Likely Taking the CCENT in Early October, Need Lab Advice

I'm currently majoring in computer information systems at my university and am graduating next year. I recently started studying late last month for the CCENT certification starting out with Jeremy Cioara's CBT Nuggets videos and completing all of those, which really got me excited about wanting to learn more about the concepts I need to know to pass the CCENT exam.

Right now, I'm going through Todd Lammle's book and doing the written labs and review questions that are in there and feel like the information is starting to really stick. I also have Odom's book that I might take a look at and that I also bought for his simulator since it was offered to me in a package, but wasn't sure if that would be worth doing compared to other options that are out there. On labs though, I've seen people use different ones like Packet Tracer and GNS3 and wanted to be sure that I'm on track now that I have Packet Tracer installed. I also wanted to see what else I might be able to do on top of doing all the reading, labs, and practice questions to get myself ready. Thanks in advance.

After I pass the CCENT, I'm gonna keep going for the CCNA and look into either CCNA Voice or some Microsoft certifications.

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jamesleecoleman

You should be good with Packet Tracer for the CCENT. For the CCNA, it would be great if you could use some equipment, if you have it in the budget. A lot of people will tell you that you can just use GNS3 or Packet Tracer but you don't get the hands on experience with rackging(maybe), cable management and connecting devices unless you get the actual equipment. Also it would be great if you could get unterminated cable to practice on. Phone cable, Ethernet and RG cable practice could be very helpful.

OctalDump

PacketTracer or similar Cisco network simulator software is more than enough for CCENT. You can do all the CCNA stuff and never touch a piece of Cisco gear.

If you want gear, then the 1800/2800 series routers are fairly cheap and will run ios15. The 2851 has an option for a 24 port switch if you want to try switching stuff in one box - but I'd recommend against it because it can be confusing having a switch and router in one box.

The 800 series routers are ok, too. They do enough of the basic stuff to give you a taste. The also have the advantage of not being stupidly noisy. You can even use them for your home WAN router, if you like, which isn't a bad way to get experience.

Switch wise, 2950 are the go to. 2960 will cover everything you need for CCENT and CCNA R+S.

Absolute maximum you need for CCNA would be something like 3x 1800s (inc one 1841 or better), and 2x 2950s + 1x 2960. Plus some serial WICs for the WAN stuff and the appropriate serial cable.

There's many companies that sell these kits, or head over to craigslist/ebay/gumtree/whatever. Lots of people will buy the lab gear, pass the exam and sell the lab gear on, so there's always lots on offer.

The Voice stuff gets tricky if you want to keep the lab. You need voice enabled routers, hand sets and POE switches. This is probably complicated by the CCNA Voice cert being retired in 11 days. I don't have much idea about the CCNA Collaboration lab requirements, but imagine it will not be cheap

bender_fender100

Thanks for the great advice from both of you. I did not know about the CCNA voice being retired as a cert, so I guess I can focus on the CCNP in R&S or Security instead assuming those are still going to be around. I checked Cisco's website and it seems like they are upgrading the Security certification to v3.0.

I forgot to mention that I'm just using OS X Yosemite on my MacBook Air so I've had to use PlayonMac to let me run things like Packet Tracer on my computer. That's the other thing I was gonna ask about. When I start getting into using real equipment, would it be much different to try to use those compared to if I was using a PC or laptop that ran Windows? I have Windows installed as well but on a virtual machine.

volfkhat

OctalDump wrote: »

The Voice stuff gets tricky if you want to keep the lab. You need voice enabled routers, hand sets and POE switches. This is probably complicated by the CCNA Voice cert being retired in 11 days.

HUH??
As in... Gone forever?

Is Cisco exiting the VOIP market??
Perhaps there is a different cert/direction they are pushing instead...

?

Edit:
oic. both voice & video are being replaced:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/ccna-ccnp-collaboration

Shoe Box

Go to Udemy and find Lazaro Diaz's courses for CCENT / CCNA. I like his teaching style. I just bought a CCNA labs video course of his, it was on sale for $10 and I got an email notice from Udemy about it. Here's one video, a year and a half old:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XpE4oY1GwQ

bender_fender100

Shoe Box wrote: »

Go to Udemy and find Lazaro Diaz's courses for CCENT / CCNA. I like his teaching style. I just bought a CCNA labs video course of his, it was on sale for $10 and I got an email notice from Udemy about it. Here's one video, a year and a half old:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XpE4oY1GwQ

Wow thanks. He seems like a great instructor and I think this lab videos will be a great supplement after I'm done reading. I was able to find a good Udemy coupon and the labs video course is $28 as of currently. It also covers ICDN2 topics which is beneficial because I'm aiming to try to get the CCNA cert before the end of the year.

OctalDump

I didn't know about CCNA Sec getting upgraded. It must have happened pretty recently, I think, because I looked at the cert details maybe last week and can't remember seeing anything. Or otherwise I am going blind.

bender_fender100 wrote: »

I forgot to mention that I'm just using OS X Yosemite on my MacBook Air so I've had to use PlayonMac to let me run things like Packet Tracer on my computer. That's the other thing I was gonna ask about. When I start getting into using real equipment, would it be much different to try to use those compared to if I was using a PC or laptop that ran Windows? I have Windows installed as well but on a virtual machine.

K, so I use Mac a fair bit too. I recently looked into something like PacketTracer for Mac, and there are options. You can run PacketTracer in a Windows VM, or use Wine - there's a Youtube video about it. There are also GNS and something called "lammlesim" I think.

If you want to conenct to Cisco gear from your Mac via console, then you will need a compatible USB Serial dongle. I think that Keyspan is still the go to. You can then just use Terminal and screen to connect. The command line experience is pretty much identical on Windows/Linux/Mac/*BSD/whatever.

Connecting via SSH or Telnet is the same, without the hassle of needing to install either, since they are built in

If you do run a VM, then you can use the same USB serial adaptor with Windows.

I think some of the web apps from Cisco are officially Windows only, but seem to work ok on Mac. I think there is some Java based app as well from Cisco that you can use on Mac.