Certifications help give the curriculum more credibility and can make professionals more attractive to recruiters. Amidst the competing job market, certifications can be a great bet.

At the entry level, they are a good way to stand out from other candidates - and even raise your salary. Discover the top ten international certifications to start your IT career:

cisco firewall certification

Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT)

Obtaining a CCNET certification will demonstrate the ability to install, operate and troubleshoot a small business network. It is a great certification for anyone who wants to get an entry network support position or if you already know you want a career in networking.

To receive certification, a person will need to complete the Interconnection course for part 1 of Cisco network devices (ICND1) . It is a five-day course that takes place in person or online, and will cover the fundamentals of the network layers involved in routing. The course also covers firewalls, basic network security, wireless controllers and access points.

Cisco Certified Technician (CCT)

CCT certification verifies the skills to diagnose, restore, repair and replace critical Cisco system and network devices at customer sites. There are two different paths to the CCT: data center or routing and switching.

The certification CCT Data Center covers support and maintenance of Cisco Unified Computing systems and servers. It is aimed at field support engineers who work with devices and software from the Cisco data center system. You must take the Cisco Data Center System Device Support (DCTECH) v2.0 course before passing the exam. The course covers fundamentals of data center networking, field services and equipment replacement, and how to identify Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) component models, accessory cabling and interfaces.

CCT Routing and Switching certification covers on-site support and maintenance for Cisco routers, switches and operating environments. It is designed for on-site technical support and other support teams that work with Cisco data center solutions. Before taking the exam, a person must take the  Supporting Cisco Routing and Switching Network Devices  (RSTECH) course. The individual online course covers the fundamentals of networking, Cisco external and switching models, modes of operation for Cisco IOS software, and the Cisco command line interface (CLI).

GUI vs CLI
In these tutorials we will work with Cisco equipment. All of this equipment has an Operating System (OS) called Cisco IOS ( I nternetwork O perating S ystem) . We can work with it in 2 CLI or GUI modes.

When it comes to Cisco equipment (Routers and Switches) they all have one thing in common: the Operating System, Cisco IOS. IOS comes from I nternetwork O perating S ystem and is the "engine" that provides the power of this equipment. We can work with IOS in 2 CLI or GUI modes . The acronym CLI is C ommand L holds I nterface and is command line where we set up all these devices. Thus we will have full access to the Router or Switch and we will be able to influence its behavior in the network.

The GUI stands for Graphical User Interface and is most often used when configuring small network devices such as Wireless Routers (Wi-Fi) at home. Find out more about all this in the video below!

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Cisco Systems announced SD-WAN Cloud onRamp for CoLocation, designed to simplify deploying and managing software-defined wide-area networks for multiple branches distributed over several regions.

The new offering provides an alternative option to the current practice of implementing Cisco SD-WAN at each branch network. For certain cases, the new solution may be more efficient and economical, as it regionalizes SD-WAN services in colocation facilities nearer branch networks, the company said.

Effectively, Cisco SD-WAN Cloud onRamp for CoLocation consolidates traffic from multiple locations, bundling egress points across single regions into single virtual hubs in regional colocation centers.

The company said aggregating access to multi-cloud applications from multiple branches to regional colocation facilities could better serve:

Multi-national organizations unable to use direct Internet connections to cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms at the branch level because of data security restrictions and international privacy regulations for cross-border sharing of personal information.
Global organizations, including financial institutions, that often have thousands of branch offices spread over multiple geographic regions, each one requiring high application quality of experience (QoE) with granular security over traffic segmentation and application access.
Partners and vendors, who are not using SD-WAN but still need connectivity to their customers' enterprise resources and applications but do not want to install a customer's SD-WAN routing appliance at each site to provide secure access.
Remote workers in home offices or on the road who need secure VPN connections to enterprise resources over inexpensive direct Internet links without backhauling traffic to a VPN firewall at a central datacenter, which incurs additional latency that affects application performance and voice/video quality.

Read More:   cisco virtual firewall