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Why Should I Take the QOS Exam?Most people that take the QOS exam do so for one of three reasons:
The next few sections provide an explanation for each of these programs and how the QOS 642-642 exam relates. The Cisco Channel Partner Specialization ProgramThe most popular reason for taking the QOS exam relates to the Cisco Channel Partner Specialization Program. Cisco calls their resellers and services partners Channel Partners. The way the program works is that Cisco moves more than 90 percent of its product sales, in dollar volumes, through its Channel Partners. So, Cisco is motivated to help themselves by working well with its Channel Partner community. Cisco also focuses heavily on customer satisfaction. So, Cisco uses both a carrot and a stick to motivate Channel Partners to certify their employees with different technology specializations, which helps ensure that the Channel Partner engineers know what they are doing for the Cisco customers. For instance, to become a Gold partner, you need a certain number of points. To get the points, you need a certain number of technology specializations. To get the specializations, you need a particular mix of employees to certify in different rolesfor instance, one role might be as a presales engineer, and another as a help desk customer service representative. To certify for a particular role, that employee must pass one or more certification exams, depending on the role. Can the different Cisco Channel Partner roles, specializations, exams, and so on, become confusing? Sure. Suffice it to say that Channel Partners want to get the points needed to reach the next level of partnership with Cisco (Premier, Silver, and Gold, in order). Even if a Channel Partner does not want to make the next level of partnership with Cisco, it can use the fact that it has additional Channel Partner Technology Specializations when trying to win business. At press time, Cisco had two active partner specializations that required the QOS exam. The two specializations are "Cisco IP Telephony Services" and "Cisco IP Communications Express." The first is related to a wide range of skills with Cisco IP Telephony, and the latter is related more specifically to Cisco CallManager Express. In order for a company to achieve a particular specialization, it must have a specified number of individuals who have passed a set of exams. A person who has passed one of the sets of exams is considered to be able to serve in a particular job role. For instance, for the Cisco IP Telephony Services Specialization, one of the job roles is "Cisco IP Telephony Design Specialist." In order for a Cisco partner to qualify for this specialization, at least one employee must meet the job role. To meet the job role, that employee must have passed three exams, one of which is the QOS exam. To see the larger picture, imagine a partner wanted to sell and service the Cisco IP Telephony products. By getting the Cisco IP Telephony Services Specialization, the Cisco partners can work more closely with Cisco and provide reassurance of their credential legitimacy to their customers. In order to get the Specialization, a Cisco Channel Partner must meet the job role requirements in Table I-1.
As you can see from Table I-1, a Partner must have two employees each meet the "Design Engineer (Data)" and "Field Engineer" job roles as part of meeting the requirements for the specialization. As part of meeting those job roles, the Partner would need four different employees to pass the QoS exam, as well as several others listed in the table. Cisco also has a "Cisco IP Communications Express" Specialization, which focuses more on issues relating to the Cisco CallManager Express product. Table I-2 lists the job roles and requirements.
In short, if you work for a Channel Partner, and you design, sell, or implement IP Telephony solutions, you will most likely be asked to certify in one of the job roles listed in the table. And because several job roles for the IP Telephony Specializations require the QOS exam, the chances are you will need to pass this exam. Cisco Focused CertificationFor any networker in any networking job, it helps to have knowledge and skills. Networkers can benefit from having "proof" that they know a set of technologies. Having the right certification on your resume can help you land a job, both at another firm and inside the same company. For those networkers who work with customers and clients, having the right credentials, in the form of certifications, can help convince the salesman to convince the customer to hire your company for the consulting job. Cisco offers a wide range of certifications, including a series of certifications in the Cisco Focused Certification program. Cisco focused certifications focus on one particular technology area, requiring multiple exams from that technology area to obtain a particular certification credential. The goal of the CQS certifications is to let people prove their knowledge and skill about a particular technology, as compared to the Cisco Career Certifications, which cover a broad range of topics. Four different Cisco focused certifications require the QOS exam. Unsurprisingly, these four Cisco Focused Certifications all focus on IP telephony. Table I-3 lists the certifications, along with the required exams.
