Aviatrix Blog 
The Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE) Program is turning five years old! Launched in 2019, this cloud networking training and certification program has far exceeded its goals in equipping thousands of networking engineers with invaluable skills and practical insights.
From the beginning, ACE has aimed to help network engineers understand the crucial differences between traditional on-premises networking and the cloud. Without a critical understanding of how the model of networking has changed — for example, how security changes in a distributed cloud environment with a larger attack surface — network professionals risk:
- “Lifting and shifting” on-premises problems to the cloud
- Creating unnecessarily complex and expensive architectures
- Failing to capitalize on the vast opportunities the cloud opens
The cloud networking industry’s rapid changes has created a skills gap, with the demand for expert networking architects and engineers greater than the supply. The ACE Program aims to close that skills gap and give networking engineers the multicloud, security, operations, architecture, and automation training they need to manage successful networks and accelerate their careers.
Through expert live training with labs, study materials, and plenty of opportunities to ask questions, ACE courses have graduated more than 23,000 networking professionals who understand the fundamentals of cloud networking, advanced concepts like distributed security, and tactical skills like network segmentation and egress filtering.
A unique aspect of the ACE Program is that it trains candidates in more than one cloud service provider. “With the ACE certification, I learned about networking in AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI all in one place. That breadth of learning is not encompassed in any other certification program I’ve encountered,” said Rahul Kamble, Cloud Engineer at Accenture.
From 2019 to 2024: Milestones of Success
Here’s a brief timeline of the program:
- November 2019 — The ACE Program launches with two certifications, ACE Associate and ACE Professional.
- January 2020 — The program’s goal is to have 500 total certified ACEs by the end of the year.
- December 2020 — Due to the worldwide COVID-19 lockdown and the explosion of e-learning, the program closes the year with almost 10,000 ACEs worldwide.
- February 2021 — Launch of the ACE Operations certification, which provides operators with the tools needed to have full visibility into the cloud environment they manage.
- February 2022 — Launch of the ACE Design Expert certification, an elite certification which requires engineers to create and defend a multicloud network architecture in front of a panel. This certification has 27 graduates to date, including Adam Stipkovits, Michael Lauiciello, and Mark Noorman.
- March 2022 — Launch of the ACE Automation course, which guides students through building complex networks with the Aviatrix multicloud networking and network security platform using the principles of DevOps and Infrastructure as Code.
- July 2023 — Launch of the ACE Cloud Backbone and Hybrid Connectivity certification, which empowers network engineers and architects on their hybrid cloud journey.
- September 2023 — Launch of the ACE Multicloud Security Specialty certification, which equips network engineers to understand the unique security requirements of the cloud.
- June 2024 — Redesign of the ACE Associate course to make it more accessible and user-friendly. This course is also free.
Curious about how you can become an ACE? Learn more and sign up for an course today.