CiscoExpertOn requestUpdated: July 2026

SDSI Training for Your Team — Designing Cisco Security Infrastructure

There is a moment in every security engineer’s career when the question changes from “how do I configure this” to “should this control even be here” — and most organizations discover they have plenty of people who can answer the first and almost none for the second. SDSI (Designing Cisco Security Infrastructure) targets exactly that gap: segmentation strategy, control placement across edge, data center and cloud, secure connectivity design, and availability engineering, taught through design cases rather than configuration labs.

It is a course for engineers who already implement well — the natural step after SCOR and field experience — and for architects who inherited the security domain and need to make defensible, documented decisions rather than vendor-default ones.

We organize delivery through authorized partners, confirming the current course version and duration in your quote — live online in your time zone, on site, or as a private design workshop built around your own architecture.

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Who this course is for

Senior security engineers stepping up from implementation to architecture
Network architects who now own the security domain of their designs
Integrator presales and delivery leads who write security designs for customers
Security team leads standardizing design decisions across a growing estate

What your team will learn

Topic areas below are grouped in our own words. The full official agenda is available on request — it comes from the authorized partner as part of your quote.

Turning business and compliance requirements into an architecture, not a shopping list
Segmentation design: deciding where trust boundaries go before the firewall rules multiply
Placing controls — edge, data center, endpoint, cloud — so each threat is caught once, deliberately
Designing secure remote access and site connectivity for how people actually work
High availability and failure domains: security that degrades gracefully instead of catastrophically
Documenting and defending a design in front of auditors, architects and budget owners

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Key facts

Duration	On request
Level	Expert
Prerequisites	CCNP Security-level implementation experience with Cisco security technologies (SCOR or equivalent)
Formats	Live online (VILT), On-site at your location, Private group, Seats in scheduled groups
Languages	English + local-language instructors on request

Formats and how we organize it

Live online (VILT)
On-site at your location
Private group
Seats in scheduled groups

One request → three options

Fill in the form below — it takes a couple of minutes. Within 5 business days you compare 2–3 concrete offers — provider, instructor, dates, price below the public list. We contract and administer the delivery end to end. Details:how we work and vendor training.

SDSI vs alternatives: which to choose

Factual criteria only — level, duration, audience and certification. The right choice depends on your team's starting point and stack.

Cisco SCOR (Security Core)

The implementation-level core: configuring and operating the security technologies themselves. Take SCOR first — SDSI assumes you can build the controls and teaches when, where and why to place them. Design without implementation experience rarely sticks.

Cisco SVPN (Secure VPN Solutions)

A hands-on concentration on one design domain — VPN and remote access. Choose SVPN when connectivity is the immediate project; SDSI when the task is the whole security architecture and the trade-offs between its parts.

A custom intensive

If what you really need is a design review of your own security architecture with an instructor-architect — segmentation, control placement, HA — a custom workshop on our materials does exactly that, using your diagrams instead of case studies.

Need only part of SDSI?

If your team needs a subset of this program — or a mix of topics from several courses — we build a custom 2–4 day intensive on our own materials, shaped by your infrastructure. One custom program typically replaces 2–3 catalog courses.

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SDSI: frequently asked questions

How is SDSI different from an implementation course like SCOR?

SCOR teaches how to configure and operate security technologies; SDSI teaches how to decide which controls go where and why. It is case- and design-driven rather than lab-configuration-driven, aimed at engineers who already implement confidently and now own architectural decisions.

Is there an exam attached to this course?

Certification mappings for design-level security courses change more often than for the core tracks, so we confirm the current exam alignment, course version and duration as part of your quote rather than promising a number here.

What experience should participants bring?

Solid hands-on experience with Cisco security technologies — CCNP Security level or equivalent field practice. Participants without implementation background get much less from design discussions; for mixed teams we usually schedule SCOR first and SDSI as the second wave.

Can the course use our own architecture as material?

In a private group, yes — instructors can anchor segmentation, control-placement and HA discussions in your topology under NDA. That format turns the course into a working design review, which is how most in-house teams choose to run it.

How do we organize SDSI training?

Fill in the request form on this page — team size, format, timing. Within 5 business days you receive 2–3 options from authorized partners with vetted instructors, dates and prices below public lists.

Request 2–3 SDSI training options — quotes within 5 business days

No commitment — describe the task and we come back with concrete options, dates and prices.

Cisco, SDSI and course names are trademarks of their respective owners. Uptime Skills is an independent training operator and is not affiliated with or endorsed byCisco. Official courses are delivered by authorized training partners.