The CCNA/Cisco Certifications Thread

Excellent, many thanks:)

Are there any performance gains by only having a network closely matched to the number of hosts (plus scope for some growth)?
 
I was just having problems with the time it took to get through chapters, videos because at the same time I was note taking whilst watching the video for the first time.

I have learnt its better to watch the video fully concentratd in full (I usually watch through two videos) then the next day re-watch them again taking notes. Then once you have notes down if there is stuff you can lab do that.

Watching it first then taking notes maks things easier to do as you would have already learnt it the first time, second time is to refresh and take notes, then practise, then move on.

Seem to be getting through it quicker as I found myself getting distracted doing it the old way, hopefully should work well with anything from books or lab guides too
 
Just started reading the framework for CCNA ICND1 Routing and Switching, quite excited to get stuck in. Has anybody have any advice for the best way to approach this course? I do have my firm backing me to cover any courses & the exams when needed so really just looking for advice from the masses.
 
Liquiduk said:
Just started reading the framework for CCNA ICND1 Routing and Switching, quite excited to get stuck in. Has anybody have any advice for the best way to approach this course? I do have my firm backing me to cover any courses & the exams when needed so really just looking for advice from the masses.
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If you haven't already it's worth looking at the CBT Nuggets video's, the guy who does them does explains things really well. They also cover a lot of other subjects such as MS certs which may come in useful.

I also took a 5 day course with QA which I found useful, you get a lot from reading a book but its great being able to bounce ideas/concepts of a tutor. And also sign up for the Cisco Learning Network, a lot of people going through the same thing who will be able to point you in the right direction.

If you haven't got access to physical hardware try and track down a copy of PacketTracer or GNS3. I've just picked up a Cisco CCNA Lab from a well know auctioneer for £225 (could have got it a lot cheaper) which I intend to use for some practice.
 
Hi all, im here with a bit of a typical looking to change career paths need help post here, I am self taught when it comes to networking and troubleshooting and so on so dont have any qualifications in this particular field, but I would love to get into it as a profession and build my way up, starting at the "bottom" on the 20k a year jobs is where im aiming at and then climbing up, what should I be aiming for? whats best to go for? im guessing it's not as simple as getting my CCNA and then thats it I can get a job or can you get that lucky? any guidance and help would be greatly appreciated, even the easy throw away ones I can do in my spare time I dont mind being recommended as well if that will help boost my chances, thank you :)
 
The CCNA may help you get an interview but it's certainly not the only requirement for a job. It's as good a place as any to get started though. Take a look at the curriculum ( http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/exams/list/ccna_composite2.html#~Topics ) and check for any knowledge gaps. One of the most valuable attributes is experience, it trumps everything. Take any opportunity to gain experience that you can.

Search for job vacancies in your area and see what they are looking for in an employee, then go from there. Generally speaking the lower paid jobs tend to be for people with a broad range of skills, you tend not to specialise until you get higher up the ladder. I'd just apply for a few jobs even if you're just starting out in the networking world. Get a feel for what qualities employers are looking for and set your targets accordingly. You may get lucky and land a job early on with a company willing to invest in you so it's worth trying.

Try a few different things out and see how much you enjoy them and what the market demand in your area is for them. I.e. I see that a lot of the networking jobs in my area are for people with cisco/juniper/f5/checkpoint/linux/vmware experience, rather than specialists in any one of those particular fields.

Come back here if you have any queries. :)
 
Hi guys,

Quickie for you (or maybe not), can someone list some ios15 based kit which would be needed for a ccna - ccie lab

thanks in advance
 
Will Gill said:
Hi guys,

Quickie for you (or maybe not), can someone list some ios15 based kit which would be needed for a ccna - ccie lab

thanks in advance
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You're better off with GNS3 for basic labbing, (can run most versions of IOS with 7200 series routers) which would be fine for most stuff..

Or - you could wait 1-2 months for the Cisco modelling labs to be released (formally known as VIRL) which is routers running on a hypervisor, (pretty much any version of IOS, IOS-XE, IOS-XR and NX-OS) which will be available for around $100 a year as a personal version, for up to 15 devices.. (this came direct from the Cisco team in Milan last week)

Basically, it's proper routers, running in a GUI from which you can design/build topologies then run them as real devices..

