How many CCMA's do we have here

[Thorpuse]

Originally Posted by Routerkid1

Well, I will disagree with you guys and leave it at that. The best way to get a raise in IT is to find a new job. You need to demand what you are worth.

I think you misunderstand my reasoning for asking this. I actually would like the CCMA to become a meaningful certification - I think the concept is excellent. Sadly, the concept is not backed by anything meaaningful to demonstrate it as a value proposition. Now that there are a few people out there who have this cert, I'm trying to establish whether getting the cert has been a valuable exercise for those people. If the only evidence you can provide is a hypothetical (and pretty dubious, to be honest - the biggest example of why it's dubious has already been pointed out by cciesec, but additionally you'd never get a risk committee to sign off on the SLA on this...) support cost benefit, then you're not pointing a very favourable case for it.

As a job requirement, I don't think I've ever seen a job ad that has asked for higher than CCSE certification. The only people who require the CCMA certification is Check Point themselves, who artificially created a market for it by insisting that Platinum partners get one on staff. If you have eveidence that the CCMA cert has made a tangible difference, either in employment, salary or services available to you, then I'm interested to see how the time and effort of this cert has paid off. If it hasn't then that's useful information too, because it tells Check Point that they need to pull their finger out and provide some value around this thing! I'm sure Ken is watching and listening....

[cciesec2006]

Originally Posted by Thorpuse

I think you misunderstand my reasoning for asking this. I actually would like the CCMA to become a meaningful certification - I think the concept is excellent. Sadly, the concept is not backed by anything meaaningful to demonstrate it as a value proposition. Now that there are a few people out there who have this cert, I'm trying to establish whether getting the cert has been a valuable exercise for those people. If the only evidence you can provide is a hypothetical (and pretty dubious, to be honest - the biggest example of why it's dubious has already been pointed out by cciesec, but additionally you'd never get a risk committee to sign off on the SLA on this...) support cost benefit, then you're not pointing a very favourable case for it.

As a job requirement, I don't think I've ever seen a job ad that has asked for higher than CCSE certification. The only people who require the CCMA certification is Check Point themselves, who artificially created a market for it by insisting that Platinum partners get one on staff. If you have eveidence that the CCMA cert has made a tangible difference, either in employment, salary or services available to you, then I'm interested to see how the time and effort of this cert has paid off. If it hasn't then that's useful information too, because it tells Check Point that they need to pull their finger out and provide some value around this thing! I'm sure Ken is watching and listening....

Thorpuse is absolutely correct. Everyone that I know of who are CCIE
certified do it because of money and career advancement, myself included.

I am not going to spend a year of my life preparing for the lab, failed
a couple times, just to make my CV look good. I do it because I love
technology but if there were no reward, I doubted that I would have taken
the CCIE path.

Getting CCMA should be the same thing. One should get rewarded for getting
this certification in term of compensation. After all, this is a capitalist
society, NOT socialist/community society. Otherwise, what is the point
of working hard?

Then again, now that Obama has won the presidency, the United States
may look more like Europe. He is going to tax me to death. So long
innovations.

Enough of my ranting

[Routerkid1]

Originally Posted by Thorpuse

I think you misunderstand my reasoning for asking this. I actually would like the CCMA to become a meaningful certification - I think the concept is excellent. Sadly, the concept is not backed by anything meaaningful to demonstrate it as a value proposition. Now that there are a few people out there who have this cert, I'm trying to establish whether getting the cert has been a valuable exercise for those people. If the only evidence you can provide is a hypothetical (and pretty dubious, to be honest - the biggest example of why it's dubious has already been pointed out by cciesec, but additionally you'd never get a risk committee to sign off on the SLA on this...) support cost benefit, then you're not pointing a very favourable case for it.

As a job requirement, I don't think I've ever seen a job ad that has asked for higher than CCSE certification. The only people who require the CCMA certification is Check Point themselves, who artificially created a market for it by insisting that Platinum partners get one on staff. If you have eveidence that the CCMA cert has made a tangible difference, either in employment, salary or services available to you, then I'm interested to see how the time and effort of this cert has paid off. If it hasn't then that's useful information too, because it tells Check Point that they need to pull their finger out and provide some value around this thing! I'm sure Ken is watching and listening....

I understand your points, I will tell you in my case It did increase my salary by 60% and it allowed me to beat out other people for the job. This Cert has value and could be a great one if the world will get the RS vendor to move over in the data center and stick to this area. I remember people saying how stupid it was to have a CCIE and to pay the money was outrageous. It is all about press for vendors. If you can give certification magazine enough money to add your cert to the salary survey enough times then sure it will be king. Lets face it CP is the best firewall product on the market. I bet you did not know that certification for any vendor costs them way more money then they see in return. I am sure Ken is watching and I will speak with him today and get his point of view on it.

[cciesec2006]

Originally Posted by Routerkid1

I understand your points, I will tell you in my case It did increase my salary by 60% and it allowed me to beat out other people for the job. This Cert has value and could be a great one if the world will get the RS vendor to move over in the data center and stick to this area. I remember people saying how stupid it was to have a CCIE and to pay the money was outrageous. It is all about press for vendors. If you can give certification magazine enough money to add your cert to the salary survey enough times then sure it will be king. Lets face it CP is the best firewall product on the market. I bet you did not know that certification for any vendor costs them way more money then they see in return. I am sure Ken is watching and I will speak with him today and get his point of view on it.

I agree with you that the CCMA is a great cert, to a point. However, in
an enterprise where all the Routing and Switching gears are "cisco", IDS/IPS
devices are either Juniper/SourceFire/ISS proventia, wireless are "cisco". The
only thing CP has going for it is Firewalls (CP makes great firewalls by the
way), it is very hard to justify to hire a CCMA just to manage firewalls.

