Cisco is introducing a plan that uses what it calls mobile labs to make testing and certification of networking professionals available more easily to candidates in emerging markets.
The option is being offered to candidates for the CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) Routing and Switching lab exam, and will later be extended to other certification exams, Milind Gurjar, director of global market development at Learning@Cisco, said on Tuesday in Bangalore.
The CCIE has been dubbed the networking pro’s holy grail.
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The mobile labs essentially consist of laptops through which candidates can access remotely the test equipment at the fixed locations where Cisco has testing facilities, Gurjar said.
The company currently has 10 fixed locations — including Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Brussels, Sao Paulo, and Bangalore — that offer the test. However, this has proven to be expensive to students from other countries who have to travel abroad to these locations for the test, Gurjar said.
Using mobile labs will also add testing capacity by 20 percent, without significant additions in fixed investments, he added.
The mobile test lab is one of a number of steps that Cisco is taking to boost the number of professionals trained on Cisco equipment. There are currently about 1 million Cisco trained professionals, but the company, its partners and customers are together estimated to require 2 million [m] such professionals by 2013, Gurjar said.