{"id":196,"date":"2007-11-05T12:22:30","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T12:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkesy.wordpress.com\/2007\/11\/05\/certification-renewals\/"},"modified":"2007-11-05T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2007-11-05T12:22:30","slug":"certification-renewals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/11\/05\/certification-renewals\/","title":{"rendered":"Certification Renewals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first post on James new blog reminded me of something that i&#8217;ve been querying recently<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been working with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sonicwall.com\" title=\"Sonicwall\">Sonicwall<\/a> products for years. It started in my previous job so made sense to continue to use them when we started our company.<\/p>\n<p>One of the things i did was to take the official training and pass the exam to become a Certified Sonicwall Security Administrator (CSSA)<\/p>\n<p>The benefits for passing include (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sonicwall.com\/us\/support\/591.html\" title=\"CSSA\">from the Sonicwall US site<\/a>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Direct access to 2nd level Technical Support (based on regional availability)\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Access to SonicWALL&#8217;s Online Forum (discussion group)<\/li>\n<li>Support Bulletins and advanced notifications<\/li>\n<li>Opportunities to participate in SonicWALL beta programs<\/li>\n<li>Certification newsletters<\/li>\n<li>CSSA logo usage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now when i passed no-one told me i&#8217;d need to re-certify after a certain amount of time had passed but this turns out to be the case.<\/p>\n<p>I tried to speak to 2nd level tech support but they refused to help as i &#8220;wasn&#8217;t on the list&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After  speaking to our account\u00a0managers at our distributor and with Sonicwall UK it was only recently we got a definate &#8220;yes you have to re-certify&#8221; answer<\/p>\n<p>What annoys me is this,<\/p>\n<p>Why should i have to take the same exam every year? (or every two years as it now looks)<\/p>\n<p>If i was doing Microsoft certification i could do the training and pass the exams and become an MCSE<\/p>\n<p>That certification would stay with me until the certification gets retired. Obviously if new products launch new exams come out but i don&#8217;t have to retake anything on a yearly basis<\/p>\n<p>Am i complaining about nothing?<\/p>\n<p>I think the sonicwall certification path should include a &#8220;re-certification&#8221; (or refresher) exam as currently someone taking the exam for the first time would do the same exam as someone who has needs to re-certify<\/p>\n<p>Just my two-pence worth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first post on James new blog reminded me of something that i&#8217;ve been querying recently I&#8217;ve been working with Sonicwall products for years. It started in my previous job so made sense to continue to use them when we started our company. One of the things i did was to take the official training<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/11\/05\/certification-renewals\/\"><span class=\"arrow-right icon\"><\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","category-sonicwall"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.11 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Certification Renewals - Andy&#039;s Techie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/11\/05\/certification-renewals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Certification Renewals - Andy&#039;s Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first post on James new blog reminded me of something that i&#8217;ve been querying recently I&#8217;ve been working with Sonicwall products for years. 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