This is where CCIE has a HUGE advantage over CCMA. There is a demand
for CCIE because everyone knows about it. There is NO demand for CCMA
at the moment. As I've said before, when I told my boss that I was going
for the CCMA certification, he thought it was CCNA. Out of 50 people I've
worked with, no one even heard of CCMA.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that if you feel passionate about CCMA, then go for it.
Just keep in mind that the ROI may not be as great as either CCIE or Juniper JNCIP/JNCIE

[dantro]

ROI. Is money all you have in mind?

[Thorpuse]

Originally Posted by Routerkid1

I understand your points, I will tell you in my case It did increase my salary by 60% and it allowed me to beat out other people for the job. This Cert has value and could be a great one if the world will get the RS vendor to move over in the data center and stick to this area. I remember people saying how stupid it was to have a CCIE and to pay the money was outrageous. It is all about press for vendors. If you can give certification magazine enough money to add your cert to the salary survey enough times then sure it will be king. Lets face it CP is the best firewall product on the market. I bet you did not know that certification for any vendor costs them way more money then they see in return. I am sure Ken is watching and I will speak with him today and get his point of view on it.

Without giving too much away, was your job for a VAR/MSP or end-user of Check Point products? Trying to work out who values the cert to this level.

I'm glad to hear you have profited from the certification - that's good news.

P.S. I know all too well that certification doesn't (and shouldn't!) be a profit centre. But I also know that Check Point doesn't do anything without attempting to make a margin on it.

[sebastan_bach]

Hi i totally agree with thorpuse and cciesec.

ccie security has a great value in the network security market. and it;s is constantly updated.

ccse and ccse+ are more known to people are add more value i feel that the ccma. hardly even people know abt ccma and cisco has made ccie security demand in the market by making it necessary for partners requiring the master security specialisation benefit.

whereas there is nothing from checkpoint on that front.

juniper market is gaining good. their firewalls in the enterprise parket is really catching up good. but they do not have a practical exam on that front.

just my views.

regards

sebastan

[Gavrilo]

My old dad used to say

"A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know absolutly everything about nothing" :-)
Does it apply in this case I wonder..........

To all you CCMA's well done in achieving such a high standard. However, I and many other engineers took our certs to get a foot in the door at interviews. We could only get the door open by showing the interviewers we knew what we were talking about and could do the job.

Nobody but nobody will pay a CCIE, CCMA or PHD any wages if they are crap at their job!

In my view certifications are all about the foot in the door. Just my 2p worth

Gavrilo

[cciesec2006]

Originally Posted by Gavrilo

In my view certifications are all about the foot in the door. Just my 2p worth

Gavrilo

Certifications are about personal achievement, career goal/promotions and
among other things. It does serve a purpose in a real-world.

It shows potential employers about your dedication in achieving your goals,
your ability to learn new things, and most importantly, your ability NOT to
give up.

[Gavrilo]

OK, so I have an IT degree with honours which I think after 4 years University shows potential employers about my dedication in achieving my goals, my ability to learn new things, and most importantly, my ability NOT to
give up, far more than answering 90 odd questions on a restricted topic which half the candidates braindumped anyway.

Certificates prove nothing other than you can pass exams, their only worth in the real world is that they are a prerequisite for a lot of jobs and may get you an interview.

When I took my MCSE I thought I would walk into my next job but sadly found most employers treated it as a paper qualification. Two years later with a lot of hard work and experience I think I became worthy of my certificate but still had to challenge others with the same certificates who were less than useless at their job.

Yes there are people out there worthy of their credentials but I have met an awful lot more who wave their certificates at you like its their God given right to a well paid career in IT without the knowlege or experience to back it up.

Gavrilo

[Thorpuse]

Let's not get sidetracked into the arena of the value of certifications generally. The question here is specific to the CCMA certification, and whether it represents anything meaningful. The certifications vs academic quals vs real world experience debate applies to any professional certification - let's keep this relevant to the CCMA here.

I'm still really interested to see if there's anyone from Check Point who's willing to comment on this. Seeing as CCMA *still* has no direct benefits of consequence, if the reputation benefit isn't comnig through, what's left?

[Gavrilo]

Quote "Let's not get sidetracked into the arena of the value of certifications generally."

A fair point but I wanted to answer my critic.

However, I have not yet worked for any company exclusively dependant upon Check Point security products nor one that uses more than a very few of the product offerings though that’s not to say there aren’t any. So I would think a CCMA would probably only benefit re-sellers.

I would have thought it better to know about a range of offerings e.g. PIX, NetScreen and Check Point etc rather than have a rather blinkered specialisation. Check Point is not a panacea for all security and the offerings of other companies are often better for certain situations. I also think you learn more by understanding other company’s offerings and gaining knowledge about their approach to security. Learning about and using NetScreen Firewalls as well as Check Point has made me a more able to find work and I believe employers find multi skilled individuals more beneficial.

Some of you may agree with me but for those that don’t good luck and I hope CCMA etc works for you.

Gavrilo

[chmelvv]

Originally Posted by cciesec2006

... he is Jewish so he is very smart and talented ...

Offtopic of course, but as I understand "Jewish"="very smart & talented"? :)
Sounds like new racist theory isn`t it?

[cciesec2006]

Originally Posted by chmelvv

Offtopic of course, but as I understand "Jewish"="very smart & talented"? :)
Sounds like new racist theory isn`t it?

I am sorry if I offended anyone. It was not my intention. I meant to say
it as a compliment. I have quite a few Jewish friends and all of them are
smart, talented and accomplished individuals.