Security is a hot topic in today’s networks, and will continue to be for a long time to come. With that in mind, you must consider adding a Cisco security certification to your resume and firewall skills to your skill set.
It’s quite a jump from the CCNA to the CCSP (Cisco Certified Security Professional), and Cisco has made that leap more manageable by adding Specialist certifications. These certifications can give quite a boost to both your resume and your skill set, and act as a great “stepping stone” to the CCSP.
At present, Cisco offers four VPN/Security certifications, those being Cisco Firewall Specialist, Cisco IPS Specialist, Cisco VPN Specialist, and Cisco VPN/Security Sales Specialist. Since every WAN engineer has contact with Cisco firewalls on a regular basis, we’ll take a closer look at this popular certification first. (And those who want to be WAN engineers had better learn something about firewalls, too!)
At the writing of this article (October 21, 2005), Cisco is offering an option for each of the two exams you’ll need to pass to earn this certification. For the first exam, you can take either the...