CCNA

Jony27 · 10 Nov 2017 at 13:22

Thought I'd ask this here as I'm in a similar sort of situation. Currently working as a tech support looking after the products for our company. Company offered to take me back after I spent a year with them on my placement year during uni. It's a great place to work at but I've always been interested in hands on stuff fixing/configuring hardware and have been thinking about getting a CCNA. Currently I would not be progressing to this position within the company, I take it a CCNA is required for any network engineer/support roles in any company?

CircleFaust · 10 Nov 2017 at 14:14

Jony27 said:
Thought I'd ask this here as I'm in a similar sort of situation. Currently working as a tech support looking after the products for our company. Company offered to take me back after I spent a year with them on my placement year during uni. It's a great place to work at but I've always been interested in hands on stuff fixing/configuring hardware and have been thinking about getting a CCNA. Currently I would not be progressing to this position within the company, I take it a CCNA is required for any network engineer/support roles in any company?

not always required but you wont do yourself any harm in getting it. i've started studying it and finding it difficult, there is so much to pack in and thats just part 1
having said that i get no exposure to IOS or the CLI in my line of work so...

Caged · 10 Nov 2017 at 23:04

I'm not sure I'd recommend a CCNA as an introduction to networking concepts course to be honest. How much networking have you done up to now?

Jony27 · 13 Nov 2017 at 17:44

Caged said:
I'm not sure I'd recommend a CCNA as an introduction to networking concepts course to be honest. How much networking have you done up to now?

Not a lot, I did do networks security as a module in my final year.

Throrik · 13 Nov 2017 at 21:37

Caged said:
I'm not sure I'd recommend a CCNA as an introduction to networking concepts course to be honest. How much networking have you done up to now?

I'm not sure why? ICND01 is literally fundamentals of Networks, with some Cisco specific stuff in there - but they're hugely prevalent in the industry. I would say it's a better certification than the Network+ career-wise.

Check out the topics and see what you think Jony.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccna/icnd1/exam-topics

Caged · 13 Nov 2017 at 22:07

I don’t think you could sit somebody who might have only done PC repairs in front of the CCNA syllabus and have them succeed, for example. They may be foundation level but there’s still a level of assumed knowledge that is required in order to make sense of the course.

Energize · 13 Nov 2017 at 22:14

Well yeah, you assume some level of pre requisite knowledge even at gcse equivalent!

Throrik · 14 Nov 2017 at 06:52

If you know a little bit about computers, what an OS is, what the Internet is and have an interest I think the ICND01 is the ideal place to introduce someone to Networking, after all it introduces the core fundamentals of networking such as TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, LAN/WAN - In fact I am not sure what other course people would suggest other than the Network+ or something from Juniper. Most of them have roughly similar objectives apart from the Network+ being product-agnostic, you still learn about the basics, as well as the more advanced things such as OSPF, STP etc.

Sure if you're not into IT then any introduction to networking is going to go over most people's heads, but generally people start doing 1st line work, then progress in their training/development to find what they want to do - and if it's networking CCNA is the ideal place to begin.

Jony27 · 14 Nov 2017 at 10:41

Throrik said:
I'm not sure why? ICND01 is literally fundamentals of Networks, with some Cisco specific stuff in there - but they're hugely prevalent in the industry. I would say it's a better certification than the Network+ career-wise.

Check out the topics and see what you think Jony.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccna/icnd1/exam-topics

A lot of those I have done for a module in my 2nd year at Uni.

Throrik · 14 Nov 2017 at 22:14

CCNA is ideal then, get ICDN01 cracked off for your CCENT, then do 02 and get your full CCNA R&S -the 2nd exam builds on the first and introduces more complex technologies and some more Cisco proprietary stuff.

Caged · 14 Nov 2017 at 23:10

Yeah and it's finally ditched all the frame relay garbage

CircleFaust · 15 Nov 2017 at 10:29

on a side note; why did cisco evolve around the CLI , why did they not create a forms based program that would make it easier to work with?
is it just to cut down on memory needed and the fact they are mostly remote devices sitting off somewhere

Energize · 15 Nov 2017 at 21:49

CircleFaust said:
on a side note; why did cisco evolve around the CLI , why did they not create a forms based program that would make it easier to work with?
is it just to cut down on memory needed and the fact they are mostly remote devices sitting off somewhere

Server operating systems often use a CLI as standard. A CLI has many usability benefits over a GUI, it would be virtually impossible to include all the myriad of options and switches that iOS has in a GUI, and the ability to use scripts allows much faster configuration and automation.

A web browser based interface like you get on home routers is far less flexible and scalable and requires constant updating as browsers change.

Throrik · 16 Nov 2017 at 00:54

CircleFaust said:
on a side note; why did cisco evolve around the CLI , why did they not create a forms based program that would make it easier to work with?
is it just to cut down on memory needed and the fact they are mostly remote devices sitting off somewhere

I administrate switches/ASAs on a daily basis, and I can imagine using a GUI to be absolutely awful, clunky, slow - if I want to update a range of SVIs or Interfaces it's super simply to automate all at once, in a GUI such as with an SG300 Small Business switch it's one-by-one generally.

Just use ADSM for an hour and you'll realise how much better the CLI is haha.

Screeeech · 16 Nov 2017 at 08:14

CircleFaust said:
on a side note; why did cisco evolve around the CLI , why did they not create a forms based program that would make it easier to work with?
is it just to cut down on memory needed and the fact they are mostly remote devices sitting off somewhere

To be honest the CLI is far better than using any form of webpage for doing regular configuration - I can't imagine building one of our peering routers via a gui, (think tens of thousands of filters, policies, BGP, stuff) most of it we generate with Jinja2 templates, then use stuff like Ansible.

We're actually trying to outlaw configuring anything via the CLI/GUI on our network, (one of the top 10 largest) ideally we'd like to build code inside github, then use that to do all our configuration, and not do anything other than troubleshooting manually,

Now is a great time to learn how to write code, it's becoming an almost mandatory subject in networks, I hope the likes of Cisco and Juniper start adding more of it to their training material.

CircleFaust · 16 Nov 2017 at 09:22

Screeeech said:
To be honest the CLI is far better than using any form of webpage for doing regular configuration - I can't imagine building one Now is a great time to learn how to write code, it's becoming an almost mandatory subject in networks, I hope the likes of Cisco and Juniper start adding more of it to their training material.

which code is best to learn

Screeeech · 16 Nov 2017 at 09:41

CircleFaust said:
which code is best to learn

Python really is probably the most used and easiest to learn at the moment, there's a lot of decent resources out there - a lot of it for free; eg.

This guy has a lot of decent vids that show you the basics and how to get started;

CircleFaust · 16 Nov 2017 at 10:24

cool, and i guess python is used across the board for all different things?
i've done c# in the past but never got to use it outside my course

Screeeech · 16 Nov 2017 at 10:35

Yeah it is, it's used a lot in current network automation frameworks - but you can do all sorts of things with it.

explicit4u · 16 Nov 2017 at 16:31

I'd definitely echo learning python!

I'm currently on the hunt for entry level networking positions and I've been asked at multiple interviews if I know python or would be willing to learn.