12/3/2003 -- Yesterday, Citrix announced several changes to its certification program, including adding online learning requirements and recertification.

The new recertification policy is effective immediately. All participants in the program will now be required to update their certifications as exams retire, Karl Liebman, director of Corporate Education and Consulting for Citrix, told CertCities.com today. "If a candidate becomes certified, if one of those exams is retired, then a candidate would have to take a new exam." Liebman explained.

As of yesterday, exams covering older versions of MetaFrame, such as 1.8, have been retired. Candidates will have until May 2004 to update certifications based on these exams. The more recent XP certifications do not need to be renewed at this time: "Any exam based on XP will be good until two versions after XP," Liebman explained.

The program has also announced "elective" requirements that must be fulfilled through Citrix online learning courses. "Now that we’ve introduced Access Suite, we're no longer a one-product company – and we wanted to make sure the entire suite is integrated into our program,” Liebman commented.

The online learning requirements will be mandatory in May 2004. With these, Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) candidates will be required to pass either the new 222 Feature Release 3 exam or the 310 MetaFrame 1.0 for Unix exam, plus take one of the following two e-learning courses and pass an online assessment exam at the end of the course:

• CTX-1300AW Citrix MetaFrame Secure Access Manager: Introduction
• CTX-1320AW Citrix MetaFrame Password Manager: Introduction (not yet released)

The new Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator (CCEA) still requires the CCA plus three proctored exams, but under the new requirements will also require an elective. As with the CCA, CCEAs must choose from one of the e-learning courses above and pass the online assessment exam given as part of the course, but CCEAs will also be required to pass a proctored exam based on the material.

Elective requirements for the company's Citrix Certified Integration Architect (CCIA) exam will be announced sometime this month.

According to Citrix's Web site, candidate may still earn the titles via the old requirements (i.e., no electives) through May 2004.

Citrix debuted its online learning program earlier this year. The online technical courses cost $50 (U.S.) per hour, with the current elective available for these titles lasting 2 hours. The online learning site is compatible only with IE Explorer for Windows browsers, version 5.5 SP 2 and above. The company does not currently plan to add further browser capability.

Liebman said that the above changes were developed in conjunction with customers and partners, and that response to the changes so far is "very positive."

"We’ve been extremely pleased with the response we’ve gotten in this," Liebman said "What we're doing is making sure that the individuals have the skills that they need...It's a way to make sure that when a company hires a Citrix certified professional, they know they are getting the best."

Liebman said that the extra cost associated with obtaining an Citrix certification through this new program shouldn't affect its popularity. "The cost changes are negligible," he said.

According to Citrix, its program has certified more than 45,000 IT professionals.

More information on these changes can be found here. -Becky Nagel