The QOS exam is the only exam required for all four of Cisco's IP Telephony-related CQS certifications. With the requirement for the QOS exam for the technical roles in the Cisco Channel Partner IP Telephony Technology Specialization, pretty much anyone working with IP Telephony or voice over IP (VoIP) will need to take the exam, assuming that they want to be certified. You might have noticed that the Cisco focused certifications exam requirements are very similar to the Channel Partner roles. In fact, the Cisco focused certifications requirements from Table I-3 are a subset of the requirements for a comparable Channel Partner certifications listed in Tables I-1 and I-2. Cisco has stated that, over time, the Partner Specialization job role requirements will meld with the Cisco focused certifications requirements, so that the requirements for a job role are essentially defined by a Cisco focused certifications specialization. For more information on the Cisco Channel Partner Technology Specializations, and the Cisco Focused Certification program, refer to http://www.cisco.com/go/partner. Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional (CCIP)The Cisco primary certifcations fall under a program called the Cisco Career Certifications Program. That's the Cisco program that implements its most popular certifications, including Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), and Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE). Over the years, Cisco has added several additional Professional level certifications. Originally, Cisco offered CCNP, which required a skill level between the basic CCNA and the advanced CCIE Routing/Switching certification. Now, Cisco offers the Cisco Certified Design Professional (CCDP), Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP), and Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional (CCIP) certifications. The QOS exam is part of the CCIP certification. The exams required for the CCIP certificataion (at press time) are as follows:
So what are the main motivations to get the CCIP certification? Well, the most obvious reason is to build your resume. Also, Cisco occasionally permits you to substitute CCIP instead of CCNP as the prerequisite for some certifications. Also, the Cisco Partner Specializataions sometimes require CCIP or allow CCIP to be substituted for another certification. The overwhelming number of people who take the QOS exam do so in order to meet a job role requirement when working for a Cisco Partner. However, individuals also benefit with a more wellrounded resume, even if no job requirements exist. Implementing the Cisco QOS Exam 642-642The QOS exam consists of a 90 minute exam administered at a proctored exam facility affiliated either with VUE (http://www.vue.com) or Prometric (http://www.2test.com). The exam typically includes approximately 45-55 questions. (And of course, the time and the number of questions can certainly change at a later date, so do check cisco.com for the latest information.) Cisco lists the topics covered in the QOS exam on its website; the list is repeated here. Like many Cisco exams, the QOS exam covers the topics in the Cisco QOS course, so those of you taking the QOS course from a Cisco Learning Partner, or a Cisco sponsered organization, will get some direct help in passing the exam. Note The time allowed for the exam, the number of questions, and even the exam topics covered can change, without a change to the exam number. So, do check cisco.com for the latest information. The exam topics are as follows: IP QoS Fundamentals
IP QoS Components
Modular QoS CLI and Auto-QoS
Classification and Marking
Congestion Management Methods
Congestion Avoidance Methods
Traffic Policing and Shaping
Link Efficiency Mechanisms
QoS Best Practices
Interpreting the QOS Exam TopicsThe exam topics, like most exam topics listed by Cisco for other exams, use action words that follow a quasistandard called "Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain." Bloom's taxonomy defines a standard for word usage for when educators create objectives for courses. Objectives written according to Bloom's Taxonomy define what the learner should be able to accomplish after taking the class. So, when you look at an exam topic, look for the action word. If you want to see a description of Bloom's Taxonomy, search the Internet, and you will find a lot of matches. My favorite quick list of terms is at http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/bloom.html. The action word in the exam topic gives you a good hint about the level of knowledge and skill you need to have before taking the exam. For instance, a course objective that uses the word "list" as the action word means that you should be able to list the features, but an action word such as "configure" means you should know all the related configuration commands, and how to use them. "Troubleshoot" might mean that you need to know what all the show and debug commands do for a particular topic. For a speicific example, under the section about Traffic Policing and Shaping, the last exam topic says "Identify the Cisco IOS commands required to configure and monitor Frame Relay adaptive CB-Shaping on Frame Relay interfaces." So, you had better know the configuration for adaptive CBShaping, and not just the concepts. What does Bloom's Taxonomy mean in terms of how you study for the exam? It means that you should focus on the action words in the exam topics, and make sure you can do those things for the stated topics. In a perfect world, the exam questions would also follow the same convention. However, some questions will slip through. However, when you are trying to determine your strategy for studying, and you are choosing the topics to focus on, or the basic topics, you should definitely interpret the meaning of the exam topics. In addition, Cisco states that the posted exam topics for all its certification exams are guidelines. Cisco makes the effort to store their questions in an exam databases within the confines of the stated exam objectives, but doing this for every question and every exam is difficult. Thus, you could see questions that both fall outside the scope, and the depth, implied by the exam topics. However, if you follow the Cisco exam topic "guidelines," you should have a good understanding of the breadth and depth of topics on the exam.  |
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