500-444 learning - Cisco Contact Center Enterprise Implementation and Troubleshooting (CCEIT) Updated: 2024

Gordon Pelosse is senior vice president, employer engagement at CompTIA. Unlocking the potential in millions of under and unemployed.

As technology continues to advance, cybersecurity has become a critical concern for organizations across all industries. Cybersecurity certified are tasked with protecting an organization's digital assets from a myriad of threats. To do so effectively, they must have a deep understanding of the IT infrastructure and networking principles that underpin these assets. This includes knowledge of servers, storage systems, cloud services, network protocols and data transmission.

Due to the detailed requirements and the combination of education and hands-on experience needed, many HR leaders find recruiting for cybersecurity roles challenging. It's common for hiring managers to default to a formal degree requirement as a proxy for skill, but this can be misleading.

Understanding the different ways that cybersecurity certified can obtain their foundational skills is paramount. This is especially important because professionals in related fields can transition into security roles through a number of pathways. So it's crucial to validate whether a candidate possesses the necessary skills, rather than making hiring decisions based on what their college major was.

If your organization is in need of cybersecurity professionals, here are five pathways you should take into account.

Pathway 1: Higher Education Alternative

Associate degrees offer a structured approach to learning that combines theoretical knowledge with practical experience. This pathway can be particularly appealing to those who value a traditional academic setting, and the comprehensive education it offers, but wish to avoid the time and financial commitment of a four-year degree. Cybersecurity candidates with associate degrees can often bring a disciplined approach to problem-solving and project management to the role.

Pathway 2: Vocational Training And Certifications

Pursuing a certificate in relevant tech skill sets, such as network design or troubleshooting, provides a direct route to a career in cybersecurity. Participants can learn things like network design, implementation and troubleshooting; security concepts and best practices; and threat analysis, risk management and incident response.

Certifications can be a reliable indicator of someone's commitment to professional development and their readiness to take on cybersecurity challenges. As most reputable programs are updated regularly to keep up with the ever-changing technology and evolving threats, a certified professional is more than likely well equipped to solve problems that arise.

You should also recognize the value of vendor-specific certifications, which provide expertise in the relevant technologies that an organization uses. For example, a candidate with a Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate certification would be able to handle security in a Cisco-based network environment.

Pathway 3: Self-Directed Learning And Experience

Being self-taught is a hallmark of many successful cybersecurity professionals. Individuals who have taken the initiative to learn about infrastructure and networking through online courses, tutorials and hands-on projects demonstrate a proactive approach to their professional growth. These candidates may not have formal degrees in cybersecurity, but their self-taught skills or on-the-job training and experience can be just as valuable.

Look for evidence of self-directed learning in a candidate's background, such as participation in online forums, attendance at industry webinars or completion of online courses related to infrastructure and networking. Then, when interviewing self-directed learners, you can include technical assessments that allow them to demonstrate their knowledge and experience. These assessments can range from theoretical questions about network protocols to practical exercises involving the configuration of firewalls or intrusion detection systems.

Pathway 4: Boot Camps And Short Courses

Accelerated learning environments are for individuals looking to develop their infrastructure and networking skills quickly. Cybersecurity boot camp programs are intensive and focused, often including hands-on labs and real-world simulations that prepare participants for the challenges they'll face on the job. Short courses can provide specialized training in areas like network security, ethical hacking or cloud security. They're often designed to supplement existing knowledge and can be an excellent way for professionals with infrastructure backgrounds to pivot into cybersecurity.

Graduates from these programs are valuable employees who arrive equipped with up-to-date knowledge and practical experience. As a hiring manager, of course, it's important to evaluate the quality and relevance of the accelerated program they attended, as well as the depth of the curriculum. This can ensure you're hiring someone who fits the needs of your organization's cybersecurity function.

