{"id":154395,"date":"2017-02-02T08:15:20","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T06:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=154395"},"modified":"2017-02-02T08:15:20","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T06:15:20","slug":"a-huawei-first-for-altech-enterprise-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/154395\/a-huawei-first-for-altech-enterprise-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"A Huawei-first for Altech Enterprise Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacques Allison, an Altech Enterprise Solutions network engineer, recently became the first Huawei Certified Internetwork Expert (HCIE) in routing and switching in Huawei\u2019s African region.<\/p>\n

It is another milestone in Altron\u2019s relationship with the leading, global ICT solutions provider.<\/p>\n

Altech Enterprise Solutions is a dedicated Huawei ICT solutions provider. Implementing and supporting Huawei solutions is the operation\u2019s sole focus.<\/p>\n

According to national sales manager Caroline Beswick, Altech Enterprise Solutions\u2019 vision is to be the leading preferred and trusted Huawei partner in South Africa with a reputation for solution design, integration skills and service delivery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to achieve this, we have to be able to design and implement the right solutions for our customers, something we can only do if we have the highest level of skills available,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

For this reason, Altech Enterprise Solutions is busy certifying its teams in all Huawei disciplines, from sales through to technical pre-sales and engineering in IP, IT, UC&C to network energy and data centres.<\/p>\n

It is as part of this process that Jacques Allison became the first network engineer in Huawei\u2019s African region to achieve HCIE certification in routing and switching.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of this year, around 100 of our sales people and engineers would have been through Huawei certified training of one sort or another,\u201d says Caroline.<\/p>\n

She points out that, in addition to the certification, it is extremely important that the engineers gain hands-on experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is this practical, in-the-field experience that really turns them into experts. It\u2019s where they learn the exceptions to the rules and how to interoperate with other technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Altech Enterprise Solutions believes that training and skills transfer should extend to its customers\u2019 engineers in order to develop the general Huawei skills base in South Africa.<\/p>\n

As such, the operation invests heavily in developing its customers\u2019 engineers, as well engineers working for some of its SME partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertification means that we have the capability to deliver; it adds credibility to our offering and instills confidence in our customers that we have the expertise, skills and knowledge to deliver on their requirements,\u201d concludes Caroline.<\/p>\n

The HCIE process<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Pass the HCIE written exam. This expert level exam follows the associate and professional level exams, and checks the candidate\u2019s understanding of all the advanced technical topics covered in the next step, which is the practical lab exam.<\/li>\n
  2. Pass the practical lab exam. The candidate has eight hours in which to configure a complex routing and switching network. The pass rate is 80%.<\/li>\n
  3. Pass an hour-long video conference interview with Huawei experts in China. The panel asks tough questions to ensure the candidate understands the workings of each related protocol, and confirms his or her relevant networking experience.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/a><\/h3>\n

    My certification journey<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Jacques Allison is a pre-sales engineer and network architect at Altech Enterprise Solutions.<\/p>\n

    He describes his role as providing pre-sales design support for the Huawei networking, data centre, unified communications and collaboration solutions.<\/p>\n

    In addition, he is the technical lead and architect for new large-scale network designs, which include Huawei products to provide DWDM, MPLS VPN, VoIP\/IMS, Internet, public Wi-Fi, and related services.<\/p>\n

    He is also responsible for the functional and technical elements of requests for information and requests for proposals, and does product and white board presentations to current and prospective customers.<\/p>\n

    You are the first HCIE-certified engineer in the Africa region, and one of only a handful outside of China*. What doors does it open for you?<\/p>\n

    The certification will benefit my personal and professional relationship with Huawei.<\/p>\n

    For one thing, it will give me more access to the Huawei engineers when it comes to general support on new solution designs.<\/p>\n

    Getting the certification also gives me opportunities to mentor other candidates in preparation for the HCIE lab exam. My plan is to become a local lab interviewer.<\/p>\n

    *According to Huawei, at the end of 2015 there were 1 064 HCIEs globally; 80% of them in China.<\/p>\n

    How did you prepare for the certification?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The starting point is on-the-job experience in large-scale networking design and support. In that regard, my career path has prepared me.<\/p>\n

    As far as the practical lab session is concerned, I used Huawei\u2019s virtual network simulation tool to help me prepare.<\/p>\n

    You have to be very comfortable with command line configuration of a complex network consisting of multiple interconnected routers and switches. Many hours of practice are necessary, as you have to be able to quickly troubleshoot simple problems in the lab environment.<\/p>\n

    The training material, videos and mock exams on the Huawei website was also most useful.<\/p>\n

    I found the Huawei product documentation to be essential when it came to finding practical examples of the configurations required in the lab.<\/p>\n

    The two-week course that Nic Yap, a HCIE trainer from Singapore, presented here in South Africa was key in preparing for the exam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jacques Allison, an Altech Enterprise Solutions network engineer, recently became the first Huawei Certified Internetwork Expert (HCIE) in routing and switching in Huawei\u2019s African region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":154407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[309,26],"class_list":["post-154395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-altron","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154413,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154395\/revisions\/154413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}