Certification are an important part of validating actual work experience and Citrix offers different certifications for their many products. Whilst trying to obtain certifications without actual Citrix product experience isn’t a wise move, having experience and then getting a certification makes a lot of sense.
So, what are Citrix CCIA, CCEA, CCA and CCP certifications? The Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator (CCEA), the Citrix Certified Integration Architect (CCIA), Citrix Certified Associate (CCA), Citrix Certified Professional (CCP) and Citrix Certified Expert (CCE) are Citrix certifications. The CCA, CCP and CCE are available with virtualization options CCA-V, CCP-V and CCE-V aswell as network versions CCA-N, CCP-N and CCE-N.
The CCEA and CCIA have been deprecated and are no longer available, therefore it makes sense to study for the newer CCA, CCP and CCE versions of the Citrix certifications, specializing either in the digital path for virtualization or the networking path.
The first step for those new to this technology is to find out what Citrix is exactly and get to grips with this technology. As trying to do the certifications without any real world experience, not only makes the certification difficult to pass but also makes it difficult to get a job working with Citrix technology, as experience is considered vital. Organizations simply won’t hire those with just certifications and no actual experience.
Citrix Certified Associate (CCA)
This is the basic certification for several Citrix products and originally used to be just known simple as the CCA but today it’s been split into two specific workstreams, one for virtualization and one for networking, CCA-V and CCA-N respectively. The CCA certification is designed to test the level of Citrix knowledge a person possesses in virtualization and networking.
The CCA-V has been designed to validate that administrators and operators who use Citrix products like Virtual Apps and Desktops, including components like Delivery Controls, StoreFront, Citrix Studio, Citrix Workspace and other products including the Cloud Connections, Citrix Workspace App and Profile management tools are competent in the use of their skills. There is also a focus on the cloud versions, the Citrix Cloud component of many of these tools as Citrix is pushing heavily for the adoption of it’s Cloud products.
The CCA-N has been designed to validate that network administrators and engineers who use Citrix products like Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway are competent. With a focus on looking at their implementation, configuration and management skills to deal with such skills as SSL offloading, load balancing, content switching, traffic management (GSLB) along with being able to create secure remote connections to other Citrix products like Virtuals Apps and Virtual Desktops.
Citrix Certified Integration Architect (CCIA)
The Citrix Certified Integration Architect or CCIA as it’s known for short, was Citrix Systems flagship certification, it’s no longer available. It was ideally suited to people at an expert working level knowledge of Citrix who wanted to quantify their higher level of expertise.
The inclusion of the word ‘architect’ by Citrix was to make this seem more like an enterprise level certification so people could related it to common technology roles like Technical Architect, Solutions Architect, Infrastructure Architect and Enterprise Architect.
Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator (CCEA)
The Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator or CCEA as it’s known for short, primary purpose was to justify that the holder is proficient in administering a wide range of Citrix products. This certification no longer exists and has been deprecated.
