CCNA

Hi there

I am due to start my CCNA in August I will be going to university to sudy for it ( 40 weeks) and it's costing me just under £2,000

As I have a few months before I start I want to get a basic grasp of some of the topics but I don't really want to overload my brain before I begin. What are some of the useful subject which I should start to grasp before I begin?

Also the course apparently is divided into 4 years and at the end of each unit we can take a exam in which we gain a certificate to show that we have acomplished that unit also we have to take the full CCNA exam at the end of the course

I'm looking forward to it but from reading some of the posts in the forum it sounds pretty challenging to become CCNA qualified.

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Comments

wait2dominate

Subnetting.

I know in my classes I'm taking, that's the big thing everyone is still struggling on.

Other than that, the OSI/Dod model and how they relate to each other and at which levels different things happen.

I'm sure there's a lot more as well....those are just two really good starting points IMHO.

Netstudent

Definately subnetting, binary, TCP/IP, OSI, layer 1 - 7 protocols and standards. If you want to be ahead of the game, I would brush up on these so that you have some kind of foundation.

supercooldude

4 years? Isn't it a bit too long for a CCNA program? Did you mean 4 semesters like in Cisco Academy?

malcybood

I'm guessing this is a degree course with the Cisco Networking Academy Program integrated into it? The CNAP is made up of 4 semesters and you sit an exam at the end of each semester.

I done HND Networking (yr 2) and CNAP + exams in 1 year back in the day! Have you asked if they are supplying the curriculum for the updated 640-802 exam?

I'd agree with the others and say look at the OSI Model and subnetting and you'll be ahead of the game.

redgoblin

I would totally agree - Subnetting is a core topic that underpins almost every other topic in CCNA. Learn to subnet in your head, if you can do this then you should be ok for your exam!

Pash

Data encapsulation. If you have no pria experience with networking you need to understand how a piece of data get's from one client to another, up the layers and back down again - wax on wax off. When you can picture that, everything else is just the methods in between.

Cheers and goodluck,

ally_uk

I have some knowledge of the OSI as in I can remember the layout of it off the top of my head I know roughly what each level does and where some of the protocols fit into the model.

Subnetting wise I know binary off the top of my head and can convert any number pretty quickly I understand the different classes of IP address and the classes of private I.P's

I understand the logical And binary convervsion you use to find out the network address

But the problem is i'm having is why the hell do we need to subnet???

Can't I just create a network seperate it using hubs or switches and use a class C I.P using DHCP for the whole network.

If I use hubs to segment the network into different section sure there may be a issue with collisons but you would hardly notice a speed lose if each segment of the network was say 8 machines.

How does the Private I.P address range fit into networking and why do people go to so much trouble to over complicate networking by using jargon such as Frame relay and Subnetting is it really nessicary in the real world or is this just paper knowledge also what is CIIDR?

Also the CCNA I am doing is split into 4 section or semensters or whatever that word is lol i'm from the UK

Netstudent

Well subnetting is very important because it allows you to slice portions of a BLOCK of addresses to fit the requirements. Without subnetting we would all be wasting A LOT of IP's. Why use a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 when all I need is 2 ip's for one network????? 255.255.255.0 allows you to have 254 ip's but i only need 2. So thats why we subnet. To create smaller networks out of a sinlge large block of IP's.

Can't I just create a network seperate it using hubs or switches and use a class C I.P using DHCP for the whole network.

Ya sure you could do that, but what if you run out of IPs in that class C network. Or what if you needed more that 254 addresses. Sure you could use a class B address, but then without subnetting you are still going waste most of that class B network. Another thing is if you have one massive switched network without subnets and routers to separate broadcast domains, you are going to have a Broadcast storm that would turn into a nighmare.

Private addresses are important because we are running out of public IP's. Almost Every node in the world has an IP. With private addresses we can use any block of IP's in the private range and then use NAT to translate that private address to a public address so that the packet can get out to the internet.

Frame-relay is imporant because it is comparitively CHEAP!! Ity allows us to use one physical interface to facilitate logical connections to many other sites. Without frame-relay you would need a WIC card for every point-to-point connection in your network. With frame-relay you can have one wic card and 10 point-to-point connections. (10 is just an example)

Right now you are probably going "HUH????????" but thats okay. the questions you are askling are going to be hard to answer and hard for you to understand because you haven;t began to study these topics yet. Once you get into the nitty gritty, you will begin to answer these questions on your own.[/quote]

ally_uk

Shhheeeesh that certainly hurt my brain lol

Nice explanation although you are right I have no idea what the hell you just said hehe

Ahwell we learn something new everyday I have just got myself a copy of todd lammles CCNA 5th edition guide and will start to look at the first few chapters and note take some important elements just to give me a taster of the CCNA

Pash

ally_uk wrote:

I have some knowledge of the OSI as in I can remember the layout of it off the top of my head I know roughly what each level does and where some of the protocols fit into the model.

Subnetting wise I know binary off the top of my head and can convert any number pretty quickly I understand the different classes of IP address and the classes of private I.P's

I understand the logical And binary convervsion you use to find out the network address

But the problem is i'm having is why the hell do we need to subnet???

Can't I just create a network seperate it using hubs or switches and use a class C I.P using DHCP for the whole network.

If I use hubs to segment the network into different section sure there may be a issue with collisons but you would hardly notice a speed lose if each segment of the network was say 8 machines.

How does the Private I.P address range fit into networking and why do people go to so much trouble to over complicate networking by using jargon such as Frame relay and Subnetting is it really nessicary in the real world or is this just paper knowledge also what is CIIDR?

Also the CCNA I am doing is split into 4 section or semensters or whatever that word is lol i'm from the UK

Woooooo wooooo.....thats english for stopping a horse (sorry quote from Alan Patridge).

Ok, first off...you have to learn why subnetting is important in it's entirety. From the perspective of preserving public ipv4 addresses it's pretty much essential. If you know how to do the binary of ip addressing then you will know how many addresses you will lose with standard classful subnet masks. NAT has been a good stand in answer to preserving public IP addresses, but it won't hold in all honesty...in your course you will hit on ipv6.

Hubs do not segment networks...you need some reading on this. Switches can segment networks into individual vlans (Virtual Lans) but standard layer 2 switches cannot route between vlan's, why would that be?

Most corperate networks use DHCP for ease of administration yes, while learning about the MS server dhcp practices isnt covered in the CCNA, read about it, download wireshark and witness the network traffic yourself...it doesnt hurt.

Frame relay is a WAN technology. It is very cheap cheap, very "scalable" and extremely versitile. The key to this one is practice and theory constantly.

CIDR? Holy hell is this one important. Without it.....would be like building the badest race car known to man....and then fuelling it with left over chip oil. As an example....all ISP's are assigned blocks of Ip's to assign to their customers. To ease the load on routing tables accross the internet infrastructure, CIDR and supernetting were born. Supernetting is basically...the opposite of subnetting...you borrow bits from your network portion to find the "common" bits, you build your CIDR network summary and mask from this. So this saves thousands of lines of routing entries ,when to just get to the network desired you can take one supernet route. It may not make sense yet, but when you practice it you will be like...holy **** this is important