My CCNA Journey Officially Commences

Spiegel

CCNA Journey Vol. 2 - Electric Boogaloo

I am back and ready to tackle the ICND2 and acquire the full CCNA R&S certification. Wrapping things up this week with my current term. Statistics has been huge challenge as I'm not remotely interested in the subject so studying for it has been quite difficult. Hoping to pass that class and Data Management. 

So back to Cisco. I'll essentially have most of my previous materials except I'll be studying from the ICND2 200-105 book with Wendell Odem. It has been a good minute since I've touched on Cisco stuff so I'll probably take the first week or so to refresh my memory and do some subnetting drills and go through some of the Boson sims. Once I'm back in the CCNA study mode I'll dig into the ICND2 contents and start by watching the videos first this time. Jon_Cisco stated this many posts ago and I think this will do me well for the second round of this exam, hopefully by exposing myself to everything the ICND2 has to offer at once it'll help with retaining the info better when I read it later.

Some questions:

• Are there any overlapping topics from ICND1 that I can expect on the ICND2?
• Which topics would anyone consider to should focus on the most?

And if there is anything else that is important that anyone would like to share. I'm open to any and all suggestions and tips. Thanks in advance

bowmatty

Good on your Spiegel! , currently find it daunting studying, your post gives me confidence for the CCNA  

How was the timing on the exam? that always gets me 

Congratulations on passing 

AvgITGeek

Nicely done! I'm looking forward to the I'm a CCNA now post!

Spiegel

Thanks guys. I'm aiming to have this by mid-August. It'll be hard work but it worth it.

Progress Report:
Not too much in the way of a progress report. Started my new term at WGU beginning of this month. Taking three courses and just knocked one of the out. Will try to work the remaining two in tandem throughout the week, Technical Writing and Interconnecting Network Devices (ICND2). Can't wait to fire up the lab and connect some stuff 

Spiegel

bowmatty said:

Good on your Spiegel! , currently find it daunting studying, your post gives me confidence for the CCNA  

How was the timing on the exam? that always gets me 

Congratulations on passing 

The timing was fair. About 90 minutes I believe. So if you're adequately prepared you should be able to take your time to comfortably answer each question since there is no way to go back and revise your answers. Definitely make sure that your subnetting is up to par, you'll want to be able to quickly break down an IP address, especially for troubleshooting scenarios.

Spiegel

Progress Report:
So I'm almost finished with the first part, Ethernet LANs, from the Wendel Odom book. I'm going at a slightly slower pace due to how dense this part part has been with information. I was surprised with how involving the inner-workings of STP is with how it stops loops. It doesn't appear that I'll be able to get the CCNA by the end of July like I wanted but that's OK. I want to take my time with it and really understand it. I'd like to try to have this first part wrapped up by tomorrow and do some labbing. I'd like to recreate some of the labs in the CBTNugget videos on my physical lab while working on some of the Spanning Tree Protocol sims with Boson NetSim This weekend.

My goal for next week is to try to complete the second part, IPv4 Routing Protocols.

Spiegel

Some STP and VTP labbing

Dakinggamer87

Nice setup Spiegel

ps.89

Keep it up, Spiegel! You've been motivating me! I just finished up the Ethernet LANs portion myself. STP is no joke... most likely going to re-read that section.

Lunchbocks

Definitely been a motivator for me. I am just finishing up with the first 5 chapters in the CCNA book, the theory and memorization part. I am anxious to get to the CLI

You have a really nice lab setup. I like virtual labs and use them at work. But I don't think there is any replacement for having your hands on the devices if possible. Here is my lab:

Spiegel

Progress Report:
Just completed chapter 8 of my reading which wraps up OSPF. Surprisingly didn’t find it terribly difficult and did quite well with the chapter review quizzes. Will be switching back to labbing and running some simulations on my physical equipment.

Will be hovering over OSPF for a few more days as there is a lot to go over and digest. Would like to be more familiar with how OSPF routers become neighbors and the steps it goes through. The various configuration commands to initialize OSPF and design single and multi areas. 

Anyone studying for ICND2 should be prepared to lab a lot. I think that will be the key to ace this exam. Boson NetSims has been my friend this time around. Try to replicate the labs found in the simulator and from CBTNuggets on a physical lab (if you can) or on GNS3/Packet Tracer.

Spiegel

So I'm currently running into an issue with Boson NetSim. Not sure if this is a known issue while working on setting up VTP on one of the switches I issue the ? command while in global config mode to verify where the VTP command but it doesn't show up in the list.



As you can see vtp does not show up under ?

But I am indeed able to execute the VTP command while in global config as you can see.


Why would this be?

Spiegel

Progress Report:
Just finished Part II of the OCG book wrapping up all things routing protocols. I'll be taking a break this week from reading and focus purely on labbing since a lot was covered in this part and I'm not entirely sure I have the finer details grasped. Will also be watching all of the CBTNugget videos pertaining to routing protocols and following a long with the labs of those videos. My goal this week is to have all labs for routing protocols in NetSims completed along with the CBTNugget video labs and begin Part III of my reading while taking subnetting breaks as I found out in my recent readings that I have gotten rusty since I last took the ICDN1 exam back in March.

