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First 2 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) jump to HP Networking
Fri, 5/13/11 - 4:25am    View comments

Update 8-4-11:

John Cavanaugh (CCAr, CCDE #20070002 and CCIE #1066) has left Cisco. This is the third CCAr to leave, and the fourth member of the original CCDE team.

Update 5-16-11:

A confirmed CCAr indicates that there's actually 7 Cisco Certified Architects in the world.

Back on June 15, 2010 Cisco published the below three-part video interview of the networking industry's first two Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr), Alvaro Retana and Khalid Raza. The CCAr cert is considered the PhD of Cisco certifications and is the highest achievable cert offered by Cisco.

Amazingly, I confirmed this week that Alvaro Retana and Khalid Raza both now work for HP Networking, contributing to HP's new FlexNetwork Architecture.

So why do I find this so amazing?

Well, according to Marc La Porte's CCIE Hall of Fame, there's only 3 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) in the entire world, and now the very first 2 work for HP.

Meet the first 2 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) - Part 1 (now both working for HP)

Meet the first 2 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) - Part 2 (now both working for HP)

Meet the first 2 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) - Part 3 (now both working for HP)

Dual Cisco CCIE George Morton's take:

"I am not surprised. The market place puts a greater value on Cisco trained engineers than Cisco does.

"This gets back to the design that Cisco is following, where if you're an engineer you're in a technical track and switching to management is something you don't do.

"OK, change companies, make more, have more responsibility, and maybe your options will be worth more!"

View more CCIE Water Cooler Gossip.

Related story:

More than 4,000 CCIEs work at Cisco

What's your take, do the networking industry's first two Cisco Certified Architects know something we don't?

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