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Last week I passed the exam for Ericsson’s IP Essentials certification.

Even though this is the first of several IP related certifications, DO NOT LET THE NAME MISLEAD YOU!  Being the initial certifications required on the IP path and the “essentials” in the name would lead one to believe that this is a basic level exam.  It is not!  It covers IP networking, routing protocols, QoS, and MPLS and is quite comprehensive.   Detailed and thorough knowledge of all the topic areas are required in order to pass this exam.

This certification is for Ericsson employees only and is proctored by Prometric, or via remote with Ericsson proctor physically present.

The exam is difficult in that it will ensure that you know the technical details of each topic as well as understanding of how each works.  Ericsson does have online courses and practice tests available.  However, if you study up on Q0S, for example, and you do not know all details and understand how it works it would be best to study until you do by either redoing the online course or obtaining supplemental study material.

03/2012 UPDATE:  Finally received the certification in the mail.  For something I worked so hard for I am totally underwhelmed by the design of the certificate.  A little company logo in the upper right corner is the only design, otherwise it’s a few lines of text.  If it wasn’t for CERTIFICATE in big letters one could easily mistake this masterpiece for a simple inter-office memo.  I must remind myself that the whole point was to expand my IP networking knowledge and and so in the process I did.  But any ideas of having a nifty cert to hang on the wall to celebrate said achievement is out of the question.

In July 2011 I passed the exam (4A0-100) for the Alcatel-Lucent NRS-I (Network Routing Specialist I) certification.

The exam requires fundamental knowledge of IP networking and routing protocols along with basic knowledge of their 7750 Service Router and is proctored by Prometric.

ALU provides training courses for all their certification exams, but I opted for the self study route and utilized the published study guide instead – Alcatel-Lucent Scalable IP Networks Self-Study Guide.  This is the perfect study guide for this exam and I plan to keep it as I feel it is a great reference guide as well.