passed today, finally a ccna holder

I think I am going to enjoy I solid week with no studying. No fretting over access lists and wild card masks. No more sh ip int brief. I think I want to head straight into the CCNP. I think I will go with the momentum. I would like to get some opinions from you guys on whether I should attempt some of the CCNA specializations or hit a different type of certification, like linux. I, mainly, got the CCNA for job prospects and hopefully, something will come through. Let's get those opinions!

Iyare

-DeXteR-

iyare wrote: »

I think I am going to enjoy I solid week with no studying. No fretting over access lists and wild card masks. No more sh ip int brief. I think I want to head straight into the CCNP. I think I will go with the momentum. I would like to get some opinions from you guys on whether I should attempt some of the CCNA specializations or hit a different type of certification, like linux. I, mainly, got the CCNA for job prospects and hopefully, something will come through. Let's get those opinions!

Iyare

Any suggestions for the guy whose gonna give his CCNA this month end

vinbuck

iyare wrote: »

I think I am going to enjoy I solid week with no studying. No fretting over access lists and wild card masks. No more sh ip int brief. I think I want to head straight into the CCNP. I think I will go with the momentum. I would like to get some opinions from you guys on whether I should attempt some of the CCNA specializations or hit a different type of certification, like linux. I, mainly, got the CCNA for job prospects and hopefully, something will come through. Let's get those opinions!

Iyare

I'd go with the CCNP, the CCNA specializations are great, but the CCNP will be a major stepping stone. Congrats on the CCNA pass...feels good huh?

viper75

CONGRATZ!!!

Feels good doesn't it? What's next?

Ryuksapple84

Feels good doesn't it? Congrats to you my man.

Ryan82

First of all congrats.

To answer your question about the direction you should take would depend on what path you want to choose. For instance, if you are mainly looking to get into the security arena but just wanted to gain a little bit of network knowledge to round yourself out, then by all means start venturing to that side of the house.

If you ultimately desire to be a network guy, I would start studying for your CCNP. That being said, being savvy in Linux is definitely helpful as a network guy so studying that wouldn't be a waste of time at all. I set up tcpdumps and such quite often in my day to day trying to figure out where traffic is broken.

What type of environment do you work in now? I work in an environment where it's mostly large scale routing, but we do some voip stuff as well so studying for a specialization such as ccna voice would make sense in my environment, but studying for something like the ccna wireless would not be applicable to my work (nor my desired work) so I probably wouldn't opt for that.

iyare

-DeXteR- wrote: »

Any suggestions for the guy whose gonna give his CCNA this month end

I would say get some hands on practice and be able to configure every sort of network possible in the books you are reading. I had major problems with switching. My solutions was to write out the steps over and over and over. Make sure subnetting is easy. Get your troubleshooting skills way up there. You should be good though. Also, use this forum to figure out any problems on the path.

iyare

Ryan82 wrote: »

First of all congrats.

To answer your question about the direction you should take would depend on what path you want to choose. For instance, if you are mainly looking to get into the security arena but just wanted to gain a little bit of network knowledge to round yourself out, then by all means start venturing to that side of the house.

If you ultimately desire to be a network guy, I would start studying for your CCNP. That being said, being savvy in Linux is definitely helpful as a network guy so studying that wouldn't be a waste of time at all. I set up tcpdumps and such quite often in my day to day trying to figure out where traffic is broken.

What type of environment do you work in now? I work in an environment where it's mostly large scale routing, but we do some voip stuff as well so studying for a specialization such as ccna voice would make sense in my environment, but studying for something like the ccna wireless would not be applicable to my work (nor my desired work) so I probably wouldn't opt for that.

I actually don't even work in a networking environment. I am a Geek Squad Agent who wants to get out of that world and back into something that complements my degree. I would like to know what you guys think is a good starting point. I am hoping to just update my dice.com profile and roll with that.

Ryuksapple84

-DeXteR- wrote: »

Any suggestions for the guy whose gonna give his CCNA this month end

To pass the test, make sure you can subnet within 20-25 seconds and be able to configure VTY... switchport security, OSPF, EIGRP, Static routes, NAT and ACLS/Extended ACLS.

If you are going to 2 exam route, then just make sure you can subnet, know the OSI layers and functions as well as the TCP/IP Stack and how to configure a banner, VTY and all that. I thought the first exam was not that hard. I had problems with the second exam.

Cheers

j-man

Congrats!

-DeXteR-

Ryuksapple84 wrote: »

To pass the test, make sure you can subnet within 20-25 seconds and be able to configure VTY... switchport security, OSPF, EIGRP, Static routes, NAT and ACLS/Extended ACLS.

If you are going to 2 exam route, then just make sure you can subnet, know the OSI layers and functions as well as the TCP/IP Stack and how to configure a banner, VTY and all that. I thought the first exam was not that hard. I had problems with the second exam.

Cheers

Thanks!

Well i'm going for direct CCNA exam track . Finished todd lammhle . Going through Odoom books now . Finding wan Topics hard though !! Still got loads to do on the lab front

Ryuksapple84

-DeXteR- wrote: »

Thanks!

Well i'm going for direct CCNA exam track . Finished todd lammhle . Going through Odoom books now . Finding wan Topics hard though !! Still got loads to do on the lab front

yeah have your WAN topics down and have Frame Relay down as well. I just looked at as many NMBA topologies as I could. heavy emphasis on NAT and Extended ACLs and you will see some questions on wireless as well