Jon_Cisco

Keep it up. All it takes is persistence! I plan to take the new ccna next year. Should be interesting.

Spiegel

Jon_Cisco said:

Keep it up. All it takes is persistence! I plan to take the new ccna next year. Should be interesting.

That is pretty cool. Definitely would like to read your experience once you start. Will probably end up buying the new book once it comes out just to read through and absorb the new info myself.

Spiegel

Progress Report:
So I just finished part 3 of the OCG book and just entered the part 4 regarding IPv4 services, ACLs and QoS. The WAN section in part 3 kinda kicked my but in the private WANs and Internet VPN section. I'll definitely be revisiting that section when I start doing more intense labbing and reviews. I'm definitely not discouraged though. I still find it to be doable in the time frame that I set for myself. Going back and forth between CBTNugget videos and reading has been a huge help. For anyone also tackling the ICND2 and using CBTNuggets as a reference video, pay special attention to the lab videos Jeremy does which definitely helps with illuminating how the concepts you read in the book all work and tie together.

Will try to setup a GNS3 lab to help speed things along as I am under a time crunch. Physical labs are great but can slow you down a bit, especially if you're on the move. In my case, my office doubles as a guest room and lately I've been getting a lot of guests come over to stay, mostly family, so having a GNS3 will help with that and it's also much faster to move around in the virtual environment. 

Another reason why I'm under a time crunch to finish this cert on time is as we all know Cisco has changed their certs so my mentor at WGU is suggesting configuring my schedule so that I can attempt the CCNA: R&S, CCNA Security, and CCDA. We calculated that it is doable to get all three of these certs before the February 23rd deadline so I'm trying to hustle now   

It'll be a challenge but I think it is possible which has ignited my motivation to get this done and take advantage of these certs while they're active. Definitely want to get my money's worth while I'm at school and it'll be advantages for when I take the CCNP level certs. Also advantageous to me for landing the network analyst job I have my eye on at work as I'd like to start living and breathing networking. My current position only gives me minor exposure and landing that network job will prove helpful for the more advanced certs as well.

Didn't mean to write so much but that is where I stand at the moment. Thanks again for the support, help, and encouragement for all who have been following me on this journey. 

Goal: Finish OCG book by end of next week (or sooner).

coreyb80

I'm taking the CCDA exam Saturday morning and definitely noticed some overlap between the info for this exam and the CCNA exam that I took back in January.

Spiegel

coreyb80 said:

I'm taking the CCDA exam Saturday morning and definitely noticed some overlap between the info for this exam and the CCNA exam that I took back in January.

How did you do?

Spiegel

Progress Report:
Just started part 6 of the OCG book, working on IPv6. I like that a lot of last several chapters have essentially been review since some are legit copy and paste from the ICND1 book and other parts are minor refreshers with some additional info on routing and switching features. So I'm really flying through these chapters. I predict that I'll be done with my reading by either end of this week or this weekend. Afterwards it'll just be pure testing and labbing. If things go well I see myself taking the ICND2 exam mid-September, either on the 14th (a Saturday) or the 16th (a Monday). There are a lot of concepts to cover but I'll be adding extra emphasis on the routing protocols, and Layer 2 stuff, and WAN technologies.

This has been a bear of a test to study for in such a short time frame. I'm really hoping things go well. I'm not afraid to fail and try again but it'd be nice to pass on the first attempt. I'd like to move to CCDA and especially CCNA Security as quickly as I can before the February 23rd deadline.

If anyone else is studying for their ICND2 as well let me know how you all are doing as well. 

Infosec_Sam

How do you feel about the OCG as your only textbook? Also, do you have any sort of structure for your labbing, or are you just implementing the technologies in the book?

I've been meaning to finally finish off my CCNA after picking up my CCENT back in Jan 2017, but a number of things got in the way. I finally have some time to start studying for the ICND2, so I'm really finding a lot of value in your posts/updates - thank you!

deltzy

I've got my CCENT booked next week! How long do you think you have to study for ICND2 compared to ICND1? Roughly about the same time?

Spiegel

Infosec_Sam said:

How do you feel about the OCG as your only textbook? Also, do you have any sort of structure for your labbing, or are you just implementing the technologies in the book?

I've been meaning to finally finish off my CCNA after picking up my CCENT back in Jan 2017, but a number of things got in the way. I finally have some time to start studying for the ICND2, so I'm really finding a lot of value in your posts/updates - thank you!

The OCG for the ICND2 exam feels very complete. It covers the objectives for the exam with a lot of detail. I used the OCG book for ICND1 and noticed during the exam that there wasn't anything I didn't know. So I'm following the same approach for ICND2 and paring my reading with CBTNuggets which solidifies anything I am shaky on. I usually find that reading it once, then watching a video on the topic and then reading (skimming) the same chapter again on the same topic really hammers down the details in my brain.

