[asterisk-biz] Digium certified asterisk professional or CCIE VOIP

[Steve Totaro]

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:23 PM, John Todd <jtodd at digium.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 9, 2009, at 5:03 AM, Nir Simionovich wrote:
>
>> [snip]
>>  For example, say that you would like to approach a company like
>> Verizon or Vonage, stating that you are an Asterisk consultant. The
>> immediate response from your target entry point would be: state your
>> certifications, experience and references. Now, as long as you are in
>> the first 9 months of your business, you won't have many references -
>> what you have is experience and possibly certifications. In this case,
>> the certifications can help you a little.
>>
>>   Without being self promotional, let's take a look to my case. I've
>> founded the Israeli Asterisk community back in 2004, when basically
>> there was nothing to build upon - as I was more or less the only user
>> here. I started building the community, one by one, installation by
>> installation, and surely enough, almost 5 years later, there are over
>> 300 community members, over 3000 installations in Israel and as the
>> founder of the community, people no longer really care for my
>> certification - they know my experience and mileage. So, when I
>> started
>> my own business in 2007, I had already a few things working for me
>> and I
>> need to thank Google for that.
>> [snip]
>
>
> Risking tomatoes thrown at me, I'll put my $.02 in here as well.
>
> There are, I believe, three components to successful consulting with
> Asterisk:
>
>  1) Experience.  There is no substitute for experience.
>
>  2) Involvement.  If you don't know what is going on with the
> project, and you don't know who is doing new things, you will
> inevitably fall behind.
>
>  3) Certification.  Getting a dCAP certificate is proof of your
> ability to solve many problems with Asterisk, not just those you've
> seen before.
>
>
> Experience:
> Experience teaches you a set of solutions for particular problems, and
> the process of experience is to move from "not knowing" to "knowing"
> via being presented with a problem that you have to solve via trial-
> and-error.  Often these experiences are very deep, meaning that you
> spend a lot of time learning the intricate behaviors and methods of a
> certain set of solution components.  This is great, in that it also
> has byproducts of teaching you what does NOT work along the way which
> is just as valuable.  There is no substitute for experience.
>
> Involvement
>   Being well-versed in Asterisk requires knowing how the project is
> proceeding.  Optimally it would involve your contributions back to the
> project in the form of code, documentation, white papers, testing, bug
> work, or anything else that allows other people to benefit from your
> now-growing experiences.  The most successful people using Asterisk,
> and the ones who get the big jobs handed to them, are the ones who are
> "community leaders" by virtue of their involvement.
>   Knowing what is happening in the Asterisk community also implies
> knowledge of what solutions other people are building in the
> surrounding ecosystem.  Who is doing what programs for Windows?  Who
> has a decent log parsing tool?  What is the best device to use for an
> attendant desk?  All of these questions are asked and answered on a
> frequent basis on the mailing lists, IRC channels, and other forums.
> Getting involved gives you relevance, which is REQUIRED to continue in
> a consultancy business if you wish to be successful.
>
> Certification
>  Getting a dCAP is 100% a good idea, and I'm not saying that just
> because I work for Digium.  :-)  The certifications get your foot in
> the door in many companies.  Let's look at it this way, as well: as
> the number of Asterisk-capable installation and integration shops
> increases, the number of criteria necessary to compare them against
> each other becomes more important.  Just like having a good grade
> point average gets you to the interview step of University
> applications, so might the dCAP certification get you to the next step
> of an evaluation process that allows your experience and community
> involvement to be considered as the next decision factors.
>   The dCAP certification gives you a broad range of miniature
> experiences, and the instructor can tell you what does not work.
> Learn from THEIR experience.  The classes are not expensive, and they
> are not long, but IMO they provide more than their time/money
> investment in the actual learning that you do.  You end up not only
> with the piece of paper, but actual knowledge to go along with it.
>
> Summary:
> If you have a first step you want to take that gives you the most
> return in the shortest amount of time, get the certification.  Then
> get involved - write code, author some white papers, put up some
> demonstration dialplans.  Experience is the end result of involvement,
> and certification is the first big step you can take and is a bonus
> for those potential customer companies which deem it higher than some
> other things.  The combination of these three elements is what will
> win you business.
>
>
> PS: Everyone who thinks they know a lot about Asterisk should talk to
> Jared about a few questions on the dCAP test.  There is a lot you
> probably don't know, and that would take you a while to Google the
> answers to.  I've talked to a few Asterisk experts who have taken the
> dCAP and they've all been somewhat surprised at how difficult some of
> the test questions were, and what they didn't know.  This isn't
> because Asterisk is difficult; it's because Asterisk is a toolkit, and
> some methods of combining tools are not always obvious.
>
> JT
>
>
> ---
> John Todd                       email:jtodd at digium.com
> Digium, Inc. | Asterisk Open Source Community Director
> 445 Jan Davis Drive NW -  Huntsville AL 35806  -   USA
> direct: +1-256-428-6083         http://www.digium.com/
>

I will be getting my FSAP, continue building systems, and stay current
with experience and offerings of open and closed source solutions.

Thanks,
Steve T