What Certification Should You Pursue After The CCNA ?

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Once you’ve got your CCNA, you’re ready to move on to the next level, the Professional certifications. For years, Cisco had one Professional certification, the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification. Over time, Cisco has expanded this level of certifications to include the Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP) and Cisco Certified Voice Professional (CCVP).
With security [...]

Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: How To Spend Your Study Time

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

To pass the CCNA exam, you’ve got to create a study plan. Part of that plan is scheduling your study time, and making that study time count.
You’ve scheduled your exam you’ve created a document to track your study time you’ve planned exactly when you’re going to study. Now the plan must be carried out, without [...]

Cisco CCNA Certification: Error Detection vs. Error Recovery

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Passing the CCNA, Intro, and ICND exam is all about knowing and noticing the details. (Which makes perfect sense, since becoming a master networking administrator or engineer is also about noticing the details!) One such detail knows the difference between error detection and error recovery. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, [...]

Passing The CCNA And CCNP: Cisco Home Lab FAQ

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

There is a real revolution today among CCNA and CCNP candidates. More and more of you are turning your back on “router simulators” and putting your own CCNA and/or CCNP Home Lab together, which is the best way to totally prepare to pass these tough Cisco exams.
I get hundreds of emails every month from [...]

Cisco CCNA Certification: Broadcasts, Unicasts, And Multicasts

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

When you begin your CCNA studies, you get hit with a lot of different networking terms right away that you might not be familiar with. What makes it a little more confusing is that a lot of these terms sound a lot alike. Here, we’re going to discuss the differences between broadcasts, multicasts, and unicasts [...]

Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Using Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

One of the first things you do when you start studying for the CCNA exam is memorizing a list of port numbers and the protocols that run on those ports. If you’re an experienced networker, you know most of the protocols that are mentioned - DNS, DHCP, FTP, SMTP, and so on. But there’s one [...]

CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: The VLAN.DAT File

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

CCNA and CCNP candidates who have their own Cisco home labs often email me about an odd situation that occurs when they erase a switch’s configuration. Their startup configuration is gone, as they expect, but the VLAN and VTP information is still there!
Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Let’s look at an example. [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam: Attending A Video Boot Camp

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

When you’re studying for the CCNA and CCNP exams, you’ve got a lot of different choices when it comes to training. One popular choice is choosing one of the many “boot camps” and five-day in-person courses that are out there. I’ve taught quite a few of these, and while many of them [...]

Passing Cisco CCNA And CCNP Exams: Ping And Extended Ping

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

I often tell CCNA and CCNP candidates that you do your best learning when you screw something up. I often get a funny look right after I say that, but the only way to develop your Cisco troubleshooting skills - the skills you’ll need to pass your Intro, ICND, and CCNP exams - is [...]

Passing Cisco’s CCNA and CCNP Exams: Five Tips For Exam Day Success

Monday, September 8th, 2008

As you get ready to pass the CCNA or CCNP exams, you can feel quite a bit of stress as you enter your last week of study. Let’s take a look at a few ways to reduce that stress.
1. Do not stay up late cramming. The CCNA and CCNP are not exams you’re going to [...]