JNTCP - Juniper Networks Technical Certification Program

Ghosteh

Ghosteh

Ghosteh

Soldato
Joined
18 Mar 2006
Posts
4,148
Location
Liverpool
Hey guys,

I was just wondering if anyone here has completed any of the JNTCP, more specifically the JNCIA, Juniper Networks Certified Internet Associate exam. I'm literally just starting to look at these, just trying to get an idea of how hard they are to achieve. And if so, how useful have you found them in the real world? I'm currently in the Army, but due to the cutbacks that are happening, and us pulling out of Afghanistan, the job roll is changing in such a way, I'm no longer going getting any real job satisfaction. Coupled with pension changes that have happened recently, it's not looking worthwhile staying in, especially not with my interests and goals.

I'm currently working on my CCNA, should hopefully be taking my ICND 1 exam in the near future, just depends on my work commitments, as I'm doing this all off my own back, the MoD won't pay for these exams, not for the position I'm in at the moment. But once I have both ICND 1 & 2 complete, I will start looking at taking the JNCIA.

Cheers guys.
 
JNCIA for which products? There's several tracks - I've got my JNCIA-JUNOS, JNCIA-FWV, JNCIA-IDP, JNCIA-SSL and JNCIA-WX and also JNCIS-FWV, JNCIS-SSL and JNCIS-SEC.

For me they're pretty relevant to my job since our company needs a certain amount of guys accredited for each track in order to provide services etc so I'm not totally sure how far I could go outside of my current job with that lot. The JNCIA stuff isn't too bad, the JNCIS stuff can get tricky. Depends what products you're interested in learning :) For example the JUNOS and Enterprise Routing tracks are significantly harder than, say, the SSL VPN and ScreenOS firewall tracks.
 
At the moment, it would just be JNCIA-Junos accreditation, as I don't currently have any other Juniper based qualifications, so looking at it as a stepping stone to possible further qualifications.

As I said, I'm currently working on my CCNA, and I'm enjoying that so far, but after speaking to a mate of mine, who's company is currently looking for junior level networking engineers, some of the qualifications they're after include a related degree, Cisco, Juniper, Check Point Security, and also experience with VMware & virtualisation.
Now I have plenty of VMware experience from working with military kit, and my own personal ESXi server. And I have no wish to go to university for a degree. What I am lacking is any network or industry specific qualifications.

It won't be in the near future I'm looking to do these exams, but I like a plan, and I'm doing the ground work now, so hopefully in around 18 months, I can look at getting out the Army with 7 years experience and X, Y and Z qualifications under my belt.
 
Nobody cares about Juniper, get CCNA and Juniper will be easy anyway.
 
Fair one :p.

I've looking though it so far, it seems pretty easy coming from a cisco background, well the JNCIA-Juno does anyway.
 
dLockers said:
Nobody cares about Juniper
Click to expand...

What a stupid and totally untrue statement. I come from primarily a Cisco house and even I'm tempted to get a Juniper cert.

Concentrate on your CCNA, it's an excellent foundation regardless of vendor path you go down in future and tagging an JNCIA on top of that when don will be an excellent addition

- GP
 
GhostlyPea said:
What a stupid and totally untrue statement. I come from primarily a Cisco house and even I'm tempted to get a Juniper cert.

Concentrate on your CCNA, it's an excellent foundation regardless of vendor path you go down in future and tagging an JNCIA on top of that when don will be an excellent addition

- GP
Click to expand...

If I went to an interview to 99% of companies and said I have Juniper JUNOS only, they would ask why I didn't get CCNA.

I'm not saying the tech isn't important, I'm just saying the cert doesnt have anywhere near as much clout as the CCNA.
 
The CCNA is an excellent foundation yes, but you clearly said in your post that it was effectively "worthless". There are many large ISPs and organisations out there that use almost exclusively Juniper kit - switches through to IPS and to them the CCNA would make no odds as the critical stuff is covered in the JNCIA. Anybody worth their salt will know enough practically if they pass that, even if they dont understand some of the theory.

