Just got my CCNA

[Cliotoby]

After studying 640-802 last year i got my arse in gear again last month and started revising for it again. 4 weeks later, im CCNA certified now.

Thank god thats over. Now for CCNP :dead:

 

[bigup7]

well done mate

you will be dreaming IOS for ages

 

[Magic Johnson]

Congrats! How hard did you find it? How long did you study for? etc

 

[Cliotoby]

Erm well i studied through it all last year and sat the exam, failed it with 706/1000, and then couldnt be arsed until recently. Been a year since ive touched it, Sat it last week after revising for 3 weeks (bearing in mind id forgotten really basic stuff like IP addressing) but failed again with 821/1000 (passmark is 825) so i thought balls to it ill resit it, revised for 3 days and sat it today and got 974/1000 so i was pretty chuffed.


Difficulty, well, i dunno, some things were pretty simple, the sims werent too bad (They were nearly the same as last weeks) and i managed to nail all 3, but I managed to miss a network statement in my EIGRP sim for some reason, figured it out after 10 mins of wondering why the router wouldnt communicate with hosts on another lan. I didnt find it too bad overall.

 

[Norris_309]

well done,
I really ought to get my arse in gear and go for it too. I've been working with cisco kit for the past 2 years now & have done the courses but never had the time to revise properly for the exam.
Also didn't know if it was worth doing the ccent exam first then ccna???

Anyway congrats on the pass, pretty good score too.

 

[Cliotoby]

If you revise properly its not so hard. The problem is the sheer amount of information, and the questions can be abount something piss simple (like, which symbold represents global exec mode @*> etc) or they will ask a very difficult question about something, or will try and trick you. All my revision came from Todd lammle's Sybex book and the main curriculum, lots of practice for Ip addressing (The ICND 1-2 CBT Nuggets vids were a huge help) and plenty of simulation practice with trouble shooting. I got one on EIGRP (Wrong AS number, remove it and then re apply with correct network statements (One was a summary of 2 addresses on the lan) and apply no auto-summary command etc), one on ACL's which IMO are piss easy, and one on VTP which had 5 different questions to answer which i found quite hard really.

Id go do CCNA, just get it done and accept you might have to sit it more than once. Apparantly if you do both ICND's it converts into CCNA but im not so sure.

 

[DMS]

Id go do CCNA, just get it done and accept you might have to sit it more than once. Apparantly if you do both ICND's it converts into CCNA but im not so sure.

Correct. The first one gets you the CCENT, the second one upgrades that to a CCNA.
The CCENT is a bit pointless though IMO. It only shows a basic understanding of networking and doesn't really amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Plus, if you take the two exams separately you'll end up answering about 90 questions in total just to get a CCNA, whereas if you do the 640-802 exam straight out you only have to answer about 60.

When I took my CCNA exam, I'd been working with Cisco Catalyst switches and 500/800 series routers for a good couple of years. I'd also done tonnes of revision and was confident I'd pass. I was a bit cocky really, and I smoked a joint before I went into the exam (since I'd caught the train to Birmingham and didn't have to drive). I still got 927/1000 though, which goes to show that if you work with the kit and learn the subject matter inside out you can't really go wrong.

 

[Norris_309]

I think i'll go for the single exam route then when the time comes seeing as theres quite a bit of difference in the amount of questions. Thats providing the exam voucher i can claim will let me do the ccna exam as i got it when i did a Global Knowledge CCNA Security online course. (i think they said it can be used for any cisco exam, but will check that out)
I've been working with cisco 2960s/3750s/4500s/6500s switches & mainly the 2811 routers for a couple of years, i'm very familiar with the kit but i'm by no means an expert.
Also i do find it hard revising/remembering the stuff that i don't actually do day in day out..

I have the Cisco Press icnd1 & 2 study guides & the Global Knowledge ccent e-learning CD + ICND2 classroom course guide... (i'm hoping that'll be enough material)
I have done the ICND1 e-learning course & ICND2 calassroom based course a few years back but with having a baby & moving house etc... didn't get any time to study & get the exam done & have let it slip now!

 

[Cliotoby]

Well, i didnt revise for a year, so i found it hard when it came down to revising again. Id get it done asap while its still fresh.

Ive recently done the CCNA Security too, and my god it bored the f**k out of me. No way am i going to sit the exam.

Im quite looking forward to CCNP, just been reading through Route 642-902 and it looks pretty bad ass.

 

[ChrisR]

I keep thinking about doing this, Cisco/networking stuff is the one big gap in my skillset. Apart from that I'm awesome

 

[Cliotoby]

Well i want to get Microsoft DST too but im not sure if its worth the effort.

 

[ChrisR]

Well i want to get Microsoft DST too but im not sure if its worth the effort.

Depends what you want to do, if you want to do desktop support then go ahead, but might be better doing the server based mcitp route if you want to move away from desktops.

But that might also depend on what you're doing now as well.

