New to Juniper

jwashington1981

I just recently received my Bachelor's Degree in Network Security. While I was attending college, I learned about Routing and Switching in classes designed for obtaining the CCNA. One of the instructors there just happened to mention Juniper to me, but I had never heard of Juniper. I've looked at many job offerings and I'm noticing that quite a few of them mention a Cisco/Juniper environment.

Well, I would like to know, where do I begin to learn more about Juniper routers and switches. Just as Cisco has packet tracer for routing and switching simulations, are there any programs out there that do the same for helping you learn Juniper routers and switches?

I'm thinking it would be very beneficial to hold both Cisco and Juniper certs because I believe that it will open me up for even more job opportunities.

Ryan82

Its always good to be well versed in multiple vendors platforms.

I recommend you look into Juniper's fast track program. It has some good study guides to get you started in the Juniper world. As far as gaining the hands on experience with Juniper, there is a virtualized environment known as Olive that you can setup or you can purchase rack rental through a few companies, though most of them are pretty expensive.

Also I believe Juniper has something in the works for a supported virtualized environment that they will be offering soon that is similar to Cisco's IOU (IOS on Unix).

Good luck, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

ehnde

Surprisingly CCNA routing and switching is a good starting point for JNCIA. If you can pass the CCNA exam, you can very quickly go through Juniper specific material and get their entry level cert. This is what I've heard of most people doing.

MickQ

As ehnde said, the CCNA gives you a good routing and switching background. Then it's a case of learning a little BSD and playing with Juniper (or Olive).

I'm like you and new to Juniper.
I've started by signing up here for the fasttrack. 50% off the first exam is handy.
Here's the "Certification Program Tracks".

Aldur

Your situation sounds similar to mine. When I was in college I took some CCNA classes which gave me a good foundation in routing/switching/networking. Then I started down the Juniper path. What I learned in the CCNA classes allowed me to pick up on the Juniper stuff quickly.

Without a doubt we live in a multi-vendor world. I would go as far to say that most places now a days aren't one vendor shops. So being versed in multiple platforms is incredible helpful.

I'd recommend checking out the FastTrack program that was mentioned earlier and possibly setting up an olive or two.

Also, the virtualized thing that Ryan82 was talking about is a real thing that Juniper is developing. My team at Juniper will actually be using it to develop a security bootcamp/workshop. I haven't used it before so I'm looking forward to playing around with it.

jwashington1981

Where exactly do I get this Olive from?

mkomon

You pick a JUNOS image, run it in VMware, GNS3 or in an appliance (see the "The 1U Olive" thread) and you've got yourself an Olive.

jwashington1981

Another question. When I went to the Fast Track registration page, it gave me 3 choices.

I am a Juniper customer
I am a Juniper Partner
I am a Juniper employee

Do I choose I am a Juniper customer?

Aldur

Yea, just pick "Juniper Customer" and you'll be fine.

jwashington1981

Awesome! Got the material. Now I just need some hands on experience.

Aldur

Check out the http://www.techexams.net/forums/juniper-certifications/46233-1u-olive.html thread. There's some good info in there on how to build an olive.

And this seems to be the most wallet friendly way to do it.

svo4dot6

The biggest problem I had with starting out in the juniper world was finding a freaking junos image to install on olives.... after a few days of searching I ended up picking up a couple of j2300 routers, but they had 7.x junos images so I was still in the same boat. After a couple of days of playing I gave up and went back to the cisco world

I love junos, but really need some easier way to learn it... the fast track materials are good, but without lab time its almost a waste.

tomaifauchai

Anybody did the Pre-assessment JunOS 25 questions test recently? Is it hard?
I went through their superb Flash portal yesterday (Fast track) and it's just awesome.

Might give a go at this Olive soon !

jwashington1981

tomaifauchai wrote: »

Anybody did the Pre-assessment JunOS 25 questions test recently? Is it hard?
I went through their superb Flash portal yesterday (Fast track) and it's just awesome.

Might give a go at this Olive soon !

Pre-Assessment? Are you talking about the one that if you pass you get the discounted voucher?

networker050184

tomaifauchai wrote: »

Anybody did the Pre-assessment JunOS 25 questions test recently? Is it hard?
I went through their superb Flash portal yesterday (Fast track) and it's just awesome.

Might give a go at this Olive soon !

Hard is a relative term, but I didn't find it difficult. I actually took it and passed (just barely) before reading any of the material.

tomaifauchai

jwashington1981 wrote: »

Pre-Assessment? Are you talking about the one that if you pass you get the discounted voucher?

Exactly!

networker050184 wrote: »

Hard is a relative term, but I didn't find it difficult. I actually took it and passed (just barely) before reading any of the material.

Okay, so i will review the pdf before attempting it