Increasing Your Value with CCNA Training and Certification
Posted on June 4th, 2010
Even in this soft hiring market, companies are in need of information technology professionals who are certified in particular aspects of networking. Obtaining a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification provides IT professionals with the working knowledge of network protocols that are most sought after in the technology industry.
With the increasing demand for networking specialists, the value placed on CCNA certification is also increasing worldwide, and it is becoming a benchmark for determining who are the best and the most efficient network technicians. It’s becoming a standard way to filter job applicants as well as candidates for advancement within the technology industry.
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CCNA certification is considered an entry-level certification or minimum requirement for IT professionals specializing in computer networking, and is usually pursued by current technical professionals who are looking for credentials, people who are new to networking, as well as professionals who are updating their training to cover current technology and systems. As an entry-level program, technology employers often consider the CCNA to be a basic qualification requirement for employees who install, configure, operate and problem-solve networks.
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Training Courses
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There are several ways to obtain the CCNA training needed in order to become certified. There are programs that can be attended where the training is hands-on; there are also online training and certification programs that can be worked into the candidate’s schedule more easily. The training program covers installing, configuring, operating and troubleshooting medium-sized route and switched networks as well as implementation and verification of connections to remote sites in a WAN. The training program also includes curriculum related to level 1 security threats and an introduction to wireless networking concepts and terminology.
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The network protocols covered are:
- IP
- Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)
- Serial Line Interface Protocol Frame Relay
- Routing Information Protocol Version 2 (RIPv2)
- VLANs
- Ethernet
- Access control lists (ACLs)
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Certification Examination
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In order to become CCNA certified, the training program should be completed and an examination must be passed. The certification examination is structured so that a candidate’s technical and special knowledge of networking environments is thoroughly tested and challenged. The questions require real-world expertise to answer and only those who are well trained and have a thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of computer networks will be able to pass the test and become CCNA certified.
Once the IT professional successfully completes the examination, their CCNA certification is valid for three years before they must re-certify in order to continue using their CCNA credentials. In order to re-certify, there are a number of different exams that may be taken, including one of the following:
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- ICND2 exam
- Current CCNA exam
- CCNA Concentration exam (wireless, security, voice)
- Current CCDA exam
- 642 – XXX professional level or Cisco Specialist exam (excluding Sales Specialist exams)
- Current CCIE
- CCDE written exam
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With the exception of merely taking the current version of the CCNA exam, these many options allow the IT professional to also acquire additional training, knowledge and expertise while pursuing CCNA re-certification.
Tags: CCIE, CCNA exam
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CCNA Cisco Certification Case Study
Posted on June 4th, 2010
Your CCNA certification exam efforts must include practicing with different password types and knowing how to configure them on a Cisco router – but for CCNA exam success and to thrive in real-world networks, you also have to know how to examine a Cisco router configuration and determine the level of network security that is already present.? After all, most routers you work with already have passwords set, and it’s up to you to determine if those passwords are getting the job done.
Let’s start with a telnet password.? Telnet passwords are configured on the VTY lines, and no telnet access is enabled on a Cisco router by default.? If you saw the following configuration, what would it mean?
line vty 0 4
?privilege level 15
?password baseball
?login
That small Cisco router configuration means three things – first, Telnet access is enabled.? Second, the password is baseball.? Third, the “privilege level 15″ command means that any user who attempts to Telnet to the router and knows the password will automatically be placed into privileged exec mode.? (If that command were not present, the user would be placed into user exec and then prompted for the enable password before being allowed into privileged exec.)
You may not want to give that level of access to all incoming Telnet connections.? If you walked into a client’s router room and saw this configuration on a router, what would it mean to you?
username halas password 0 bears
username ewbank password 0 jets
username ed privilege 15 password 0 mcdaniel
line vty 0 4
?? login local
This configuration means three things as well.? Each user attempting to telnet in will be prompted for both a username and password.? Each individual user must enter the password that’s been assigned to them.? For example, the user “halas”would have to enter the password “bears” to successfully Telnet into this router.? The command “login local” under the VTY lines means that this local database of usernames and passwords will be used for authentication.?
Again, by default, users who are Telnetting in will be placed into user exec mode by default.? Only users with “privilege 15″ in the middle of their username / password definition will be placed into privileged exec immediately upon login.
Notice that zero in each of the username / password statements?? I didn’t enter that when I configured these statements.? This number indicates the level of encryption the password is currently under; a zero is the lowest level of encryption, indicating that the passwords aren’t encrypted at all.?? There’s a single line near the top of a Cisco router configuration that tells you why.. which of these three is it?
service timestamps debug uptime
service timestamps log uptime
no service password-encryption
Simple enough!? The password encryption service is off by default.??? To turn it on. just run the command service password-encryption.? Let’s do so here and then take a look at the configuration.
R1(config)#service password-encryption
username halas password 7 1415170A1E17
username ewbank password 7 070524585D
username ed privilege 15 password 7 082C4F4A08170C121E
Now that’s what I call encryption!?? Note that the zero has changed to a “7″ – that’s the highest level of encryption on a Cisco router, and as you can see, it’s very effective.
Knowing how to read a Cisco router configuration is a valuable skill for both the CCNA certification exam and working with production networks.? Keep practicing, keep studying
, and you’ll have the coveted letters “CCNA” behind your name soon!
Tags: CCNA, CCNA exam
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8 Things to Help You Pass CCNA Exa
Posted on May 29th, 2010
I’ve seen many people failed on their CCNA exam while CCNA is the most basic exam of the Cisco certification series.
