So I was following on from the article at Network World about HP ProCurve leveraging know-how of Cisco’s certified engineers by allowing existing Cisco Certifications to count as credit. In a similar program to the Juniper FastTrack from last year you can do a top-up exam to certify on Cisco products,.

So I figured I’d have a look at the Master Accredited System Engineer (MASE) for ProCurve which is people who have achieved Cisco CCIE certification. Why not ? Juniper program was popular, and many people took the opportunity to get some additional skills.

Attaining Master ASE certification signifies your master-level ability to perform consultative planning, architecting, and leading the deployment of ProCurve solutions for enterprise environments. This may include products and components from other vendors as necessary to solve business needs.

Audience: Cisco certified engineers at expert level (CCIE or CCDE) with specialization in routing and switching.

Here is the written exam guide for Campus LANs certification.
ExamPrepGuide-HP2-Z04-BuildingHPProCurveCampusLANs_Jan_10_WW_Eng_ltr.pdf. Which looks all good enough. It’s tightly focussed on the LAN only and covers the core topics. If I spent time in refresher study I think I could do this. After all, I am a HP customer and wouldn’t mind being able to promote HP.

I went to look for the exam locations/registration and register for a HP Learner ID. BUT, to register for HP Smart Portal you have to work for a HP Partner or for HP.

NO. I don't work for a partner. (Click for a full size image)

Update

In the comments, Jeremy Arnold from Procurve suggests that you CAN get a learner ID. It took me twenty minutes to find the login portal/page that did let me apply for the ID (since the first page points to the Partner Portal exclusively) and I’m waiting for a response.

Why block customers and independent consultants ?

It’s possible that the purpose of HP Certifications has been to ensure that HP Partners have people with enough skills. Since I don’t work for a HP reseller I can’t be sure, but HP probably requires their partners to have a certain number of certified people to ensure that they know about ProCurve and can successfully install it. That’s a good thing for customers and HP.

But please, can you provide choices for consultants who want to advise clients, or for people who work at customer sites who aspire to support HP products.

Must be a partner!!.(Click for a full size image)

Education is for everyone

Certification isn’t just for partners and sales engineers. Education and certification is an important part of career development for your customers. Unless I missed something, I hope HP fixes this soon.