I'm implementing the technologies in the book but I am also trying to simply build my own environment, say an OSPFv2 network for example, with as much of its features as I can. I also utilize Boson NetSims as well and try to re-create those labs on my physical equipment.

deltzy said:

I've got my CCENT booked next week! How long do you think you have to study for ICND2 compared to ICND1? Roughly about the same time?

I'm noticing that it's taking me about the same about of time to study for the ICND2 as it did ICND1. I do see that ICND2 is heavier on configuration, verification, and troubleshooting so labbing as much as you can I feel will be the key to success in this exam. So for both exams it has taken me approximately 2 to 3 months of studying. But that may also very on experience. I had my Network+ cert and had taken some network courses in college over the years and have access to production equipment at work so I have a slight edge over others. Realistically I'd say it'd take about 4 to 6 months  on each exam for someone new to network and Cisco technology in general.

deltzy

Thanks that's really good to know. I'm ICND1 ready in about 2 months so I should be good to squeeze in ICND2 before Feb 2020 if that's the route I want to go!

Spiegel

Progress Report:
Running slightly behind schedule. Looks like I'll be taking my exam (potentially) end of the first week of October. I live in Florida so had to deal with hurricane prep beginning of this month. Luckily, the hurricane veered away which is awesome but it did take away from my studies a bit. Additionally, had on-call duties at work so of course I'd get some calls in the middle of my studies.Trying my best to knock this out quickly and jump straight into CCDA which hopefully won't take as long due to the overlap in material from what I see and hear. My goal is to start on my CCNA Security soon before the February deadline. Would like to put in three solid months of studying for that exam.

Back to the ICND2. I feel fairly comfortable with the material, at least conceptually speaking. Will be labbing and running practice exam drills pretty hard this week and next week. Hopefully that will be enough to pass. Of course, I'll give myself a little more time if needed if I don't feel at least 90% confident of passing.

Jon_Cisco

Remember to balance time and money. Sometimes 80% ready is worth taking a shot. Currently you have to put a premium on time because of the exam changes.

Good Luck!

Spiegel

Slightly confused by one of the Boson practice questions with regards to EIGRP neighbors. The question states "Which of the following CANNOT be viewed by issuing the show ipv6 eigrp neighbors command on an EIGRP router?"

The correct answers was listed as "the routes learned from a neighbor." Why would that be?

Spiegel

Spiegel said:

Slightly confused by one of the Boson practice questions with regards to EIGRP neighbors. The question states "Which of the following CANNOT be viewed by issuing the show ipv6 eigrp neighbors command on an EIGRP router?"

The correct answers was listed as "the routes learned from a neighbor." Why would that be?

Figured out that the show ipv6 eigrp neighbors command will only show neighboring routers but not the routing tables of the routes learned.

Progress Report:
Making some headway in my practice exams. So far, from the Boson exams, out of the four exam banks (A, B, C, and D), I've taken the first three exams with scores of 57%, 69%, 63%. Modest first attempts. Even so, I'm starting to feel comfortable around the various topics. Even on questions I may not know the answers too initially I've been able to make decent educated guess. Each exam bank has been taking me about 4 hours to complete as I review every question, right or wrong, and research them to make sure I understand the concepts better.

Will be alternating between practice exams and labs this week with some video reviews in between for the rest of this week. Need to go over more BGP, GRE, PPP, SNMP, and SDN as I feel those are my weakest areas. Aiming for 90% on one of these practice exams, preferably on a customized where with a mixture of questions from all the test banks. Making the attempt to test on October 7th.

This will be my last progress report until exam day which hopefully I'll be posting that I passed.

Jon_Cisco

Threads like this help people understand how much goes into proper certification study. We are all looking forward to your next post. Good Luck!

Spiegel

Exam officially scheduled for next Monday, October 7th. This is it! 

OzanGuner

Hey man,

First of all i found this topic to be very helpful and motivating for those who want to start or to continue their prep for the CCNA Exam.

I saw that you passed your CCENT already and going for the CCNA in 4 days. Best of luck on the exam, I hope you nail it down

I was also preparing for the CCNA Exam but i lacked the infrastructure you created and modified along the way which was the study plan.

I was going with Chris Bryant's videos from Udemy and Cisco Packet Tracer only. I felt that as i progressed further, i was having a hard time remembering everything that i studied a while ago.

I know for a fact that i do so much better if i have questions after finishing up a chapter to solidify my knowledge about that chapter. However i was unable to find a resource that had questions after every chapter. All i found was CCENT & CCNA practice exams which included every topic there is. 

Do you happen to know a study resource that have questions about each chapter specifically ?

And for someone who is starting over, in your opinion what would be the most efficient way to go about it ? What resources should i use , and what resources would be enough ? As  i said previously, i was only watching videos from Udemy and using Cisco Packet Tracer, and at some point i was unable to follow the labs in there because in most labs there were pre configurations on the devices that did not appear on the video so i couldn't follow.

Also another question as you are at the end of your prep now, approximately how much hours have you put in to prepare for CCNA ? Would you say its more than 300 hours, or 500 hours ?

Again, thank you for this topic and i wish you the best of luck on the upcoming exam.

Regards,

Ozan