- GP
 
Cheers for the replies guys, much appreciated. From what you've said, it looks like I'm going about things the right way then, getting my CCNA first, then looking at JUNOS 2nd.
Just hoping I can get most of this paid for by the MoD, then I'll be well happy.
 
Yes, defo get the CCNA firs, just don't discount the JNCIA. How are you doing the certs- self study or courses? If funding isn't good then you can easily get the CCNA through self study (I did) using GNS3 and maybe a bit of old kit lying around (and Packet Tracer if you can get a copy)

- GP
 
Self study using CBT Nuggets, Packet Tracer, GNS3 with about 20Gb of IOS's available lol, plus any other material I can get a hold of. It's something I'm just working on in the background as I'm busy with work at the moment, but hopefully will be able to go for the ICDN1 soon.
 
i would carry on the Cisco track, CCNA is very basic. I can't imagine CCNA level jobs demand a very high salary at all and holding the equivalent Juniper cert wouldn't really raise you to a higher level.
 
Oh, I fully intend on working towards my CCNP and beyond, but I was just looking for another networking cert to have on my list.
 
what about CCNA security as your second cert.

I'm a network engineer not a manager so i could be wrong but to me showing you have a knowledge of a wide range of technologies is more important then proving you can implement them on this platform and that platform etc as it should be a given that you will be able to apply your knowledge to multiple platforms with a little on job training
 
The Security track is *OK*, however I don't rate it much. I did it and it is basically full of SDM (which is terrible IMO) and some basic VPN stuff. Seeing as how a corporation of any size will have a firewall not a router for their VPNs I dont give it much hack

- GP
 
The CCNA security does interest me, as does network security as a whole, but I'd like a bigger grasp of Cisco hardware first, hence wanting the CCNP.
I've also heard CCNA/CCNP VoIP is a major one as well as more organisations get VoIP PABX systems in house, you guys have any experience in this? I've got plenty of experience in PABX systems, just analogue ones.
 
Well if you're interested the there's no reason not to at least do the CCNA-S, especially now considering that it is a pre-requisite to the CCNP-S. That was in fact my original intended path. The trouble is the I love R+S so much I decided to no bother, hence going for my CCIE now rather than divert to the security path. The other reason is that although ASAs are amazing boxes ( I really respect them for a LOT of reasons), they aren't UTMs and that's where the true edge security lies for a lot of corporations. True some large clients use them as an edge device, but their IPS modules are shocking and they lack content filtering and a lot of other features. I see them as good utility units.

If you can get to grips with ASAs then that's brilliant (part of my daily bread and butter work load) - excellent foundation. However I'd say if you're the interested in security then going for a different vendor is a better idea. I'm going for my CCSA/CCSE over the next few months too and it will give more flexibility as they are highly regarded devices and used heavily for me now and other large corps, but something from another security vendor may also appeal (Juniper as above - seems you're interested in them as a vendor, Watchguard too, Fortinet etc.)

- GP
 
VoIP is definitely an in demand area of networking. Not had any experience myself we use avaya stuff at work with a team that manages the software side so the most I have had to do is dump ports in vlans.
I think once you have done a CCNP you would have a goo idea of if you want to specialise in a subject or stay with generic routing/switching
 
I agree with blueseidboy there. I hate it when people say it to me because I want everything now, but learn to walk before you run. Do the CCNA first if you want, then see how you feel. It may be you want to change vendor, start the CCNP track or even do some specialisations.

I did my CCNA about 4 years ago now and immediately got sick of it and continued to do some other studying at work and getting my MCDST. Only during this did I realise I'd taken a year doing 2 **** easy exams and I was dragging my feet because it wasn't what I wanted to do. 24 months later and I had my CCNA-W, CCNA-S, CCDA and CCNP to show for it along with moving directly into a Network Engineer role and I don't get day come by where I think "oh man I hate my job" - so get one out the way and see where it takes you, only you can make your mind up about it and what you want to do. You never know, you could end up hating it :p

- GP
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom