I'm cereous how many of my fellow Merakians have there CCNA? Would you recommend getting it still or are you just waiting for the CMSS? I had my CCNA years ago and I've been thinking of getting recertified cause I'm currently job hunting.
I have had CCNA certification 3 times over the years and currently expired. I also did some CCNP boot camps but did not sit for exams. These certifications are not important to me anymore for various reasons.
I obtained my CCNA in 2003. I followed it up with a CCNP in 2006, and have been actively certified ever since.
IMO I'm not sure you can compare CMSS and CCNA directly. All the Meraki certs assume you have a CCNA level of knowledge and focus purely on Meraki devices. The CCNA covers vendor agnostic networking fundamentals such as subnetting and routing in addition to the Cisco IOS specifics.
A lot of it really comes down to you and your own career aspirations. Generalists and SOHO/SMB IT shops can likely get by with Meraki based training alone, but for anyone who has a desire to get into Enterprise or SP networking then CCNA is a far more appropriate place to start.
I would say it depends on what you want to do in the future.
Having active cisco certifications is always a good thing on a job hunt. It might either help on getting a higher salary or to "get the job". If many people are applying for the same job, then HR will sort some people out and active certifications are definitely a big factor here.
I'm holding CCNA R&S, CMNA, CCNP Collaboration, CCIE Collaboration, CCDevP certifications and I'm part of the Devnet 500. Job wise I'm primary in the collaboration field.
CCNA? Whoa, it's been a loooong time since then 😉
I have the old CCNA R&S and CCNA Security, from before the recent round of changes. I'm working on devnet associate right now.
You don't have to get a CCNA first. Take a look at the plans for the CCNP Enterprise and see where you are on those topics. If you think you can knock it out, you can skip the new CCNA and go straight to ENCOR and something like ENARSI.
If you want to do wireless, get a CWNA.
If you want to do security, get a CISSP to make HR happy. I know you've got the years of experience necessary.