Pathway 5: Work Experience

Professionals with experience in system administration, network engineering or infrastructure roles have a significant advantage when transitioning to cybersecurity roles. Their practical knowledge of IT systems ensures they understand how to maintain, troubleshoot and optimize network and system performance. These skills are directly transferable to securing those same systems.

As an HR manager, you should recognize the potential to fast-track these individuals into cybersecurity careers. Their existing knowledge allows them to bypass years of foundational training, focusing instead on acquiring specific security skills.

Networking is a powerful tool when looking to recruit experienced professionals with cybersecurity talent. Professional associations, industry conferences and online communities are excellent sources for connecting with candidates who may be seeking new opportunities.

Conclusion

Recruiting cybersecurity talent requires an appreciation for the diverse pathways that candidates may take to gain the necessary skills. Candidates with experience in system administration, network engineering or infrastructure roles may find themselves well positioned to transition into cybersecurity. Sometimes, the talent is right under your nose, and with some upskilling and on-the-job experience, you can fast-track existing employees to cybersecurity roles. By recognizing transferable skills or nontraditional education, you can tap into a rich pool of cybersecurity talent that is both technically proficient and security-conscious.

Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?

That's the word from Kevin MacRitchie, vice president of worldwide channels operations at the networking hardware vendor, based here.

In his role at Cisco, MacRitchie is charged with the mission of leveraging the Internet to increase partner productivity by some 5 percent per year, he said.

A major part of that effort is Cisco's Partner E-Learning Connection (PEC) site. Launched in March 2000, PEC provides online courses for all Cisco technology specializations.

The move to online-based courses was a huge productivity enhancement, said Tom Adams, vice president of strategy and partnerships at Calence, a Tempe, Ariz.-based Cisco Gold partner. "It saves significant time and money, especially on travel costs," he said.

Cisco's e-learning site is currently in its second generation. The first generation basically consisted of books and PowerPoint slides converted to HTML, MacRitchie said. The second generation provides "prescriptive learning," where students take a test before each course, and based on the results of the test, the PEC recommends which modules of the course a student needs to take, he said. Prescriptive learning cuts the number of course modules by between 40 percent and 60 percent, he said.

Calence's Adams said the prescriptive learning system is a timesaver, but the pre-course test isn't always the same as the official certification test. "It's a situation a lot like the SAT," Adams said. "You can ace the SAT prep test and think you are prepared, but when you go for the real test, it's a whole different animal."

The next stage in development of the PEC will be third-generation e-learning, or curriculum-based prescriptive learning, MacRitchie said. Under that scenario, a student enters certification objectives, such as IP telephony and wireless certification, and the system creates a test based on the entire curriculum for those certifications. Then, based on test results, the system determines which modules of which courses the student needs to meet those objectives.

MacRitchie said Cisco expects to test the third generation of the PEC within the next six months and to roll it out within a year.

"We need the time to test it because we need to make sure that the recommendations the system makes are actually what the students need to pass the certification tests," he said.

The PEC also contains a 3-D virtual equipment lab, where students without access to a particular piece of Cisco equipment can view virtual equivalents. "You can supply somebody all the course training in the world, but if they have never actually seen the router or the switch they will be working with, you can run into problems," MacRitchie said.

In the virtual lab, students can view all sides of the equipment and zoom in on particular parts as well as remove and install interface cards, he added.

MacRitchie plans to have all of Cisco's equipment represented in the 3-D lab within six months.

Another online productivity project at Cisco is Partner Access Online (PAL), through which partners can send customer satisfaction surveys and view their own customer satisfaction results on PAL. Cisco recently added attach rates for sales of its SmartNet maintenance program as well as tracking information on calls to its technical assistance center.

Cisco partners say the networking giant is making a bigger bet on machine learning and artificial intelligence as major enablers to transition into a software and services-centric company.

The San Jose, Calif.-based network leader unveiled on Thursday its plan to acquire Perspica, a startup specializing in the use of machine learning to analyze streams of data in order to provide visibility throughout the entire application infrastructure stack. Perspica's technology and team will be injected into Cisco's AppDynamics division.

