Register now for free Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer certification

At the end of June 2014, I heard from Joe Cannata, the senior manager of certification at Brocade University. He informed that the company has not only finished "Brocadizing" its former Vyatta vRouter-based certification (Brocade acquired Vyatta in November 2012), but that Brocade University has a limited-time free certification offer that's available until Sept. 10, 2014. The certification involved is called the Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer (BCVRE). The new credential is focused on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and uses the Brocade/Vyatta virtual routing software and products as its platform.

If you'd like to learn more about the BCVRE and the free cert offer, Mr. Cannata's blog post on this program is one good place to get going on your quest. Simply put, Brocade Vyatta vRouters and VCS Fabric technology let organizations put NFV to work in their server rooms or data centers. NFV replaces hardware appliances or devices — such as switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, Web servers, and so forth — with their virtual equivalents. NFV also lets organizations design and deploy efficient and elastic network architectures, and then scale them up or down to match ever-changing dynamic workloads. Why this matters is because NFV can also lead to measurable and substantial reductions in the costs for network infrastructure, and helps organizations make better use of current data center computing and networking resources (to learn more, check out this Brocade Network Facts page).

What's most appealing about this particular BCVRE cert offer is that it's free. It also, however, comes with a 60-day trial of Brocade's Vyatta vRouter software, along with free online video-based training. Those who like what's on offer on Brocade's promotion page also qualify for a free take of the BCVRE exam, which explains the "$650 value" advertised on the sign-up/registration page.

Further information available includes the BCVRE exam information (describes exam objectives in depth, and features links to a Brocade IP Primer, various Vyatta vRouter manuals, and more). After you register with the site to sign up for this program, you can then access course materials online. At that point, a link for the Brocade Vyatta vRouter 60-day free trial, which BCVRE candidates must install and run to help prepare for the exam will also come into play. Other BCVRE materials worth checking out include a YouTube video, and the Brocade Community discussion of the NFV cert.

This offers provides a great way for interested IT professionals to get a proverbial "foot in the door" with NFV (and to start digging more directly into SDN as well). The price (FREE) is hard to beat, the subject matter is hot, and Brocade University generally does an excellent job in designing its certs and building the training and testing materials to support them. I have to see this as a deliberate play from Brocade to stake out mind and market share for NFV (and ultimately, SDN) early on, and expect uptake on this offer to be strong and vigorous. You'll want to dig in and get going soon, though, because there's a fair amount of material to study and master to prep for and take the exam by September 10 (only 9.5 weeks away as I write this post). It's too good an offer to pass up, so you'd better get cracking!