Cisco’s CCDA (Cisco Certified Design Associate) is an introductory to mid-level certification for IT professionals who can “design routed and switched network infrastructures involving LAN, WAN, and dial access services for businesses and organizations.” The CCDA has as its prerequisite the “knowledge and skills to install, configure, and operate basic network infrastructures.” As well, Cisco highly recommends holding the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate).

The CCDA is a prerequisite to the CCDP (Cisco Certified Design Professional) certification and got its start several years ago. It's been most recently changed in the fall of 2002, with the release of the new DESGN exam. A candidate needs to pass this one exam to achieve CCDA certification.  The CCDA is valid for three years. “To recertify, pass the current certification exam or any new exam at the Professional or Cisco Qualified Specialist level bearing the prefix 642.”

Job roles of those pursuing this certification generally include: network administrator, network infrastructure administrator, infrastructure engineer and network designer.

For more information:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/learning/le3/le2/le0/le4/learning_certification_type_home.html

CORE EXAMS
(640-861) 640-861 DESGN ^vs