This is because most of the exam candidates didn’t prepare enough for the exam, got nervous at the exam and failed due to minor mistakes.
I have my own successful way to prepare for the exam, I’ve collected many things to help me pass the CCNA exam.
You may or may not agree to me, yet I got a pretty good score at the exam, only got 1 false answer.
I don’t mean to show off or anything, but my point is anyone can get this score if you prepare properly, so here is my 8 things to help me passCCNA exam:
It is natural to get as many resource about the exam, but too many information can seriously damage your brain. The key is to get the right resource to learn from and focus on them before you decide they’re not enough and search for more.
1. BOOKS
I like the work of Todd Lammle, he explains the materials in CCNA exam with easy ways to understand.
Although books are good but the problem with books is that you can get tired reading them all day long, so I figure I need some other resources.
2. VIDEO TUTORIALS
I highly recommend video tutorials from CBT Nuggets, especially the author Jeremy Ciaora, great video series.
The video is quite expensive US$ 399.00 for the CCNA Certification Package, but I’m telling you its worth the money.
In the video you can watch configuration of true Cisco devices along with the explanation, which Jeremy Ciaora did a great job in explaining the topics.
Video tutorials are great but sometimes they don’t cover everything about the exam – due to the limited time I suppose, that’s why you also need the books to complement each other.
3. BLOGS/SITES
Browse the internetnet, find free exam questions that you can try answering, find out how everyone did the exam, how they succeed, how they failed, this can be a very valuable lessons for you.
Visit my blog often at http://networking-newbie.blogspot.com 
4. CISCO SIMULATORS
You can get many free or paid Cisco Network Simulator from the internet, some are good, some have limited functions:
Dynamips – free router simulator using command line interface (no GUI)
GNS3 – GUI version of Dynamips
Boson NetSim – paid simulator complete with labs samples
Cisco Packet – free simulator from Cisco
It is very important to get your hands on one of these simulators, you need to get yourself a hands on experience configuring cisco devices.
If you have more budget, build your own Cisco home lab.
As one of the readers commented on this post (thank you Robert Williams from certguard.com), I realized that using braindump softwares are illegal, I decided to empty the following two points:
5. QUESTIONS BANK
6. EXAM SIMULATOR
7. TIME
I can’t stress you enough about this, time is very important, you have to invest your time seriously to take the exam. The CCNA exam is not the kind of exam where you can cram yourself to study in the weekend and hope to pass in the following Monday.
When I talk about time, it also means that you have to practice yourself in answering questions as quick as possible, remember you have a very limited time and you can’t go back to previous questions you’ve answered.
So you need to know your self capacity and try to do the exam in a limited time and remember you’d be in a pressure when dealing with the real exam.
8. D-DAY PREPARATIONS
The d-day has come, you’re nervous as hell, plus you can’t bring anything to the exam class except for pens or pencils.
You’d be given a scrap of paper to calculate subnets or something else.
This is a good news, you do allowed to take notes on the paper when taking the exam. Before you get even more nervous, you can write down the keypoints in calculating subnets, for example 8th bit = 128, 7th bit = 64, 5th bit = 32, and so on.
You’d be presented with the exam rules, etc before taking the exam, you have to know well the rules before and take this time to write down your notes.
But remember don’t write down any configuration commands because they might think you’re cheating.
This method of writing notes can help speed your time in calculating subnets.
Why only subnets? I have to remind you that CCNA exam will test you heavily on subnetting, and in my opinion it will be the topic that is taking most of your time in the exam.
Tags: Add new tag, CCNA, CCNA exam, Cisco
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Cisco CCNA Certification Exam- Get Certified Now
Posted on May 21st, 2010
And the first bit of good news is that you have plenty of time to take and pass the current CCNA exams. In this article, I will outline several advantages to taking the CCNA plunge now before these changes take effect.
The current CCNA exam (640-801) will not be phased out until November 6, which gives you more than enough time to get CCNA certified before then — even if you haven started studying yet! Those of you who want to take the two-exam path to CCNA certification should know that the 640-811 ICND and 640-822 INTRO exams will be phased out on that same date.
Cisco taking the approach that the CCNA certification is no longer an entry-level certification, and this is a welcome change for CCNAs and CCNA candidates alike. I have been writing CCNA ebooks and teaching CCNA courses for several years, and I抳e always refused to call this an entry-level certification.
The new CCNA exam (640-802) looks to be even more demanding than the current exam, which is another reason to pick up the pace and get certified now! Here are just some of the new topics you抣l find on the 640-802 exam:
* Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol
* Switch security
* IP Version 6
* Router security
* Virtual Private Networks
* Wireless routing and more
Add these to the topics already found on the current CCNA exam, and you can see that the new CCNA exam will be even more demanding than the current version.
If you choose the two-exam path for the CCNA certification after November 6, you need to take two ICND exams ICND 1 (640-822) and ICND 2 (640-816). This is much tougher than the current path because the INTRO exam will be a thing of the past after November 6! (Passing the ICND 1 exam will earn you the new Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician certification, Cisco new entry-level certification.)
The CCNA will be even more valuable with these changes, so again, even if you even been thinking about earning the CCNA now is the time!
The new CCNA exams will actually be available on August 1, but again, I want to emphasize that the current CCNA exams will be available through November 6. My advice to those who want to get CCNA certified before the change is to book your exam nowBusiness Management Articles, make sure you choose the right
Tags: 640-816, 640-822, CCNA exam
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