There’s been much talk about the need to upgrade Malaysian Graduates’ skills to prepare them for work in the high-technology, knowledge-based Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industries which are becoming more prevalent in the country so that they and the country can compete globally.

To that end, the Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems (MIMOS) in collaboration with US-based Multinational Networking giant, CISCO established the MIMOS-CISCO Asian Centre of Excellence in Networking Technologies (ACENT) at MIMOS Headquarters in Technology Park Malaysia in April 2008.

In partnership with technology integrator and consultancy company, IMS Asia, ACENT provides facilities for organisations to conduct Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Tests and Validation of their proposed network designs and to conduct courses to train ICT students, graduates and working professionals in the practical aspects of Networking to prepare them for work in this field or to upgrade the skills of those already working in this field.

The Integrated Network Support Professional Program (NSP) is a joint initiative by MIMOS and IMS Asia, which provides especially students and new graduates with hands-on practical training in the foundation and fundamentals of Networking to prepare them for related employment.

The five day programme consists of 20% Networking Theory and 80% Practical in five modules, namely, LAN Switching, IP Routing, WAN (Wide Area Networking) Technologies, IP Services, and IPv6 Technologies.

“NSP programme development focuses on standards based Networking Technologies with strong emphasis in hands-on lab practices. The Programme eliminates or reduces product related information and promotes “experiential learning” by providing ample opportunities with variations in lab topologies and difficulty levels. This method of training develops students with “Root Cause Troubleshooting” capabilities and Network Analytical skills. These are types of skills that leading companies are looking for in their recruitment process today. Most importantly, Malaysian Network Engineers’ “Root Cause Troubleshooting” and “Network Analytical” skills will be a major differentiator to attract high value ICT Outsourcing opportunities to MSC Malaysia.” said Palaniappan Alagan, Programme Director of MIMOS ACENT and Senior Network Consultant for many Fortune 500 companies worldwide.

At the end of the course, they must sit for a Practical Lab Examination, leading to the award of a Certificate of Excellence in Network Support Professional issued by MIMOS and IMS Asia.

NSP participants need not have a CISCO Certified Network Associate (CCNA) to take this course and the 80% pass mark is high but almost all pass, according to Palaniappan, since IMS Asia pre-qualifies applicants based on the suitability of their degree and work experience.

This course fee can be claimed through the Human Resources Development Fund – Training Assistance Programme (HRDF-SBL).

“Doctorate in Networking”

IMS Asia also manages the MSC Malaysia Capability Development Programme – CISCO Certified Internetwork Expert (CDP-CCIE) Lab Preparation Programme at ACENT, which enables Networking Professionals to obtain the much coveted CCIE certification from CISCO.

MDeC and IMS Asia signed a Memorandum of Understanding in April 2008 to formalize their collaboration in this programme and this collaboration is the first under the MSC Malaysia “Get IT Certified” campaign launched in January 2008.

The CCIE is the highest CISCO certification and is highly regarded within the Networking Industry.

IMS Asia also offers Cisco’s structured CCNA (CISCO Certified Network Associate) and CCNP (CISCO Certified Network Professional) courses at its office in Damansara Uptown 3 in Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya and it is also one of CISCO’s Authorised Examination Centres, together with another company, Prometric.

“CCIEs are known for their ability to perform `Root Cause Troubleshooting’.   Today companies are always under tremendous pressure to maintain Network Availability service levels at 5 “nine’s” (99.999%) or more. CCIEs are recognized worldwide and time tested for their ability to work under tremendous pressure and stress to maintain Corporate Network service levels. They can `see through’ the problems in complex and sophisticated Network Systems within a very short period of time by observing the Network Protocol behaviour. They have the ability to perform `problem isolation’ and pin point the exact technical issues, abilities that are priceless considering the vast amount of intelligent exchanges that are going on in any Corporate Networking System today. They are also knowledgeable to recommend an immediate and long term approach to solve the identified network problems. ” said Palaniappan Alagan.

