the great thing as i like to say about
certifications is certifications show
you what you don't know you don't know
what you don't know and certifications
give you sort of a guided way to learn
technologies and show you what you don't
know in your organization you may spend
time on a certain technology
certifications broaden that knowledge
and force you to learn stuff that's out
of for instance your comfort zone again
i like to say this you have a long
journey your career is hopefully not
just going to be two years in length
you have time to pick up new
certifications you have time to learn
new technologies and to broaden your
knowledge i have held many many many
certifications during my lifetime and
for instance i've had a voice
certification so ccmp voice that's not
even relevant today it's collaboration
today i've had ccmp security i've had
ccmp writing and switching i've had a
whole bunch of certifications over the
years and i found that they're really
good to help me broaden my knowledge and
make me a more rounded person
in this video i want to share my
thoughts about the top five networking
certifications that you can get in 2022.
i discussed cybersecurity certifications
in this video with john hammond i've
created additional videos with bot where
i discuss cloud certifications i'll link
those videos below in this video i'm
specifically talking about networking
certifications and the best
certifications that you can get in 2022
now let's start with this demonstration
on linkedin
i'm going to search
for ccna
in the united states and what you'll see
is i get 192 000 results
if i do that same search for jncia
in other words the juniper certification
i get 430 results
so as an example you can see global
infrastructure operations network
engineer at apple
jncia
you can see that from an education
perspective they want you to have either
ccna or juniper jncia or equivalent
industry experience
so that tells me that the cisco
certification ccna is in a lot more
demand in the united states than the
juniper certification
what about aruba so aruba's switching
certification is acsa so the associate
certification
that has 105 results but that's not just
aruba that actually includes other
certifications as well if i search for
ruba in the united states i get
1927 results but that's not just the
associate certification that's all jobs
with the aruba keyword
now if i do a search for ccmp in the
united states i get 191 000 results so
ccna cisco
certified network associate
certification i get 192 000 results
ccmp i get 191 000 results and if i
search for ccie in the united states i
get
3731 results
that little test tells me that you
should rather invest your time getting a
ccna certification rather than a juniper
certification rather than an aruba
certification assuming that everything
else is equal now there's nothing wrong
with juniper certifications there's
nothing wrong with aruba certifications
there are great certifications
but cisco is the biggest networking
vendor out there so if i look at some
statistics
of the worldwide top five ethernet
switch companies you'll see that cisco
has the biggest market share cisco are
the biggest networking vendor out there
if i was starting today and i was
looking at my first networking
certification the certification that i
would get
is the cisco ccna certification
that is my first certification in 2022.
now again there's nothing wrong with the
other certifications but if everything
is equal if you have to pay for yourself
i think that the return on investment on
a ccna certification is going to be a
lot greater than other certifications
but let's say your employer is paying
for these certifications and they want
you to get a juniper certification or an
aruba certification then by all means
get those certifications
some people will accuse me of being
biased towards cisco i'm a cisco ccie
i've done cisco training for years and
years and years but i've also trained
the river courses i trained aruba for
quite a long time actually so i've
worked with the aruba equipment i've
worked with other vendor equipment but
if you have a limited time and we all
have limited time if you have limited
resources and we all have limited
resources i think that the certification
that you should concentrate on in 2022
is a ccna certification that is a
baseline certification for all
networking certifications once you've
got a ccna then you can decide to go and
do other things so as an example my
second certification is the cisco devnet
associate certification now years ago we
only had routing and switching as an
option
then we got additional certifications in
data center we got service provider we
got other certifications from cisco so
you could get ccna and then you could
get ccmp and other certifications in
different areas the cisco devnet
certification is a newer certification
but today in today's world you cannot
just do networking you need to have an
understanding or an appreciation of
programming languages such as python you
need to understand apis you need to
understand json that's even part of the
ccna today
but i see this as two main roads that
you can take you can be a traditional
networking engineer with a bit of
programming or you can decide to focus
more on devnet and have a strong
emphasis on network development in other
words network automation or development
in a networking context and have an
understanding of networking you need to
decide what you enjoy do you enjoy
programming with a bit of networking or
