Partner Central

Cisco rewards partners for adding value to Cisco products and delivering a positive customer experience. Certifications and specializations measure criteria such as customer satisfaction and presales and postsales support capabilities—critical factors in becoming a trusted partner.

The Channel Partner Program focuses on a partner's ability to deliver business solutions built upon Cisco technologies. The program offers training in the latest Cisco technologies, provides valuable branding resources, and rewards partners with incentives.

How do certifications and specializations relate to one another?
Channel Partner Program certifications are similar to academic degrees. Some specializations are prerequisites for becoming certified while others provide specialized knowledge of certain technologies. Certification levels reflect a partner's technology skills breadth. The higher your level of certification, the more credentials and resources you need to meet the requirements.

How can partners become specialized and certified?
Requirements differ by certification and specialization. Scroll over the graphic to link to view more detail about each level. Keep in mind that becoming a Registered Partner is the first step in the process. Review the Step-by-Step Guide to becoming a Registered Partner.

Benefits to Becoming Certified and Specialized Cisco certification and specialization differentiate your business through:

• Market recognition and branding: Cisco partner certification recognizes your technology expertise, specializations, and individual career certifications.
• Validation and credibility: As one of the world's strongest brands, the Cisco name lends added credibility to companies that achieve Cisco Certified Partner status.
• Quality standards: An objective third party conducts annual audits that help protect the integrity and value of Silver and Gold Certified Partners and Master Specialized Partners, ensuring the inclusion of only the most qualified partners in our program.

Apply for or renew certifications or specializations with the Certification and Specialization Application (CSApp) tool. (Login Required)

Certification reflects a breadth of skills across certain technologies and is based on your organization's ability to support customers within a single country or country grouping.
Country-level certifications range from entry to highest level: Select, Premier, Silver, Gold, Multinational, and Global Certification.

	Select Certification Identifies partners that focus on selling into the small business market; recognizes and rewards Small Business Specialized Partners.
	Premier Certification Identifies and rewards Express Foundation Specialized Partners. This foundational specialization expands technical competency in the integration of basic routing and switching, wireless LANs, and security technologies.
	Silver Certification Recognizes partners for their broad technical skills. Silver Certified Partners have either achieved two of the following advanced specializations: Unified Communications, Routing and Switching, Security, and Wireless LAN; or have achieved the Express Unified Communications Specialization and one of the following advanced specializations: Routing and Switching, Security, or Wireless LAN.
	Gold Certification Offers the highest level of branding, rewards, and recognition. Gold Certified Partners offer the broadest range of expertise across multiple technologies by achieving all four advanced specializations: Unified Communications, Routing and Switching, Security, and Wireless LAN.
	Multinational Certification Recognizes partners with expertise in selling, deploying, and supporting Cisco integrated solutions across multiple countries within a given Cisco geographical region. Partners that achieve the required number of Silver and Gold Certifications within the region will be recognized as Multinational Certified Partners for that region. To qualify, partners must have a multinational resale agreement.
	Global Certification Recognizes partners with the expertise and resources to plan, design, implement, and operate Cisco networking solutions across the globe. Global Certified Partners must have a global resale agreement and satisfy certification requirements across three continental regions.

Specialization reflects a depth of skills in a particular technology. There are four levels of specialization: Entry, Express, Advanced, and Master. Each level represents greater capabilities in sales, technical, and lifecycle services.

Entry-level specialization is designed specifically for Cisco Registered Partners seeking an entry point into the Cisco Channel Partner Program. The Small Business Foundation Specialization and Small Business Specialization are for resellers serving small business customers.

Small Business
Small Business Foundation

Express-level specializations are for partners that want to increase their technical proficiency in the areas of unified communications and foundation networking. Partners can achieve Express-level specialization in both Express Foundation and Express Unified Communications.

Express Foundation
Express Unified Communications

Advanced-level specializations are available as technologies and architectures. Advanced specializations help partners meet a wide range of customer needs, from small businesses to larger enterprise organizations.

Technology specializations include: Unified Communications, Security, Wireless LAN, Routing and Switching , which are all required to achieve Gold Certification, and optional for Silver Certification. Additional technology specializations include: Data Center Networking Infrastructure and Data Center Storage Networking.

Architecture specializations include: Borderless Network, Collaboration, and Data Center. Advanced architecture specializations are not required for certification, but will be required for Gold Certification and will be optional for Silver Certification and Premier Certification after August, 2012.

Technology Specializations
Advanced Unified Communications
Advanced Security
Advanced Wireless LAN
Advanced Routing and Switching
Advanced Unified Fabric Technology
Advanced Unified Computing Technology

Architecture Specializations
Advanced Borderless Network Architecture
Advanced Collaboration Architecture
Advanced Data Center Architecture

Master-level specializations are targeted at an elite group of partners that have the most in-depth technology skills and demonstrated success in selling, deploying, and providing services for more sophisticated Cisco solutions. Master Specializations can be achieved regardless of certification level, and are available for Unified Communications and Security.

Master Unified Communications
Master Security

Additional Specializations
Global Commerce Specialization recognizes partners that have a global presence and proven capability in providing consistent commerce and product logistics services to global customers.

Integrated Architectures Specialization (IAS) recognizes partners with the depth in architectures, services and solutions necessary to support our most sophisticated customers. Partners must have demonstrated their expertise through significant investments in Cisco certifications and specializations. Qualified partners must also demonstrate a service business capability.

Retired Specializations
Advanced Data Center Networking Infrastructure
Advanced Data Center Storage Networking