Are you currently studying for the CCNA certification?
According to Cisco's certification roadmap page. An updated CCNA exam will be in full effect August 20th.
In this post, I'm going to cover any key changes to the exam. I will also compare the old version to the new version. To check for the new exam topics.
What is the CCNA certification?
The CCNA is a certification by Cisco who has lead the market in the networking realm for years. This certification demonstrates your knowledge of networking. It also test your knowledge on configurating and managing network devices. Unless you been living under a rock, if your in the IT industry or trying to transition to the industry. I'm sure you have heard of CCNA certification or it has at least came up in conversation. For most professionals this certification is what got them started in IT. This certifcation is how I got my start. For anyone interested in networking this certifcation is a must.
Update Details
About a year ago, Cisco introduced a website named Cisco Certification roadmaps. This page provides timely and relevant information about any updates for their exams. According to this page the last date to test for the CCNA v1.0 is Aug 19th. Version 1.1 will go in effect Aug 20th 2024. Roughly next month at the time of this post. This updates are minor updates with no more than 10% of the exam updated. It's not a complete overhaul like a couple years ago. Cisco reviews each technology every quarter to keep exams up-to-date. Changes are announced 3-6 months ahead, along with updated exam topics and release notes.
What's Changing
According to the release notes, there is an increasing focus on cloud, automation, and AI. This shift is reflected in the blueprint with the addition of AI, machine learning, and Terraform. When we look at the exam topics there have been some minor additions. I will link to them below, but the biggest addition is topic 6.4 "Explain AI and machine learning in network operations". Another addition is topic 6.6: Understand what configuration management tools like Ansible and Terraform can do. In this case Terraform is the new addition.
My thoughts
I'm feeling this new way of updates for the certification exams. This way if your studying and an update is announced. You have two options you can take. One, you can continue studying and take the exam before the update is implemented. Or you can wait until the update is implemented then start studying for the certification. One thing to keep in mind is that usually it takes a little time for the study material to get updated. This process is starting to get faster as of writing this the new study guide is available to order. I'm sure other resources will be updated to reflect this update.
