings.

The Associate level professionals who choose the Cisco CCNA data center programme will get qualified to work with designing the data centers, their maintenance, installing the necessary equipment and its maintenance, as well as network design and implementation.

The course will help you thoroughly understand the way networks work, provide you necessary knowledge on data network switches, their configuring, controlling and troubleshooting, IP adressing and routing. Additionally, you will be trained on how to verify data virtualization, center storage networking and computing systems.

The material for studying is versatile and consisted of books, pdf manuals, videos and study groups. Additionally, there are sample tests available for controlling your progress and exam preparation.

Who should take this certification?

All IT professionals and channel partners involved in designing data centers, their implementation and maintenance are highly recommended to take this training.

Benefits

All IT professionals seeking to consolidate their data centers design and networking knowledge and to get certified from this area with the best certificate currently on the IT market will get these benefits by acquiring the CCNA datacenter certificate.

Associated Exams

There are two exams associated with the Cisco CCNA data center programme. Those are the first part, Introducing Cisco Data Center Networking, which can be find on the exam list as DCICN under 640 – 911 mark, and its continuation, the second part – Introducing Cisco Data Center Technologies, or the DCICT, marked as 640 – 916.

Prerequisites

Cisco CCNA data center course does not have any prerequisites. Anyone who is willing to study and show effort in the IT field and has basic knowledge is welcome!

Exam Overview

The CCNA data center exam is consisted of two parts that follow two parts of the training, accordingly. They cover the following topics:

  • Core concepts of a data center
  • Computing
  • Network services
  • Unified fabric of a data center
  • Work of a network
  • Switches
  • VLANs
  • IP addressing
  • IP addressing schemes
  • Nexus and IP addressing
  • Router operations
  • Router operations and Nexus

Each of the two exams lasts for 90 minutes. The number of questions per exam varies from 65 to 75 and the number of questions per topic varies on the topic significance.

Validity of certification

The CCNA data center certification is valid for three years after obtaining it, alike all Associate – level certifications. There are two ways of renewing your licence: taking the associated exam again or completing some of the offered and required courses by Cisco.

However, the procedure is different for holders whose license is about to expire and those with already expired license. The ones who apply for recertification programme prior to the license expiration only have to pass the exam, while the other applicants must re-take the training and repeat the whole procedure, like the first time they were taking the CCNA data center training.

Expert review

I have taken the CCNA datacenter training last year and my data center design skills have improved a lot. My employer is more satisfied with my work and my salary increased. The training programme and course overview for Cisco CCNA data center is excellent and I highly recommend it.

Emily White