Cisco Systems, Inc.: A World Renowned Networking Equipment Company

Cisco Systems, Inc. is multinational corporation that specializes in the area of networking equipment. Headquartered in United States; it designs, manufactures and sells networking equipment. The company concentrates on three market segments, Enterprise and Service Provider, Small Business and the Home.

Cisco focuses majorly on the corporate market and provides solutions for Borderless Networks, Collaboration, IP Next Generation Networks, and Datacenter and Virtualization. In the Borderless Networks category, some of the products include of routers, switches, wireless systems, security systems, WAN acceleration, and energy and building management systems.

In the Collaboration bucket, Cisco offers IP video and phones, TelePresence, HealthPresence, Unified Communications, Call Center systems, Enterprise Social Networks and Mobile applications. Unified Computing, Unified Fabric, Data Centre Switching, Storage Networking and Cloud services are the solutions provided under the Datacenter and Virtualization umbrella.

Cisco is also a leader in IP Next Generation Networks. It offers robust solutions for high-end routing and switching for fixed and mobile service provider networks. It additionally manufactures broadcast video contribution/distribution, entitlement and content delivery systems.

Talking about the small business market, the company produces several equipment like routers and switches, IP cameras, data and network security solutions, VOIP phones and gateway-systems, network storage systems etc. For home users, Cisco produces Linksys product line of access points, switches and cable modems.

Other than this, Cisco provides hardware solutions for Data, Telephony Products, Servers / Application Appliances and Experimental environment. In the software category, the company deals in Operating Systems, VPN/Remote Connectivity and Telephony/VoIP.

While this was about the core business nature of Cisco, let's move to the professional aspect of it and discuss the several Cisco training courses options. The company offers a variety of certification choices for professionals to let them make a successful career in this domain. Broadly there are five levels of certification in the Cisco domain, which include Entry, Associate, Professional, Expert and Architect. As discussed in the business nature bit, these courses are divided into seven different subject areas. These include Routing & Switching, Design, Network Security, Service Provider, Storage Networking, Voice and Wireless.

As easily understood, the different levels of certifications mean more knowledge for professionals as they move up the ladder, with Architect being the most advanced level. For beginners, the CCENT i.e. Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician enables them to secure a network support position in technical corporations.

In the Associate category, the various available options include CCNA, CCNA Specialty Paths, CCNA Security, CCNA Voice, CCNA Wireless, CCNA Service Provider, CCNA SP Operations and CCDA. For people stepping up, there are various choices in the Professional category, such as CCNP, CCDP, CCIP, CCNP Service Provider, CCNP Security, CCNP Voice and CCNP Wireless.

Moving on to more exposure, we have the Expert-level certifications. The available options in this domain are CCDE, CCIE and CCIE Numbering and Recertification. For Cisco Certified Architect (CCAr) i.e. the last level of certification, choices include Cisco Certified Architect Certification Process, Cisco Certified Architect Responsibilities Cisco Technician Certification and Cisco Specialist Certifications.

As visible, there are diverse certification choices in the Cisco category. It is best to get complete details about each one of them and then decide which ones to pursue. Needless to say, you cannot choose the level of certification as that is supposed to happen in a chronological order!

Amit Kataria presents you yet another knowledgeable article in the domain of information technology. This piece shall certainly help those planning for a career in the Cisco domain. Amit is associated with Koenig Solutions as a Video Editor for the past 2 years. Koenig is world's number 1 offshore and onshore IT training service provider that specializes in offering IT training, including Cisco training options and other technical courses. Based in Delhi, it has offices in Shimla, Goa, Dehradun and Dubai.