Cisco Professional Tracks! Which one to Follow?

[Post Update] Revised Exam prices for Pakistan tabulated below.

So you have passed your CCNA exam and is now thinking to take a step forward and jump into Professional Studies of Cisco Networking. First allow me to congratulate you for your effort, you deserve at least a little applause (Don’t be amused guys; I am addressing the Pakistani students, it’s still not very common here).

For a person who is planning to make his career in networking industry, the decision of doing the CCNA is very obvious and it is the first advice you get from your guides. But after that, when you plan to target Professional level of certification, the choice of selecting the track is so cumbersome and so exhausting that it almost kills you.

Because Cisco has now introduced so many tracks and all of them are so demanding and so attractive that you will stuck in the jungle of choices. For once you would start thinking to grab them all.  To ease that decision a little, I have compiled this post to present a summary of professional tracks, their associated exams, and price lists for Pakistan (as of today – February, 2012)

For the Complete list of Cisco Certification tracks visit http://www.cisco.com/certifications

CCNP  – The Traditional Routing and Switching Path
642-902 ROUTE	Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE)		$ 200
642-813 SWITCH	Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH)		$ 200
642-832 TSHOOT	Troubleshooting and Maintaining Cisco IP Networks (TSHOOT)		$ 200
CCIP – Service Provider Path
642-902 ROUTE	Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE)		$ 200
642-642 QOS	Implementing Cisco Quality of Service (QoS)		$ 150
642-691 BGP+MPLS	Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) Implementing Cisco MPLS (MPLS)		$ 150
CCNP Voice – Voice Path
640-461 ICOMM	Introducing Cisco Voice and Unified Communications Administration v8.0		$ 250
642-437 CVOICE	Cisco Voice over IP (CVOICE v8.0)		$ 200
642-447 CIPT1	Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Part 1		$ 200
642-467 CAPPS	Integrating Cisco Unified Communications Applications		$ 200
642-457 CIPT2	Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Part 2		$ 200
642-427 TVOICE	Troubleshooting Cisco Unified Communications		$ 200
CCDP – The Design Path
640-864 DESGN	Designing for Cisco Internetwork Solutions		$ 150
642-902 ROUTE	Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE)		$ 200
642-813 SWITCH	Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH)		$ 200
642-874 ARCH	Designing Cisco Network Service Architectures		$ 200
CCNP Security – The Security Path
640-553 IINS		Implementing Cisco IOS Network Security	$ 250
642-637 SECURE		Securing Networks with Cisco Routers and Switches	$ 150
642-617 FIREWALL		Deploying Cisco ASA Firewall Solutions	$ 150
642-647 VPN		Deploying Cisco ASA VPN Solutions	$ 150
642-627 IPS		Implementing Cisco Intrusion Prevention System	$ 150

The exam prices for all exams as given on the Pearson VUE website are:

Advertisement