Associate-level expertise doesn't really demand for any sort of concentration in any one area. During this time, the requirements for IT professionals have changed. How the Changes Benefit Youīefore this change, it had been a long time since Cisco made large-scale changes to their certification program.
This can add an additional layer of difficulty for cert takers who are comfortable with basic networking, but new to automation. While DevOps and automation seem to be the norm now, mixing programming into networking certs is a new concept. Programmability and automation in particular can be challenging for newer networking pros. That, in and of itself, is a lot of ground to cover. The difficulty stems from the fact that the new CCNA covers modern network fundamentals end-to-end. As a result, the exam can be more challenging than the previous CCNA. That's not to say the old CCNA certs didn't cover basics, but the new CCNA dives in a little further. This requires a wider view, and understanding of the material. But you are going into an exam that covers more networking fundamentals. With the new CCNA, you don't lose focus areas, they've just been replaced by Specialist certifications (more on that later). That's no longer possible, which can add to the difficulty of earning the new CCNA. This also helped ease you into other CCNA paths down the road. Previously, you could ease your way into CCNA Routing & Switching by starting off with a CCENT (retired Feb 24, 2020) to get you into the CCNA Routing & Switching. The changes require that you have a wider knowledge base.
In general, the new CCNA is shaping up to be harder than the old CCNA. Of course, pass rates will tell the story a year or so from now, but we can make some inferences today. Specializing comes later, so this gives you more flexibility if you're new to Cisco certs.
With the new CCNA, you're only required to take one exam to get certified. And if something changed while you were working on your CCNA, it wasn't always as simple as changing the path you were taking. This option required at least two exams to get certified, and in some cases, more.