Hey guys, I don't know what background everyone has but this seemed like the most likely place to find someone that's already walked the path I've chosen. I work in events as a general labour/rigging guy and recently did some cabling work and want to exploring networking in events mainly with the possibility of general network engineer. With the background stuff out the way. Can anyone share any good resources and communities for newbies like myself self studying for their CCNA (I can't afford the time out the study formally) Thanks in advance Jamie
Really liked a few when studying. Free ones on Youtube like Jeremys IT labs, give s a good amount of labs as well to go through. You got like the David Bombal ones, which are youtube, udemy and other places, normally free and very well explained. Professional wise, ive only really used INE which is excellent and Kieth Bogart does a great job, but its not cheap, and labs for it are a higher subscription tier, from memory. You got a time line ?, Propper studying probably get you it in about 7 weeks maybe a little shorter or longer depending how you retain information. You also get those dump packs, but there really frowned upon, and you dont learn anything other than the test answers, which isnt gonna help in a Job when your asked to do something
Thanks these are some great starting points! Timeline is 12-16 weeks as I'm away onsite for the next 14 weeks anyway so can't really do anything till then and I'll have little else to do at night than read, sleep and eat XD I've picked up a udemy course because they're cheap and usually give you a good starting point (12.99 by Neil Anderson - literally just the highest rated at the time of purchase). I'm trying to self study without the pro route for the most part because like you say they're quite expensive. Any hardware requirements for labs or just do virtual labs?
Todd Lammle's books were good when I did mine. He even answered questions I had & reached out to me after after the exam to hee how I'd done. I used the 7th edition for mine (back in 2011), the exam has changed since then but the core concepts stay the same. it's worth spending the £30 on the latest book. Important bits to learn. Subnetting, you cannot pass if you cannot subnet. Learn how to make a subnet table for quick reference during the exam (assuming you do it at a test centre, as you get a laminated bit of card & dry-wipe marker). Remember all commands are in American English (you can't imagine how long I wasted wondering why "show CDP neighbours" wasn't working even though that was the command needed). On the exam, time is a factor, there's a lot of questions and not a huge amount of time. You need to be able to answer some of the questions in seconds to leave yourself time for simulations (this is where the subnet table helps) Get a copy of packettracer. You can get this for free by registering with Cisco. You will be able to do all the labs etc you need with it. As nice as a rack of kit is, you don't need it to pass the CCNA.
My certification expired in 2013 (stopped doing networking) so it's been a long while but as said before some things haven't changed. Be sure you can subnet. Read the questions very carefully, sometimes the wording will throw you off. If I remember correctly, you can't go back to a previous question? Correct me if I'm wrong. Do lots and lots of labs. I used GNS3 at the time, don't know if it's still valid.
gns3 very valid, along with eve ng, but id advise against these for a beginner, i spent so much time trying to get cisco images etc working on these. Eve ng is spectacular, i talked the boss at work into repurposing some old servers from the data center into an eve ng box, where we study essentially, we have a few staff members with ccie and ccnp, as well as allowing us to test out things before deployment its been great if you can find the images for the hardware you wanna emulate on it. But id say for CCNA, packet tracer is the quickest and cleanest way to do it for breaking into it, if you really do enjoy it and want a bit more of a challenge, yeah tackle other variants but there not required.
Yeah that's true, by the time I actually got my CCNA I had plenty of hands-on experience and was easily at CCNP routing level, maybe needed more study or experience with switching.
CCNA is good to learn the basics of networking, but I don't think the certification is worth paying for anymore. Companies list it as a requirement in job postings, but never verify and often have no Cisco gear in their environment at all. Even if they do, odds are a junior tech would never be asked to do anything more complicated than 'no shut' and 'switchport access vlan 69'.
We verify certs. You'd be surprised how much Cisco kit is out there. Even having it just to understand the concepts of routing & switching is extremely valuable.
