CCENT Question

I work on PC hardware for my local hospital and occaisonally have to access cisco switches to change speed and duplex and to enable and disable ports. My question is how hard would it be for me to get CCENT? I have access to all the switches in our hospital, which is quite a few. We have the older switches where you have to do a show port instead of show interface, but also have the newer model switches. I have the Wendell Odom book, but hate to just read cover to cover. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Nvermind

Im getting ready to sit the exam this friday.

I have had Wendall's and Tod Lammle's book and I use Dynamips and Packet tracer as hw emulator to practice the IOS.

If you have access to the hardware, real and actual, that can only be an advantage. I'd check some of the stickys here to make sure you are working with the right models and IOS versions though.

I never read cover to cover either. The books are great and have plenty of labs and question sessions to fill in the gaps.

In short, if you are enthusiastic and want the Cert bad enough you'll get it.

oh, ps make sure you get some decent practice exams, Boson, trainsignal and as always, trancender are really good.

N.

Netwurk

Blang008 wrote: »

I work on PC hardware for my local hospital and occaisonally have to access cisco switches to change speed and duplex and to enable and disable ports. My question is how hard would it be for me to get CCENT? I have access to all the switches in our hospital, which is quite a few. We have the older switches where you have to do a show port instead of show interface, but also have the newer model switches. I have the Wendell Odom book, but hate to just read cover to cover. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The work you do on switches is a good start, but you also need to know routers for the CCENT/CCNA track. BTW, the "show port" switches you mentioned are running CatOS, which isn't tested on.

What you are getting at your job is some decent hands-on with the equipment. So if you combine your job experience with a CCNA, you might be able to score a better job some day.

Good luck with it.

Blang008

Nevermind:

Thank you for the reply. What kind of study plan did you go by? How did you read through the book?

joey74055

Blang008 wrote: »

Nevermind:

Thank you for the reply. What kind of study plan did you go by? How did you read through the book?

An hour at a time. What I do is read for an hour, then take a break to play with my hardware. Oops, that didn't come out right, lol. I read for an hour then take a break to pracice on my Cisco euipment or to practice what I just read. This approach kinda breaks up all the reading so you don't get brain overload, lol.

Nvermind

Thank you for the reply. What kind of study plan did you go by? How did you read through the book?

Ummm not sure how to answer that.. how does one read a book regularly?

I read Lammle first, up to the Sections on IOS. Then Wendell the same. Got Packet tracer and Dynamip's then worked thru the IOS sections.

Then onto what I call the "randoms" security, WLANS and WAN configs

Netwurk

Blang008 wrote: »

Nevermind:

Thank you for the reply. What kind of study plan did you go by? How did you read through the book?

I read the Sybex book (from the last test, not the current) cover to cover and practiced all the commands in the Cisco Press CCNA Command book. I also have a big Cisco lab, which helped immensely. At the time, for my job, I was like you and only worked with the switches.

I've heard you don't really need a lab for the CCENT, but will leave that subject for others to answer as the CCENT didn't exist when I was going for the CCNA.

blackninja

The way I studied, using Odoms books:

I followed the reading plan set out in the book for the single exam (640-802), jumping from book 1 to 2, 2 to 1, depending on what topic up to.

First time I'd quickly read through, not taking notes.

Second time I'd read through it carefully, TAKING NOTES

For the third time I'd study it, topic at a time until I understood again TAKING NOTES.

I found for me taking notes helped me more than I realised.

I only studied if I could read 1 full chapter, if I had less time I'd read my notes or practice subnetting - but keep at it as time does slip by very fast. Do as many labs as you can.

When you have studied the whole subject, book your exam and start with practice exams/questions. I used the free one with Odoms books by Boson.

Goodluck

sixarm

I passed my CCENT a few weeks back and the study material I used was this...

I have the CBT Nuggets video course which I found amazing. Jerermy Cioara is an absolute legend and I actually looked forward to doing the next topic! The videos are all pretty short in length so you can just sit down and watch individual topics quite easily.

I also have the Cisco Press Wendell Odom CCENT/ICND1 book, which I used mainly as a reference and to go deeper into some of the stuff taught in the CBT Nuggets videos. Having the Cisco Press book also means that you have access to the Boson exam engine via the included CD, which is a great help at getting an idea of the kind of questions you'll be asked.

In terms of the hardware stuff, I'm lucky enough to have some hardware of my own, so I just messed about on this. GNS3 is a great piece of emulation software for people that don't have access to actual hardware. It's basically a GUI for dynamips, which Nvermind mentioned earlier. It only does routers though, but as long as you have some modern-ish switches in your hospital network to mess about on then you should be fine.

BroadcastStorm

Stupid question, does an emulator GNS3/Dynamips able to do debugging?

blackninja

BroadcastStorm wrote: »

Stupid question, does an emulator GNS3/Dynamips able to do debugging?

As it uses the actual IOS, it does everything that IOS can do, inc. the debug command.

petedude

Nvermind wrote: »

Ummm not sure how to answer that.. how does one read a book regularly?

And I thought I was picky about posts.

Probably best put as read FROM a book regularly!

One plan of attack I use for certifications is to cover one chapter a day from a book, then after the book use the included practice tests/chapter tests to see where the weak spots are. Lammle's book is 14 chapters, then complete the practice tests. After the testing, review the problem chapters and test again.

To calendar this, you could plot out: 14 days to read, 14 days to cover practice tests, 14 days to review. That would be about a month and a half. That's not including simulations or labs. If that sounds like a long haul, think of this: Many students sit through the Cisco Networking Academy in a local college for a year and a half before even thinking about studying for the actual exam.

ptlinva

I just passed my CCENT a few weeks ago. I mainly used the CBTNuggest and the TrainSignal videos. They were excellent.

Of course, I spent a few dollars on Ebay buying some equipment (mainly a few 2950 switches and a couple of cheap - around $30 - routers).

As I was watching the videos, I did the same thing on my equipment and it was enough to score a 916 out of 1000 on the CCENT test.

You may not need to purchase equipment and use the simulators, but I opted for the hands on.

Good Luck!
-Paul

luke_bibby

Best resource for me when I was studying for the CCNA/CCENT was CBT Nuggets and a small lab (2x 2621XM routers and 2x 2950 switches at the time). The Cisco Press books and Lammle's book were also good but I think I got more from labbing up stuff.

If you don't want to invest too much in a lab, note that used cisco equipment sells pretty well on eBay so you will get most of your money back (or maybe even get more!) if you sell the equipment after your done.