Month: April 2022

Got this a couple of weeks ago. This is one of the best entry level certifications to get in the networking industry. It’s relatively easy and builds lots of confidence and is available for free.

It used to be a participation certification, meaning you just have to attend a one day workshop and they give you the cert. Now they’ve added a certification test to it which makes it slightly harder but it’s really not that difficult if you’ve been paying attention during the workshop. And it’s unproctored so do with that information as you will.

Upon passing the certification test, they will send you a Meraki Polo T shirt, as well as some demo gear. In the past I got a MX64 firewall, MS120-8P switch, and MR33 access point. Now I believe it’s going to be a MX67W firewall/access point two-in-one.

Not sure if they’ll keep doing this but we will see in 3 years’ time.

Just passed this exam last week. It’s a 45-55 question exam that covers the Cisco offerings targeted at SMB. A lot of Meraki in there as well as entry level Cisco offerings. It’s not a difficult exam but it does take a day or two of preparation and refresher/studying to be ready for it.

Having said that, it’s an unproctered exam so take whatever meaning out of that. You need 790 to pass. I scored 860.

To prep, there are videos on Cisco SalesConnect that talk at you. https://salesconnect.cisco.com/#/

I prefer the in person training that Ingram Micro held in previous years for a similar exam. You sit in a classroom for a day and write the test at the end of that day. It’s not available this year.

Passing this exam was huge for the business though. We already had 3x CCNAs and the Sales cert, we were just missing this technical cert to be a Cisco Premier partner which allows us to deal reg, internal use, as well as receive rebates for Cisco deals. So needless to say I didn’t get any pushback when I expensed the US$90 + HST which was close to C$130 after forex and credit card 2% markup.