Cisco on Monday unveiled a number of changes to the popular Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification.

The changes involve a downsizing move (from four 90-minute exams to three 120-minute exams) as well as a reconciliation of topic areas.

Gone are old or little-used focus areas like IP multicast, as well as the familiar (if daunting) exam sections. Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI), Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN), Implementing Secure Converged Wide-Area Networks (ISCW), and Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT) have all been redesigned and rebranded.

The revised CCNP introduces three entirely new exam titles. In place of acronyms, Cisco opted this time around to simply shorten exam titles. For example, the new Implementing Cisco Routing exam is called ROUTE #642-902. The other two exam areas, Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks and Troubleshooting and Maintaining Cisco IP, are called SWITCH #642-813 and TSHOOT #642-832, respectively.

Instructor, author and Cisco Press mainstay Wendell Odom described the changes as sweeping, noting that Cisco has removed "roughly half the topic breadth from the old CCNP," including almost all of the topic matter from the existing Implementing Secure Converged Wide Area Networks (ISCW) and Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT) exams.

"Roughly 4 years after the widening of CCNP, Cisco makes a philosophical shift. CCNP now has less breadth of topics, at least if you compare the current exam topics. However, those topics require more depth, particularly due to the significant focus on troubleshooting," he wrote. "At the same time, Cisco appears to be kicking up the overall required skill level on the core routing and switching topics, to what I am calling the skilled engineer level, rather than a skilled implementer level."

Certified Cisco instructor Kevin Wallace, who has authored or co-authored several exam certification or self-study guides for Cisco Press, has an optimistic take on the revisions. Like Odom, Wallace believes that the CCNP revisions bring a much-needed emphasis on troubleshooting.

The exam revisions as a whole indicate a renewed emphasis on many different kinds of troubleshooting. While preparing for the existing CCNP might entail some degree of rote memorization, the new revisions emphasize the importance of being able to think on ones feet -- whether in the context of the exam room or under similar pressure in a production environment.

"Exam candidates can expect an exam that focuses on their ability to resolve complex network issues, rather than recall memorized facts," Wallace said in a prepared release.

Cisco Press has nine new CCNP titles ready to go, with another four on tap for February and an additional seven slated for "spring 2010."