Cisco Certification: CCNA Certifcation FAQ

Monday, September 1st, 2008

When you start your CCNA studies, a lot of questions come to mind! Here are the five most common questions CCNA candidates have, answered by Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933.
Q. What exams do I have to take to get my CCNA?
A. The CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification offers two paths. You can take the [...]

Cisco CCNA Certification Exam Tutorial: Configuring And Troubleshooting VTP

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Not only is your CCNA exam going to have questions on VLAN trunking protocol, almost any network that has more than one VLAN is going to have VTP running. Whether you’re planning on passing the CCNA exam or just brushing up on your networking skills, this VTP tutorial will help you learn the [...]

Passing The CCNA and CCNP: Home Lab Shopping On Ebay

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

Whether you’re just getting ideas for your Cisco home lab or adding to your existing lab, ebay is a great place to get ideas for your lab as well as pick up some great bargains.
Of course, the internet being what it is, there are always going to be a few people looking to take your [...]

Cisco CCNA Certification: How And Why Switches Trunk

Friday, August 1st, 2008

Your CCNA studies are going to include quite a bit of information about switches, and for good reason. if you don’t understand basic switching theory, you can’t configure and troubleshoot Cisco switches, either on the CCNA exam or in the real world. That goes double for trunking!
Trunking is simply enabling two or more switches to [...]

Cisco CCNA Certification: Cisco Switching Modes Tutorial

Friday, August 1st, 2008

To pass the CCNA exam and earn that coveted certification, you’ve got to know Cisco switches inside and out. Among the many important details you’ve got to know are the three methods that Cisco switches use to forward frames, and the differences between the three.
The first switching method is Store-and-Forward. The name is [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Changing The Active Router In HSRP

Friday, August 1st, 2008

To pass the BCMSN exam and earn your CCNP certification, you’ve got to know HSRP inside and out. While the operation and basic commands of HSRP are pretty simple, there are some important details that are easily overlooked but are vital in getting HSRP to work the way you want it to. Let’s take [...]

Cisco CCNP / BCSI Exam Tutorial: Configuring EIGRP Packet Authentication

Friday, August 1st, 2008

Configuring RIPv2 and EIGRP authentication with key chains can be tricky at first, and the syntax isn’t exactly easy to remember. But for BSCI and CCNP exam success, we’ve got to be able to perform this task.
In a previous tutorial, we saw how to configure RIPv2 packet authentication, with both clear-text and MD5 authentication schemes. [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: BGP Route Reflector Tutorial

Friday, August 1st, 2008

When you’re studying for your BSCI exam and CCNP certification, you quickly realize that BGP is a whole new world from anything you’ve previously studies. One topic that sometimes confuses CCNP candidates is when a BGP route reflector needs to be configured.
In the following example, the routers R1, R2, and R3 are all in [...]

Cisco Certification: Learning To Navigate Cisco’s Online Documentation

Friday, August 1st, 2008

When studying for your Cisco CCNA, CCNP, or CCIE exam, you’ve got a powerful online weapon at your disposal. It’s Cisco Connection Documentation, found at .cisco.com/univercd. This site contains product, code, and protocol documentation for all Cisco products.
Many exam candidates really don’t start using this powerful tool until they’re studying for their more [...]

Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Password Recovery Procedures

Friday, August 1st, 2008

It might happen on your CCNA exam, it might happen on your production network - but sooner or later, you’re going to have to perform password recovery on a Cisco router or switch. This involves manipulating the router’s configuration register, and that is enough to make some CCNA candidates and network administrators really nervous!
It’s [...]