 Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933  |
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| Article Title :: Cisco Certification: The Importance Of Building Your Own Home Lab |
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| CCNAs and CCNA candidates hear it all the time: “Get some hands-on experience”. From my personal experience climbing the Cisco certification ladder, I can tell you firsthand that there is no learning like hands-on learning. No simulator in the world is going to give you the experience you will get cabling and configuring your own routers.
Whenever I mention this to one of my students, they always say it costs too much. The truth is, it is cheaper now to build your own CCNA and CCNP lab than it has ever been. The secret? Used routers.
The word “used” turns off a lot of people not many of us buy used computers or used servers. Cisco routers, though, ar (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: Cisco Certification: Don't Depend On Practice Exams |
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| Ask a CCNA candidate how theyÂ’re preparing for exam day, and youÂ’ll get different answers. Different books, different websites, different practice exams.
One trend IÂ’ve noticed is that some candidates answer the question by reeling off the number and names of the practice exams theyÂ’ve purchased. Basically, the candidate is studying by taking a lot of practice exams. And in some cases, I mean a lot of them.
The intent of this article isn’t to slam practice exams. I do want to address this trend among Cisco certification candidates of purchasing as many practice exams as they can find, attempting to pass the CCNA exam by “brute forcing” i (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: Cisco Certification: Don't Overreact To Exam Version Changes |
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| Whenever a Cisco exam version changes, there's always a lot of chatter about it on the web. The CCNA exams are no exception.
One comment I see often goes like this: " I hear Cisco is going to change Intro / ICND / CCNA exam versions soon, so I'm not going to start studying yet. I'll wait until the new exam comes out."
Do not let this happen to you.
While some large publishers would have you think these exams change tremendously from one version to another ("updated for the latest exams!"), the simple fact is that the Intro, ICND, and CCNA Composite exams simply don't change much from version to version.
Sure, the questions change. The only (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: Cisco Certification: Putting Together Your Own Home Practice Lab |
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| CCNA and CCNP candidates hear it all the time: “Get some hands-on experience”. From my personal experience climbing the Cisco certification ladder, I can tell you firsthand that there is no learning like hands-on learning. No simulator in the world is going to give you the experience you will get cabling and configuring your own routers.
Whenever I mention this to one of my students, they always say it costs too much. The truth is, it is cheaper now to build your own CCNA and CCNP lab than it has ever been. The secret? Used routers.
The word “used” turns off a lot of people not many of us buy used computers or used servers. Cisco routers, though, are (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: What To Expect When Taking Your First Cisco Certification Exam |
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| Cisco Certification: Taking Your First Certification Exam
YouÂ’ve studied hard youÂ’ve practiced your configurations youÂ’ve used your flash cards over and over again and finally, the big day is here. Your first certification exam!
For many Cisco certification candidates, their first exam is the CCNA Composite exam or one of the two exams that make up the CCNA, the Introduction To Networking exam or the ICND (Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices) exam.
Walking into a testing center for the first time can be a nerve-wracking experience. YouÂ’ve got enough on your mind just keeping all that new information straight without worrying about (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: Cisco Certification: A Survival Guide To The Cisco Cable Jungle |
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| One of the most confusing parts of beginning your Cisco studies is keeping all the cable types separate in your mind, and then remembering what theyÂ’re used for. This often occurs when a CCNA or CCNP candidate starts putting together their own home practice lab, and they suddenly realize that they have the equipment to run labs, but not the cables.
With this in mind, here are some common Cisco cable types and their primary use.
First, there’s the regular old “straight-through cable”, so named because the eight wires inside the cable go straight through the wire. While the wires may be twisted inside to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI), the w (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: FIve Questions To Ask Before Attending A Computer Tech School |
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| As with any field, there are good technical training schools, and bad ones. When you sign up with one of these schools, youÂ’ve made a significant investment in time and money. You deserve to know everything about the school and your job prospects after leaving that school before you put down your hard-earned money. The problem is, sometimes itÂ’s hard to know the right questions to ask.
The point of this article is not to bash technical training schools. That’s how I got my start in IT eight years ago, and today I’m a CCIE™ and own my own Cisco training company and my own consulting firm.
Before I ever put down the first dime, though, I asked som (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: Cisco CCNA Certification: The Importance Of Hands-On Practice |
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| CCNA and CCNP candidates hear it all the time: “you have to get some hands-on experience to pass the exams”.
Candidates tend to think thatÂ’s just so they can solve the simulator problems, but thatÂ’s only the more obvious reason.
First, I want to make it clear that IÂ’m not bashing learning from books you have to learn theory before you can really know whatÂ’s going on in the first place. The key is that to truly understand routing and switching processes, youÂ’ve got to have that hands-on experience.
So if the simulator questions are the more obvious reason to get hands-on experience, what are the less obvious reasons?
(read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: Cisco CCNA Certification: The Importance Of The OSI Model |
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| There's nothing I enjoy more than teaching Cisco technologies, especially CCNA candidates. Whether it's in-person or online, everyone's excited to be there. There's a sense of anticipation in the air, and everyone is ready to work hard, get their hands on the racks of Cisco routers and switches I
have available...
... and then I break out the OSI model chart. Chins slump. People sigh, or at least wish they hadn't ordered decaf that morning.
Okay, it's not that bad. But it does temper the excitement a little. I always get a sense of "why can't we just hurry up and get on the routers and switches? Why do we have to learn this dry stuff?"
One reason (read full article) |
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| Category :: Computer Certification Articles |
Author :: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 |
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| Article Title :: The Hidden Benefit Of Computer Certifications |
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| The web is covered with stories regarding the benefits of professional computer certification, and most of them are backed up with salary surveys and the like. While thereÂ’s certainly nothing wrong with making more money and having better job prospects, thereÂ’s one benefit of certification that many candidates forget about.
Confidence.
You canÂ’t pay your rent with confidence you canÂ’t pay for gas with confidence you canÂ’t pay for ANYTHING with confidence, right? So who cares, right?
Wrong. The confidence you build from truly earning a certification, whether itÂ’s an MCSE, CCNA, or CCIE, cannot be purchased, borrowed, or stolen. It (read full article) |
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