CCNA Question

tntcoder · 2 Jul 2008 at 18:07

Hi,

I have a lot of networking experience, up to degree level but i have never touched any cisco equipment. I was wondering if i can/should do a CCNA purely by learning from simulators, online material and typical study books? Ive been told its possible to do, i was really just wondering if, if you pass the ccna without having seen a physical cisco box, are you still going to have a decent knowledge from the course material / simulator experience to know whats what on them and how to plug the 'bits and bobs' togeather?

I would ideally get a home lab but cant really justify the cost during 3rd year of uni

Cheers,
Jack

DJMK4 · 2 Jul 2008 at 18:14

IGNORE

Laser402 · 2 Jul 2008 at 19:12

Packet Tracer 4.11 is the official cisco simulator, used through my CCNA (just passed

)

Can do pretty much everything CCNA level in it, Real kit is better but not essential, just more time setting up all the cabling etc.

Good Luck!

pdw8 · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:04

I am just surprised that you can study upto degree level and not involve any Cisco kit? Cisco are the dominant supplier of networking hardware, I would think there are very few commercial LAN/WAN that have no cisco kit at some point.

hamesy · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:08

It is possible, as I passed my CCNA 4 module at uni by using simulators. Although I do recommend that you try and get your hands on some Cisco kit as you can't beat the real thing.

tntcoder · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:16

pdw8 said:
I am just surprised that you can study upto degree level and not involve any Cisco kit? Cisco are the dominant supplier of networking hardware, I would think there are very few commercial LAN/WAN that have no cisco kit at some point.

I am surprised as well, all the work i have done is mostly theory based for example complete teachings of TCP/IP, all the OSI, switches/routers/hubs etc on a generic level. But i have never done anything vendor/cisco specific which is why i want to do the CCNA, so i dont look like a fool when it comes to getting a job and working with actual industry networks.

Thanks for all the advice, looks like i can probably pull it off with lots of simulator work

J.B · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:20

Im in the same situation, the Uni are offering CCNA levels 1 and 2 with the possibility of 3 and 4 depending on interest. Cant really afford to pay for the courses, a friend of mine on my course has level 1 and 2 and we've covered most of it in our course, cant justify 400 quid for something I already know.

atomiser · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:39

tntcoder said:
so i dont look like a fool when it comes to getting a job and working with actual industry networks

in that case, and i mean this with the greatest respect, don't you think it would be a good idea to get some hands on with the equipment too?

i can totally understand where your coming from on the expense part of setting up a lab, i'm in a similar situation myself, but then i play around with different vendors equipment all day long at work! that didn't stop me doing the cisco stuff at the local college though, purely so i could play with a decent set of lab equipment.

knowing the theory of how networks operate, and knowing the cli is great, but the actual 'plumbing' is important too - along with how routers respond to different events! i found packet tracer was 'ok', but i generally used it for very quick brush-ups before sitting exams to practice commands - after i had spent lots of time behind the consoles of real equipment.

suarve · 3 Jul 2008 at 17:49

atomiser said:
in that case, and i mean this with the greatest respect, don't you think it would be a good idea to get some hands on with the equipment too?

i can totally understand where your coming from on the expense part of setting up a lab, i'm in a similar situation myself, but then i play around with different vendors equipment all day long at work! that didn't stop me doing the cisco stuff at the local college though, purely so i could play with a decent set of lab equipment.

knowing the theory of how networks operate, and knowing the cli is great, but the actual 'plumbing' is important too - along with how routers respond to different events! i found packet tracer was 'ok', but i generally used it for very quick brush-ups before sitting exams to practice commands - after i had spent lots of time behind the consoles of real equipment.

You can definately pass CCNA using packet tracer, but i found setting up some of the later labs in CCNA 4 (some of the classes about ISDN and frame relay are soooo boring!!!!!) quite hard - although after the course I later found you add things like a frame relay cloud - doh!

When it CCNA part time tons of cisco kit was available and definately helped me.

Whatever you do though, definately use packey tracer as a minimum. Using the Cisco equipment will only help you.

Hyper · 3 Jul 2008 at 20:22

I just passed CCNA 1 and 2 this year at college, we did a lot of practical labs but also used PacketTracer from time to time simply for quickness.

As for £400, What!!!... I did it this year along side a load of other stuff for free.

I am now going onto do a Foundation Degree in ICT Support.

TaLLyJ · 4 Jul 2008 at 09:08

Getting your hands on some kit would be better... but there are plenty of simulators that work really well out there... look at dynamips + gns3

Glass · 4 Jul 2008 at 09:53

J.B said:
Im in the same situation, the Uni are offering CCNA levels 1 and 2 with the possibility of 3 and 4 depending on interest. Cant really afford to pay for the courses, a friend of mine on my course has level 1 and 2 and we've covered most of it in our course, cant justify 400 quid for something I already know.

If you already not it, it's not worth the paper qualification. IT jobs are all 90% experience, 10% qulifications when applying.

R4z0r · 4 Jul 2008 at 12:10

Dynamips/Dynagen is probably the best solution if you can get hold of the IOS images. It would benefit you to at least see some of the kit so you know what it looks like but you'd certainly be able to learn everything from an emulator.

I use Dynagen for my CCIE work as it's quick for setting up labs and saves me money on lab time. As it uses the real IOS images the CLI is identical to a real router.

R4z0r · 4 Jul 2008 at 12:12

Glass said:
If you already not it, it's not worth the paper qualification. IT jobs are all 90% experience, 10% qulifications when applying.

Don't know about IT in general but, in the networking industry, from my experience, qualifications help a great deal in getting the lower end jobs. Still, I'll say what I always say when people bring up experience vs certs - get both.