As if anyone is going to recertify when they usually will move on to Micorsoft certs after doing the A+ and N+.

I won't be renewing I have bigger fish to fry.

Yes as I need them to bulk out my certs when I have a post near Craigie

Sun and Microsoft both backed down over recertification, in my mind this was the right move.

I do not agree with Ciscos policy and would not take a Cisco cert because of it, CCIE is of value because it requires prerequisite certs and experience and has a practical exam as well as a written exam.

Its not reasonable in my mind to put a limit on a step in a cert track, which is what Cisco and now CompTia also do. So if my CCNA is 4 years old ? Should that really mean I cannot proceed to CCNP ? If my CCNA knowledge is so bad surely it will show on the CCNP ?

In Ciscos cases there probably is some overlap so higher level exams re-certing lower ones makes more sense, but I still think its the wrong policy.

Its essentially the 'kill everyone whos not in your religion / only worship one god' argument, if you spend all your time and money on Cisco certs, you cannot also mantain another cert program that makes the same level of demands, its all to do with lock in and nothing to do with skills, education or assessment.

Do certs really depreciate ? Does everything you learnt of value from the CCNA 'dissappear' after 3 years ? Are employers not capable of assessing your certification date and your work history and making a judgement ?

Proper training and education and examination requires a serious amount of time, money and effort. It is only worth it for a substantial payoff, like a degree, its not worth it for certifications that expire.

What we end up with is either no one certified or a large amount of newly certified unexperienced people and braindumpers, surely for a certification to have value in the market you want people with experience to have it ?

I agree with many other posters on here, its a crazy stance to take. I for one, won't be getting recertified every 3 years, nor will I be blackmailed into paying $50 every year especially to say that my qualification is "valid" in a country that no-one has every heard of it!

I must admit the A+ and Net+ taught me quite a bit of information, and can even agree that it needs to be updated every so often (ie Net+ 2005 to 2009) to keep the information up-to-date, but the cost of the exams are shocking - £120 each for A+ and £170 for Net+ - and then to ask people to pay more, especially as you only use them (certs in general) when you are applying for new jobs! An analogy, if I may, its like buying a car, using it to go on holiday with once a year, but still having to MOT and TAX it - its just an easy way for the government/organisation to take more money in form of taxes from you! (Albeit the safe aspect I know!!)

Will I remove it from my signature - no, not at all. My CV? Not a chance. Will I mark it retired on either? Again, probably not. Whilst I passed the exam/s once I may not have a need to take them again so why should I keep paying just to fund their pockets - charge more for the initial exam if they're that hard-up for cash, but no they wouldn't because they have to be seen to be competitive! I dislike Cisco certs for that reason also. I'll amend the Microsoft certs for Vista/7 etc. once they've reached the end of their product life because I can't imagine many companies using OSs that old, but they'll still appear on the CV as I have achieved them, just that they've expired.

Oh a two last gripes - why only 3 of all their exams instead of all of them (the synical part of my says they're the most popular!) and what the hell has passing Net+ got to do with how a motherboard works for the A+!

So, a comment and a question...

Playing the devil's advocate, CompTIA are desperate to be ISO compliant and a stipulation of this compliance is that the certs (only the most popular, curiously... :hhhmmm) have to be renewed on a regular basis. So, this "renew one renew 'em all..." approach COULD be an attempt by CompTIA to technically comply with the ISO stipulation and at the same time make things as painless for those with CompTIA certs as possible. After all, they could just say that you have to update each cert seperately...

I am considering taking the Security+ at some point. If I successfully pass the Security+, will this mean that my A+ and Network+ will be renewed? Or, do you need to renew one you already have?

I couldn't give two hoots if my CompTia certifications are ISO compliant or not, since when has this been important ? Important to who and why ? Did they give their members a vote on it ? First I've heard of it.

No its not painless, I run a business, I already have to file enough paperwork, educators also are already drowned in paperwork, nobody wants more bureaucracy just to keep their CV intact.

I also avoided certifications like CISSP and CEH because of their PDP requirements and charging model. CompTia's big selling points were good entry level sylabus, vendor neutrality and non-expiry, they've just knocked one leg off the stool, lets see if it falls over...

I agree completely - I care about my career and IT generally, but I have absolutely no idea what the hell "ISO compliant" means and I'll be really surprised if more than a handful of employers knew also.

(look at how many times an MCSE is necessary for entry-level jobs!)