You *could* go to Ebay and buy a load of 2801/2821 routers, but investing in physical tin for learning is a very bad idea now, in my opinion..
 
Does anyone have any recommendations for practice exams for the current CCNA? Ideally something that's as close to the real thing as possible, with simulation questions.
 
Will Gill:

Depends on how much money you're willing to spend as well as your current experience really.

Virtual labs are certainly cheaper and more flexible. Letting you share topologies and create new ones quickly. Also depends on what tracks you want to pursue. Cisco are planning on making the CCIE R&S v5 use virtual devices for the lab exam. So you can expect to learn pretty much everything you need to know in a virtual environment.

The problem with virtual devices is that you miss out on the hands-on aspect of physical kit. Nobody will hire you if you don't feel comfortable working with real equipment so you'll need to get familiar with real devices from somewhere. You also miss out on speccing equipment to meet your requirements and that sort of thing. It's embarrassing seeing a fresh CCNA/CCNP who has never even touched a router/switch. The same goes for somebody who has never had to use whitesheets and the like for meeting a set of requirements or never had to troubleshoot physical issues or issues with IOS releases because they've just downloaded pre-made virtual environments and issued a couple of commands.

If it's CCNA through CCIE in R&S then 1800/2800 routers and 3560/3750 switches are great. You only need to buy a single router with IOS 15.x with these devices then you can simply share that image with other devices of the same model. I.e. I bought a 2811 with IOS 12.4T on it. If I want to upgrade it to IOS 15 I can just buy another 2811 which already has IOS 15 and then copy it over to the first router. Unfortunately you can't do this with the Gen2 (1900/2900/3900) devices.

Zarf:

There are a couple of legit free ones available online but I don't know of any that closely resemble the actual exams. The issue is that almost all of the ones that do resemble the real exams are braindumps and break the NDA. If you know your stuff then you shouldn't need to use practice exams really. The FREECCNAWORKBOOK have one available on their website:

http://www.freeccnaworkbook.com/workbooks/ccna/ccna-practice-exam

Cisco also have some online quizzes available:

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccna
 
FYI, I haven't personally seen VIRL in use or read much about It, but my colleagues use it.. It's very memory intensive, need a few hundreds of GB of memory. At least that's what I've been told from people using it before they get their hands on ASR9ks (pre-testing). I think I heard 50GB of ram per router.

Possibly for normal small IOS type devices is fine to run on a normal PC.
 
If Cisco are offering it for certification purposes then they'd have to create some less resource intensive stuff. Perhaps it'll be a cloud-based thing where you just connect to the devices via a web browser/terminal emulator.

For now Will Gill I'd just try GNS3.
 
oli356 said:
FYI, I haven't personally seen VIRL in use or read much about It, but my colleagues use it.. It's very memory intensive, need a few hundreds of GB of memory. At least that's what I've been told from people using it before they get their hands on ASR9ks (pre-testing). I think I heard 50GB of ram per router.

Possibly for normal small IOS type devices is fine to run on a normal PC.
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Nah,

The IOS-XE device is basically a CSR1000v you can run, which uses 2.5GB of ram per instance, then there's an IOS-XR device which also uses 2.5GB, the IOU router uses less than 2.5GB I think.

You can run 4-5 routers on a laptop with 16GB of ram pretty easily, (I was using 3 IOS-XR routers on a macbook pro at Cisco live lol)

Cisco have made it specifically so ordinary people can run it, for the purposes of learning and simulation, there is a corportate version which will run on a UCS chassis, but the only big difference is you can run more than 15 instances and there aren't any throughput restrictions.

I've been following VIRL for a long time, know the people developing it at Cisco, have access to the prototype, and already use the CSR1000v which is a big chunk of it.
 
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Hi Guys,

Just a quick one, im sure iv asked before but does this look like a suitable toplogy which should cover most of what its in the CCENT? will I need to add stuff or do I need to create any other topologies ? I want to try and keep all my practicing under one lab if possible

In the screenshot you can see the main topology, then I have two standalone to play around with the CLI on without having to mess about with my main nodes.

ccenttop.jpg


Thanks all :)
 
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