CCENT vs CCNA: All You Need to Know In 2024

Introduction

CCENT and CCNA certifications are both unique to the Cisco ecosystem. IT certifications are the global standards used to validate the skillset of aspiring and working professionals in a specific area and are recognized worldwide for their authenticity. Training certifications showcase your efficient skills in a specific area and enhance your career opportunities, making you more likely to be hired by leading companies that value niche competencies. These certifications award valuable credentials after passing rigorous exams for niche technology and prove your proficiency in a domain. 

Cisco is a leading name, globally known for its revolutionary innovations in various hardware and networking domains, including security, routing & switching, cloud technologies, and many more. Cisco certifications endeavor to deliver across-the-board skills at multiple levels to help aspirants grab promising IT positions with significantly high pay packages. CCENT and CCNA are two highly ranked certifications devised by Cisco, a leader in networking infrastructure components and high-end certifications specific to Cisco products and solutions.

What is CCENT Certification?

CCENT, Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician, is a steppingstone to other Cisco networking certifications. With no specific prerequisites, the CCENT certification instills and authenticates the vital skills that make beginners' job ready for entry-level network support roles and helps network professionals to accelerate their performance. Having CCENT credentials prove one’s extensive experience to set up and configure small enterprise networks with efficiency in installation, operations, troubleshooting, and basic network security. 

CCENT certified professionals are hired by companies for entry-level networking jobs such as Junior Network Engineer, Network Administrator, Cisco Network Engineer, and Network Support Specialist, to name a few. 

What is CCNA Certification?

CCNA, Cisco Certified Network Associate, is a suite of various technical certifications that help beginners intending to start their career in networking to gain expertise in the diverse Cisco technologies. The CCNA is the next step up from the CCENT and represents the associate level of the Cisco certifications. It serves as a steppingstone to the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification. CCNA uses a far-reaching curriculum to explain and build technical understanding for the administration of medium-sized routed and switched networks and Wide Area Networks (WAN). CCENT certification or equivalent skills are the basic prerequisites for the CCNA certifications. You need to pass two exams, ICND1 and ICND2, to become CCNA certified. 

Both CCENT and CCNA certification credentials are valid for three years and can be renewed thereafter.  

Cisco career certification programs are available at five accreditation levels: 

• Entry
• Associate
• Professional
• Expert
• Architect

Download our Cisco Certification Roadmap to have a better overview of related career paths. 

Cisco offers CCNA certification for a range of technology tracks, including: 

• Cloud
• Collaboration
• Switching and Routing
• Security
• Service Provider
• Data Center
• Industrial
• Voice
• Wireless

CCNA is regarded as one of the best networking certifications for beginners as it allows certified professionals to choose from a range of networking roles such as System Engineer, Technical Support Engineer, Desktop / Network Support Engineer, Network Administrator, Network Engineers Network Security Associate, and others.

CCENT or CCNA?

Now that we have a brief about what CCNET and CCNA are, let us understand which one to choose depending on the job role and requirement. CCENT and CCNA certifications enable you to acquire technical expertise on different levels in various IT domains and help you gain hands-on experience of specific technologies. These certifications contribute to boosting your career opportunities and serve as the initial steps to achieving professional-level certifications for optimized opportunities. 

Conclusion

The article explains what CCENT and CCNA certifications are and how to attain these certifications. As the blog focused on CCENT vs CCNA, it could be concluded that both are renowned certifications and can help attain required industrial-level IT and Networking skills. NetCom Learning is a pioneered Cisco training partner authorized to deliver CCENT and CCNA certification training courses. With a team of the best Cisco-certified trainers from the industry with several years of experience in training thousands of IT aspirants and corporate professionals, NetCom Learning provides best-in-class CCNA and CCENT training and certification programs. You can choose expert training in your preferred learning mode and a custom schedule catering to your upskill needs. 

Validate your skills with our Free Assessment Program quiz on Networking fundamentals.