do you enjoy networking with a bit of
programming now if you don't like to
code
if you really don't like to code then
focus on the traditional networking path
but be aware that you cannot get away
from some type of programming or a bit
of programming you're going to come
across apis you're going to come across
python network automation is here to
stay you need to be able to speak that
language so even if you focus very
heavily on networking you still need to
understand network automation in today's
world so first certification that i
would suggest that you concentrate on is
ccna second one is the cisco devnet
associate certification
that's the path that i would take today
if i was starting again and as always
this is my personal opinion this is what
i would suggest you do if you're
starting today ccna then devnet
associate and then you can decide what
you want to do if you want to focus on
development you can go and get to the
devnet professional certification but if
you want to focus on traditional
networking if you like you can get your
ccmp enterprise certification now from a
ccmp point of view i think you've got
two
very good options you've got ccmp
enterprise or ccmp security
security is a very hot topic at the
moment so you may want to focus on
security rather than enterprise
but you may not like working with
security stuff you may prefer working
with routers and switches bgp ospf stuff
like that so have a look at enterprise
notice here there are a whole range of
ccmp certifications but let's start with
ccmp enterprise within ccnp enterprise
we have the on-call exam that's the core
technologies exam so that's the first
one you're going to get and then you
need to decide what you want to do so as
an example i recommended last year that
you look at sd-wan i strongly recommend
that you look at sd1 in 2022
software defined wan is becoming really
really important but you may also decide
to get the automation concentration exam
the great thing about the way that cisco
have done the ccmp today is that you get
your core and then you get these
concentration exams and you can take a
number of them to give you different
skills
so i would suggest
ccna
devnet associate and then you decide are
you going to become a devnet
professional or are you going to become
a enterprise engineer so ccmp enterprise
now this as always may not be the
correct path for you
you may prefer to do security
so you may decide to rather focus on
security so
security is a very hot topic at the
moment so if you want to
spend more time on security stuff then
perhaps don't do the ccmp enterprise
look at ccmp security so in that case
you would start with the cisco security
core technologies exam and then you need
to decide
i would have a look at the firepower
concentration companies need firewalls
but notice there are different options
here the great thing here is that you
can decide to do the core exam and then
add some concentration exams to that so
going back to enterprise as an example
you may prefer doing advanced writing
and switching because you want to go and
get your ccie certification and that
would be my next certification
ccie has been for many years and i still
think is very relevant in today's world
that is a very difficult exam
don't think that if you're starting a
networking today so you're starting in
2022 that you're going to get your ccie
that's too much of a leap there's too
much knowledge to gain to get a ccie
certifications are a great way to expand
your knowledge and a great way to get
past the gatekeepers i strongly
recommend that you get certifications
because they get you passed to the
gatekeepers when you do a job search
notice that certifications are shown in
the job searches recruitment agents are
going to filter your cv or your resume
based on keywords such as ccna ccnp ccie
make sure that you get the certification
so that you can get to the interview get
past the gatekeepers and in the
interview you can show them a whole
bunch of other stuff
like the work that you've done the
projects that you've done and your
personality
use certifications to get past the
gatekeepers okay now a lot of people are
going to say david your list is very
cisco centric what about other
certifications you're a cisco fanboy
and i will say that last year i had a
very similar list to this year
but i think cisco certifications because
of the sort of examples that i've done
and i suggest you do your own research
it may be different in the country that
you're in
look at the demand for cisco ccna versus
jncia so juniper versus aruba versus
other vendors that are
used where you are in some parts of the
world there may be other vendors that
are more popular than cisco but just in
this simple search of the us and the
same is true in the uk cisco tends to be
the most popular
cisco certifications are sort of the
benchmark i think for a lot of
networking certs so a lot of certs are
based on the cisco certs associate
professional expert i think that the
best search to get in 2022 are these
networking certs again don't think
you're going to get a ccie if you're
just starting get your ccna first then
your devnet associate and then perhaps
part of your ccmp set that as your goal
for 2022. but let me know in the
comments what do you think do you agree
with this list did i miss anything do
you disagree feel free to give me your
comments but sort of based on what i see
in the industry i would suggest looking
at these certifications okay i'm david
bumble i want to wish you all the very
best