I think I'm Just about ready to take my first cert, The A+ as advised by many people on this excellent forum, ive been studding for the 600 series which i still plan to take later this month. When i started my studding i knew it would only be a entry level cert and not carry much weight (especially in the UK). But by Comptia adding this expiry to their exams and adding a carry over to the highest passed are they trying to lock people in to just following comptia courses throughout their entire career? are they seriously trying to suggest people view them any more as a step up.

Also a fiver says that when i receive my A+ certificate it will have a nice big red EXPIRY DATE on it.

first post so hi guys.

Adam

I fully agree with Cisco's policy of recertification. The reason i don't agree with comptia is because it is entry level knowledge, of which after 3 years, you should have advanced yourself to the point where the experience it shows has been well outdone.

i could write more but it's dinner time

Bottom line is A+ and Net+ certainly are seen as entry level, as mentioned already here. Thus, I cannot see the point of re-certifying in something that is entry level now I have moved on. In addition, the very fact that I now know I will have to recertify in other certs means I won't go near CompTIA in future.

It makes various assumptions which are not always correct :-

1. That our knowledge / memory is useless after a couple of years.
2. That the technical areas in the objectives are changing rapidly over time
3. That employers care about a version or the 10% of new features / tech over a previous version.

Ok so we now have IPv6, but a lot of networking has not changed much in 10+ years, the same can be said of many aspects of databases and operating systems.

What are we goldfish ? Does our memory degrade in 3 year cycles ?

When these cert programs start out they are desperate for anyone to take an interest, its all test for free, get a voucher, cert for life, as soon as anyone takes an interest they want to turn it into a cash cow and bring in re-cert.

As an example I believe the original CCIE had no pre-requisite certs. The CCIE was lanuched in 1993, it did not require re-cert until 1997. Even Terry Slattery the first CCIE struggles to maintain his CCIE due to Cisco's tough recertification requirements.

The CCIE however is an Elite certification, it was never designed for the masses, its easier to see how re-cert may have some justification, for CompTia certs, in IMHO its completely unwarranted.

Well like many I didn't take any CompTia certs until well into my career, they were taken largely to certify knowledge and add to my CV, thats time spent revising for tests and £600+ I'm out of pocket for nothing if they retire them.

I could have taken the time and the money and had a nice holiday instead...

Existing cert holders should be grandfarthered in at the very least.

Quick question, could they not fall under some trading standards law as thier exams and certifications were sold at the tiem as "for life, will not expire" exams and certifications?

My A+ and N+ would have expired by now, i dont hold any MS cert (yet, keep working on it), but i wouldnt renew them any way. They havent really helped me in teh past and teh last 4 out of 5 employers i worked for eitehr didnt know what they were, or didnt really care about them as they were "entry level".

It may be a bad thing for some, but lets face it, as already said on here, whos going to recrtify on these? Most have moved on to bigger and better things. They no longer need the A+ etc to do thier job.
It will probably put some off from taking the exams in teh first place, but it hasnt hurt CISCO so would it hurt Comptia that much? Will they care?

Cisco and Microsoft are big enough that they can force through unpopular policies if they like. Thankfully Microsoft chose not too on this very issue.

Cisco's certs are now effectively only really for deadicated network engineers, most other people cannot justify the outlay in time and money the programs require, in fact most of the network engineers I know aren't certified.

CompTia are not a vendor of a popular mass market product that people need to be trained on. It is a quite different proposition, people can go back to IT diplomas etc.

It took CompTia over a year to get just 400 worldwide applicants for its Project+ beta program. I expect they are struggling to find new markets and want to expand in the recession. I would argue they should instead sit tight and consolidate, value their core customer base. Afterall they are a non-profit, they don't have to make a profit, just provide a useful service to the IT industry, which they were before today...

Has anyone started a on-line petition?

I would certainly sign it.

That was my thought exactly! I have even written to CompTIA about this very thing - effectively defrauding thousands of people who spent a lot of time and money to gain their certs by retroactively imposing expiry dates on certs. With a major part of the draw for these certs being that they "never expire". I had a look at my certification record and in the "expires" column it still says "never". Interesting thing though is that apparently I have begun my certification for the N+ (2009). I guess assuming I will plump for the update. I will post any response I get from them.

Yes start a petition and also write to CompTia, I have already.

ISO does not mandate recertification from what I can see :-
http://www.compad.com.au/cms/iaf/wo...3.IAF-GD24-2004_Guidance_on_ISO_17024_Pub.pdf

It appears this american DOD initiative may be the driver :-
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/857001m.pdf

It looks like they plan to cash in on the mandatory training requirements of US government IT staff, shame it has to come at the cost to the rest of us.