 

[Cliotoby]

Im doing server when i go back top uni in september cant say imlooking forward to it, my main interest is networking mind, once im done at uni i might go through Cisco Voip and Wireless if i can stomach it - all in time i guess. Desktop support isnt what i want to do but i just want to have the certification because it will make me look cool.

Just been reading through CCNP Route, its pretty hardcore lol.

 

[DMS]

All the Cisco Professional level qualifications (CCNP, CCSP, CCVP, CCIP etc) are pretty hardcore. But then again they're nothing compared to the level of skillz you need to even attend a CCIE vetting interview.

 

[Cliotoby]

All the Cisco Professional level qualifications (CCNP, CCSP, CCVP, CCIP etc) are pretty hardcore. But then again they're nothing compared to the level of skillz you need to even attend a CCIE vetting interview.

Yeah! I can't wait to start it properly. Seems a bit sad really but im looking forward to it. CCNA is pretty basic stuff when i think about it, it seemed so in depth when i started it.

Ill worry about CCIE when i get there (Heh ill keep dreaming).

 

[Magic Johnson]

So you'd recommend having quite a bit of experience with CISCO kit before looking in to studying for the exam? All our routers are CISCO but they're all preconfigured by our Data Centre.

 

[DMS]

CCIE level is pretty overkill for most jobs. The level of expertise required to achieve that certification is unnecessary for most employers, hence why the professional level certifications were introduced in the first place.
If you look around for jobs requiring a CCIE you won't find many. It's mostly service providers, global IT outsourcing companies, training organisations and Cisco themselves who employ such people. SME's and even large businesses simply don't require that level of knowledge day to day. You'd probably make more money out of having a CCIE by consulting / contracting, and you could even top your earnings up by training others (basically what the guys on the CBT Nuggets videos do).

 

[DMS]

So you'd recommend having quite a bit of experience with CISCO kit before looking in to studying for the exam? All our routers are CISCO but they're all preconfigured by our Data Centre.

Definitely. A lot of the questions are simply multiple choice and you can more or less learn the answers.
But the hardest bits by far are the simulations. You have to know how to configure / troubleshoot the routers / switches, otherwise you'll lose too many marks. If you answer all the multiple choice questions correctly but don't do anything right on the sims, you'll DEFINITELY fail the exam.

There are quite a few simulations you can get as well. There's some on troubleshooting STP, some on trunking, some on subnetting, some on ACL's etc. There's some on NAT'ing, some on VTP, loads on routing protocols and even one that covers CDP. It just depends what you get on the day, but you will get at least 3 simulations in total and they count for a large percentage of the final mark.
I found the NAT one difficult at the time. I had to set up a one-to-many and a many-to-many NAT pool to achieve what it was asking and I ran into problems getting the ACL's to assign to the serial0 interface. It took me ages before it clicked that I had multiple IP's to play with, and that I could set up a virtual interface, assign it another IP from my range, put the one-to-many NAT group on that and just address the router with the other IP. I then simply changed the routing table on the other router so that IP traffic to the NAT'ed server went via the sub-interface and bosh - job done. I was a bit stoned at the time though...

 

[Cliotoby]

So you'd recommend having quite a bit of experience with CISCO kit before looking in to studying for the exam? All our routers are CISCO but they're all preconfigured by our Data Centre.

Packet Tracer or GNS - will do the job, its alright having experience with equipment but how much do you have, troubleshooting is just as important as configuring, + ive always used CLI, ive used SDM once and tbh i couldnt use it if you asked me now. You really have to graft through the curriculum too, i also used cybex CCNA book to revise from. CBT nuggets ICND vids for subnetting. You need to be able to subnet really well too, i had a lot of questions on this, some simple and some complicated.

Like DMS said though, sims are hard. The one on VTP gave me a run for my money, had to answer 5 questions, some were simple, like...what port did switch 3 associate with mac add.... was simple enough to answer, show mac add table and theres the answer. But there were a lot harder ones in that sim which required a bit of thinking and a few different commands to be issued.

I also had one on ACL's which involved creating an extended acl and applying it to an interface to block http traffic from certain hosts. i find acl's pretty simple though and im pretty good with them at ccna level.

My other sim was Eigrp which was remove and re apply, no router eigrp 22, router eigrp 212, network ... network ... no auto-summary etc etc. had a bit of trouble with that one getting it to form a relationship with a neighbour after applying network statements on both routers, spent about 15 mins getting it to work.

Im quite glad ive got it, as basic as it now seems. Proves i can do it.

 

[Magic Johnson]

I don't have any experience at all. They're all preconfigured.

 

[Cliotoby]

Go find the Official Cisco CCNA curriculum, and other stuff and spend a good 3-4 months cramming at it. Im sure you can find them or buy them.

Packet Tracer and CCNA Semesters 1-4 Lab manuals if you can source them.
CCNA Curriculum semesters 1 - 4
Sybex CCNA book
ICND CBT Nuggets Vids (Jeremy does these hes very good)
Cisco Portable Command Guide .


e/

Tha reads a bit arsy sorry.