Starting my networking certifications...

DanFer

Morning All...

I have just reigestered and left a welcome message in the off topic forum..

I am currently doing 1st and 2nd line support for a local company, but feel like i need some career direction. I am interested in networking (switches, routers etc) and would like to become a network engineer so in the new year i will be begining my studying. I feel i should start with the N+ but wondered if anyone out there could point me in the right direction as i am open to suggestions.

Cheers!

Turgon

Networking is a long term thing. Treat this as your foundation year. I would take the N+ and start to immerse yourself in some foundation reading in networking. The Cisco certs can come later. A lot of people move too quickly through the Cisco tracks and miss out on essential theoretical learning. You will want to understand how networks really work, how to interpret frame information and make sense of firewall logs and TCP handshaking.

The N+ is a doable certificate. It's not too heavy so that's a good primer. It also covers protocols other than TCP/IP. This is good for a numbers of reasons.

1. Believe it or not some of those protocols are still in use.
2. Understanding how different network protocols work helps gives you a deeper appreciation of how any network protocol works.
3. It gives you an insight into how we got to where we are today.

Aside from certification books look at the following texts.

Data Communications by Stallings
TCP/IP Illustrated by Stevens
Interconnections by Radia Perlman

Some used books on Amazon are worth picking up to give you a taste of what's to come and will only cost a few dollars these days..

Bridges, Routers and Switches Second Edition - Bruce Caslow. Covers a range of fundamental networking technologies many of which are still in use today.

All in one CCIE study guide by Roosevelt Giles - Lots of information at the frame layer in this book.

You won't understand a lot of this material straight off but that's a good thing. As the years progress and your understanding and experience increases these materials will make more sense.