Program to Validate SDN Practitioners’ Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities in Evolving SDN Industry
PALO ALTO, Calif., September 16, 2014 – The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open Software-Defined Networking (SDN), today introduces the ONF-Certified SDN Professional (OCSP) Program. The program is designed to provide a strong foundation of vendor-neutral, concept and technical level credentials in open SDN that can integrate with and complement individual vendor certifications in networking technologies or programming languages.
Our introduction of the ONF-Certified SDN Professional Program is in direct response to the growing need to validate knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) within the emerging field of open SDN technologies and business solutions,” said Rick Bauer, technical program manager of the Open Networking Foundation. “Networking has changed dramatically since ONF’s founding three years ago. Those involved in the trenches of today’s evolving networks need to be up-to-date on the skills that are most sought after within their industry. ONF certifications will provide SDN practitioners with an industry-recognized standard by which individual knowledge and skills can be evaluated.”
By evolving the program alongside the SDN ecosystem, ONF will establish and maintain a uniform standard by which individual knowledge and skill sets in SDN can be understood and validated by prospective employers. ONF will conduct workshops later in September to create a global blueprint identifying the key learning objectives for each certification. The OCSP program will leverage a variety of independent learning and training programs by creating certification exam blueprints. These blueprints will be developed by ONF and published as open standards for worldwide adoption and enhancements as the SDN ecosystem evolves.
The program will begin by offering two certifications, an ONF-Certified SDN Engineer (OCSE) and an ONF-Certified SDN Associate (OCSA):
- ONF-Certified SDN Engineer (OCSE)
The engineer certification certifies technical and engineering-level knowledge of SDN technologies, architectures, and deployment solutions and is designed for entry level SDN engineering and networking professionals.
- ONF-Certified SDN Associate (OCSA)
This certification validates concept-level knowledge of SDN technologies, architectures, and deployment solutions. This certification is designed for entry-level sales and marketing professionals to have a foundational understanding of SDN.
The exams for the OCSE and OCSA will be available in early 2015. The exam will be translated into major languages once demand is established. Once a candidate has passed an OCSP certification exam, they will receive a certificate and an authorized registration number for their certification, which will be managed through a global online portal available to certification owners and prospective employers.
Additional certification categories will be announced next year. For more information on the current program, please contact ONF’s Technical Program Manager, Rick Bauer at rick.bauer@opennetworking.org.
About ONF
Launched in 2011 by Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a growing nonprofit organization with more than 140 members whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of open SDN. ONF promotes open SDN and OpenFlow® technologies and standards while fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users. For further details visit the ONF website at: https://opennetworking.org.
