Vendor
Nortel is a leading optical fiber technology and development. In 1998 they acquired Bay Networks, a leading networking hardware manufacturing.
Nortel has two tracks of certifications: Enterprise and Optical.
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Standard disclaimer: Whether or not any certification is "worth it" is an individual decision. You alone must decide what your career goals and needs are. Look at certifications from a cost/benefit or Return On Investment (ROI) basis. If they help you get a better paying job or make more money at your current job, they are obviously "worth it." The problem is, there is no real way of measuring how much you can expect your income to go up as a result of any given certification. It also depends on non-related job search skills such as how well you network. |
Nortel's Enterprise track is older and is oriented toward training and certifying people competent to design, install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot Nortel's networking equipment.
The Nortel Enterprise Track consists of these certifications:
Beginning level for support people
Fundamental design
More advanced knowledge of Nortel products
Fundamental level for data networks
Fundamental level for voice networks
Advanced operational support
Advanced level of network expertise
This is the industry's first certification for the Optical Internet. It is effective only as of early 2001, so it's brand new.
The tracks currently include:
Optical networking is now about where IP/TCP was 7 years ago. Optical networking technologies is more complex than the routed and switched IP networks we are now used to. There will soon be a need in the market for people who know these new technologies.
Nortel does not require you to take its training for this Optical Networking certification, but it's highly recommended unless you just happen to be one of the few people who already have extensive experience with optical networks.
In the article about Red Hat's Linux certification I speculated that by getting its RHCE certification you could positioning yourself to take advantage of the trend away from Microsoft and Novell's Windows and NetWare to Linux.
By working toward a Nortel optical certification, you are positioning yourself for the next technology wave of networking, more advanced than a change of operating system.
Besides, the companies that are most likely to switch first to high speed optical networks are the bigger companies with more money. That is, more money not only to buy and install new networking equipment, but more money to pay the people responsible for the transition.
The huge demand for optical networking engineers is not there now -- not yet. But it's obviously coming.
Nortel is already planning to get in on what it sees as the further future of networking. It plans to eventually offer certifications in wireless networking, the Local Internet and E-Business.