So, while the CCIE Certification is often regarded by the industry as equivalent to a “Doctorate in Networking,” it’s more accurately equivalent to a Graduate Engineer obtaining Professional Engineer status after at least four (4) years of mentored work experience under the guidance of a Professional Engineer, followed by the Professional Interview and Exams by the Board of Engineers, Malaysia, after which he or she can practice as a Consultant Engineer, who’s legally allowed to sign-off on Engineering Designs and Projects.

It’s also similar to lawyers being called to the Bar and doctors after they’ve completed and passed their period of housemanship.

Achieving a CCIE Certification previously took candidates over four years of self-study without guidance and since it’s a high-end technical qualification, candidates should have many years of related work experience in addition to theoretical knowledge.

The CCIE course consists of eight to nine self-study modules but since it is 80% hands-on, candidates had to also invest in network equipment, such as, routers and switches to build their own network lab to train on. So, getting a CCIE Certification altogether cost them around RM240,000 and since it is so expensive, very few employers would sponsor a CCIE course.

Like for CCNA and CCNP, CCIE candidates sit for an Online Theory Exam but in addition, they must also sit for an eight (8) hour long Practical Exam and since previously there was no CISCO Authorised CCIE Examination Centre in Malaysia, they had to travel overseas to places such as, Hong Kong, Bangalore or Australia to sit for their eight (8) hours long Practical Exam.

Also, since only 3% of CCIE candidates pass after several attempts, they had to go overseas several times, which was very costly, so Malaysia currently only has 84 CCIE qualified persons out of the 18,451 worldwide, as of time of writing, while among our neighbours, India has 521, Hong Kong has 234, Taiwan has 189 and Singapore has 169.

“Without enough CCIEs in Malaysia, companies have to employ expatriates at around RM40,000 per month plus costs for them to bring their families here, instead of market rates of RM20,000 per month, which is also an outflow of foreign exchange from the country,” said Palaniappan.

“However, now with CCIE-compliant equipment at ACENT, it only costs RM40,000 for a one (1) year programme taken locally and they can now sit for the Practical Exam locally as well,” Palaniappan added.

The CCIE Training and Testing Equipments at ACENT comprises of CCIE Routing and Switching Lab and a CCIE Voice Lab.

The Routing and Switching Lab comprises of five (5) racks with eight (8) routers and four (4) switches each, so five (5) persons can train on them at any one time.

“CCIE participants can also access the lab remotely at night and currently, we have about 100 people who access the lab remotely,” said Muhammad Habil Zulkefli, IMS Asia Technical Specialist and a CISCO Certified Systems Instructor (CCSI).

While the candidates still study by themselves most of the time, each month, usually on a Saturday, they can come in for a full day session to speak to a Subject Matter Expert to ask questions and clarify their doubts and since there are eight or nine modules, each month will focus on a particular topic and they’ll be given a set of hands-on exercises to do related to the module.

“They also have a Facebook account called MIMOSCOE where candidates can discuss issues related to their tutorials online,” said Habil.

The Voice Lab consists of a CISCO 3800 series Category 6 backbone core router, 6500 series core switch, five (5) Call Managers, four (4) Unity Servers used in Unified Communications, IP voice and Video Phones.

Suresh Solomon, a Telecommunications Engineer with Dell and a candidate for CCIE Certification in Voice Communications was conducting practical tests on this lab at the time.

“Companies also use these equipment to conduct their Proof-of-Concept (PoC) for   Testing and Validation before they make the purchasing decision or roll-out new ICT solutions in their production environment. This approach significantly reduces project risk and improves success of ICT project delivery. As organisations start to implement IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements will require organisations to thoroughly test and validate ICT solutions in a prototype environment before deploying it into the production environment. This is a major change in the corporate culture that Malaysian companies have to go through to adapt these best practices.” said Palaniappan.