VoIP and IP telephony in IT certifications

Given the increasing importance of Voice over IP and IP telephony in modern enterprises, and its creeping and massive invasion of small to medium sized businesses as well, interested IT professionals may be curious to learn about which certification programs consider coverage of either or both of these topics to be within their purview. Hence, my quick mini-survey of what's available that includes these things. Table 1 sums up the broad view; Table 2 lists the 4 Cisco IP Telephony certifications; and Table 3 lists all 12 of the Nortel VoIP certifications currently available (another 7 are currently under development and should be ready "real soon now" because reported availability dates have already come and gone).

A quick, first glance at Table 1 appears to indicate that the total number included is six, but because Nortel already has a dozen VoIP certs available, the real total is 17. If and when other promised Nortel VoIP certs are released, that number will climb to 24. But it looks like the TIA and Global Knowledge credentials are best bets for those seeking general knowledge or a starting point in the field, while those who work on specific platforms will want to seek out training from their vendors. [Note: anybody who's aware of programs I've missed should e-mail me the details and I'll be happy to add them to this story and my brief analysis.]

Ed Tittel is a regular contributor to numerous TechTarget Web sites, and the author of over 100 books on a wide range of computing subjects from markup languages to information security. He's also a contributing editor for Certification Magazine, and series editor for Que Publising's Exam Cram 2 series of cert prep books. E-mail Ed at etittel@techtarget.com.