In May, Cisco spent $125 million on the acquisition of artificial intelligence startup MindMeld who built a platform that makes it possible for companies to create intelligent conversational interfaces for any app or device. MindMeld is being integrated into Cisco's flagship unified communications solution Cisco Spark in an effort to "bring voice AI to meeting rooms".

[Related: Cisco Launches 'Next-Generation' Services Powered By AI]

Just this week, Cisco launched a slew of new services powered by AI and machine learning that can anticipate IT failures, mitigate risk and reduced maintained costs for businesses. On Wednesday, the network leader teamed up with McAfee for AI-powered cybersecurity.

"The momentum that's behind machine learning and AI, there's a whole lot of opportunity there because if players like Cisco acquire these companies and make their solutions better by picking up these niche players, the overall message becomes a whole lot better," said Faisal Bhutto, vice president of enterprise networking, cloud, and cybersecurity for Computex Technology Solutions, a top Cisco partner.

"These bets Cisco is making on AI, machine learning, what the Internet of Things creates – that's what's going to help the business move more to software subscription services than the traditional hardware," Bhutto.

Cisco's push to tuck-in intelligence across its large portfolio was front and center in the company's biggest announcement of 2017, the Intuitive Network, an intent-based networking system that anticipates actions, stops security threats and continues to evolve and learn.

The subscription-based platform represented a significant shift in transforming Cisco into a software-centric vendor through new automation, encrypted traffic security analytics, machine learning capabilities and a new IOS, to name a few.

"[Cisco] is trying to have intelligence in every conversation. You saw that in the Intuitive Network, Perspica is another piece of the puzzle – they're trying to solve line of business problems faster," said one top executive from a solution provider who is a Gold Cisco partner, who did not wish to be named. "They're pushing that AI, automation, real-time message. You can see it in their commercials, every Cisco event seems to have 'intelligence' in the theme … so bringing intelligence up the entire IT stack."

The subscription-based Intuitive Network platform represented a significant shift in transforming Cisco into a software-centric vendor through new automation, encrypted traffic security analytics, machine learning capabilities and a new IOS, to name a few. Cisco spent $610 million in August acquiring software-defined WAN specialist Viptela to further this strategy.

The executive said Cisco's go-to-market messaging around technology like AI and the Intuitive Network isn't resonating in a big way with customers quite yet, saying its "confusing" to "many of our customers when we try to start that conversation."

"But this is just the beginning of Cisco's transformation. We're all in. I think we almost have to be [because] it's where they're going and where they want partners to invest in," said the executive.

Computex's Bhutto said Cisco is moving beyond the term "solution selling" by pushing solutions that have been injected with intelligence.

"It's, 'How about we build an intelligent solution, not just build any solution,'" said Bhutto. "A large company like Cisco will have to make these acquisitions [like Perspica] to have a comprehensive portfolio on that front."

Perspica's combination of online machine learning algorithms and real-time streaming analytics allow companies to automatically baseline system performance to identify what is normal and rapidly flag actionable alerts while providing full-stack observability, according to the company.

Partners expect the networking giant to make similar acquisitions like Perspica on the AI and machine learning front that can be quickly be implement into existing products.

"These are the right bets Cisco is making," said Bhutto. "We saw the beginning of this when ACI (application centric infrastructure) was launched, more about application control and moving the network layer up to talk to applications, then subsequently you see the intuitive network and all the innovation that they've done. I think it's the right investments, especially if they want to drive the subscription software services business."

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Earning specialized certifications is a surefire way to advance your career in the IT field, regardless of industry or current career level. The right certification validates your skills and knowledge, which makes you more desirable to future employers who want to attract and retain the best employees. Below, we’ll explore the top IT certifications and share how to examine your goals to choose the right path forward. 

Product Details

For Trainers and Service Managers

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Two Trainer Textbook Resources That Include A Technician Textbook and Power Point Presentation

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