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 / 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 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 [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Labs: Developing Troubleshooting Skills

Friday, August 1st, 2008

CCNA / CCNP candidates are going to be drilled by Cisco when it comes to troubleshooting questions. You’re going to have to be able to analyze configurations to see what the problem is (and if there is a problem in the first place), determine the meaning of different debug outputs, and show the ability [...]

Cisco Certification: Recertifying Your CCNA and CCNP

Friday, August 1st, 2008

Once you get your CCNA and CCNP, you can’t just rest on your accomplishment. You’ve got to continue to study and add to your skill set - and then prove to Cisco you’ve been doing just that by recertifying.
Recertification sounds like a pain, but it’s actually one of the best things to ever happen to [...]

Cisco CCNP Certification: Using The BGP Command

Friday, August 1st, 2008

When you start preparing for your CCNP exam, particularly the BSCI exam, you’re introduced to Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) configurations. BGP is unlike any protocol you learned during your CCNA studies, and even the similarities are a little bit different!
BGP forms neighbor relationships, much like EIGRP and OSPF do. The interesting thing with BGP is [...]

Cisco CCNP Certification FAQ

Monday, July 7th, 2008

To earn your CCNP, you’ve got to pass some very rigorous Cisco exams, and you also need to know the rules regarding this important certification. In this article, I’ll answer some of the most commonly asked questions regarding the CCNP.
Q: What exams do I need to pass to get my CCNP?
A: You [...]

Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

The Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) sure looks simple enough, but there are quite a few details to know for success on the CCNA exam. In your CCNP studies, you’ll be introduced to additional uses for CDP, but for now it’s enough to know that CDP is designed to give you information regarding directly connected [...]