I took a look at the existing CCIE tracks and thought long and hard about which track to take.

Anytime I evaluate a certification I take the following attributes into consideration:

• Industry demand. How many companies are asking for this certification?
• How valuable is this cert? Are companies willing to pay good money for someone holding this cert?
• Number of people that hold this cert. Is the market flooded with these certifications or is there a shortage of talent?
• Does the vendor have a large enough market share in the field? No sense in being certified in a product that only a handful of companies use.
• Does the topic interest me? Can I stay awake through page 705? The cert can meet all the criteria above, but if it doesn’t hold my attention I’ll never finish it.

Although any CCIE certification would probably meet all of the above criteria, I only have time to work on one CCIE at a time. So here is my breakdown of each track:

CCIE Routing and Switching - This cert is in high demand and gives you a great foundation on which you can expand into any of the other certs. Some say its a prerequisite for the other certs. Since I already have this one, there’s no sense in me taking it again.

CCIE Service Provider – This seems like it would be the easiest for me to pass considering much of the content is the same as the R+S (especially now that they’ve added MPLS)

Unfortunately there is not much of a demand for CCIE SP in my area (NYC tri-state region) and the service providers in my area are super cheap.

Note to headhunters: Although $35/hr is very tempting, Middletown is a little far from my house. So please stop sending me emails for projects at AT&T!

CCIE Storage – Meh. Doesn’t really interest me.

CCIE Wireless – This was on my short list. I am particularly interested in ethical hacking of wireless networks. Not for business reasons, just cause I think its cool . Other than that I don’t think many enterprises view Wireless as a mission critical technology. Sure the Execs get their panties in a bunch when the wireless goes down in the board roam, but other than that, who cares if a visitor can’t update their Facebook page while waiting in the lobby? Use your iPhone or buy yourself an air card dammit!

CCIE Security - Hmm, I’ve thought long and hard about this one. Security is a hot topic these days and I find it very interesting. In fact I’ve been working on Cisco security products such as PIX, ASA, and the VPN 3000 concentrator for years. The problem is security is such a broad field and I don’t think that Cisco owns enough of a market share to make this cert a must have. I’ll put this one on the back burner for now.

CCIE Voice – Ahhh voice. As you probably guessed from the title of my blog, this is the one I chose to go with.

The VOIP/IPT/Unified Communications market has really taken off these last few years, and more and more companies are looking for individuals certified in these technologies.

The trend I am seeing is companies are now looking for network engineers that are not only experts at routing, switching and security, but who are experts in voip as well. What happened to the good old days when you could charge $150/hr for plugging in a router?

The good thing about the CCIE Voice is that very few people have it – currently only 1132 people in the entire world have this cert. And its no question that Cisco dominates in this area. When I walk into companies that have done IP telephony migrations nine times out of ten there are Cisco IP phones sitting on the desk. Sounds like a winner to me!