Hey ya’ll, Friday I became a Cisco Certified Design Professional.

Strangely, the lower-level test — what Cisco calls “associate” — was much more difficult than the professional-level test. This associate-level test is not actually a prerequisite, though, in the traditional sense because Cisco allows you to take the exams out of order.

Which is exactly what I did, because taking the 300-320 ARCH exam was required for renewing my CCNP and I was not about to let that expire. Thus, I took the higher-level exam first and then to earn the actual CCDP as a bit of difficultly-obtained icing on the cake, I sat for the 200-310 exam.

Considering that I design things for a living these days, this was a very useful certification to acquire.