CCNA Virtual Lab – You Need A Cisco Router Simulator For Your CCNA Exam
CCNA Virtual Lab – What Are The Alternatives?
Ever since Cisco introduced simulation type questions into the CCNA exam, having practical hands-on experience in Cisco IOS switch and router configuration has become extremely important. Not everybody can afford to set up a home or office Cisco lab to practice on.
One popular alternative in recent years has been to run CCNA virtual labs on dynamips which is definitely a viable and effective solution. However this requires an IOS image which is not available to anybody who is not a Cisco customer already. In addition, dynamips requires a significant amount of processor power in order to run multiple routers as once and may not be a long term feasible solution.
Features of a CCNA Simulator
Because of this, Cisco router simulators are an essential product for anybody who is serious about passing the CCNA exam and does not have any access to the resources listed above. It is relatively low-cost and most are available for a little over $100 which is much less than what it would cost to set up a real lab. The simulator usually includes support for all the commands you will require to pass the CCNA exam as well as to configure and support a small sized network.
Another very useful aspect of the simulation is that the products usually are aligned with one of the CCNA books used for exam preparation and come with comprehensive scenarios that will enable you to practice the lab material in preparation for the actual exam.
The 2 most popular products are the CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator (Practical Studies) simulator which is the perfect companion to the CCNA Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (Exam Certification Guide) by Cisco Press and the CCNA Virtual Lab, Titanium Edition 2.0: (Exam 640-802) simulator, which is the perfect companion to the CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide: Exam 640-802 by Sybex CCNA certification book.
If you are serious about the CCNA education, you need to get one of the above CCNA virtual labs to kick-start your CCNA career.
P.S. The CCNA Virtual Lab, Titanium Edition 2.0: (Exam 640-802) simulator is available from Amazon.
Cheers,
Francis (@savvynetcert)
CCNA Career – Why You Should Think About The CCNA Voice Certification
by abpalancajr on
in ccna career
CCNA Voice Certification – What Is It?
The CCNA Voice certification is a relatively new Cisco certification in the market, and was introduced together with the rest of the new CCNA specializations (CCNA Security and CCNA Wireless). Previously, to be Cisco certified in Cisco voice technologies, you would take the CCNA to CCVP to CCIE (Voice) path. With the introduction of the CCNA Voice certification, you have to take the CCNA Voice exam before moving on to the professional level certification (CCVP). Passing the CCNA (Routing and Switching) exam is a pre-requisite for taking the CCNA (Voice) exam.
Why Specialize In Cisco Voice Technologies
Pursuing a Cisco Voice technology certification (or any other VoIP, IP-PBX certification) is one of the specializations you should consider. Many large companies and corporations are moving to IP-PBX technology for several reasons. IP-PBX and VoIP technology is considered superior to traditional PBX systems because they are cheaper, easier to maintain, has better cost controls in place and offer many other enhanced features (usually in the same package). It also provides increased infrastructure resiliency. From a market perspective, this market is set to grow strongly over the coming few years as companies look to reduce costs and also have better cost-control. All this means that it is definitely a good market niche within the networking world to go into.
In terms of market share, Cisco is currently one of the major 3 players in the IP-PBX market (the other 2 being Avaya and Nortel). Nortel filed for Chapter 11 bankrupty protection earlier this year so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. I believe that Cisco will leverage its position as the dominant player in the enterprise IP networking area to increase its market share for Cisco voice technologies.
How To Learn More About IP Voice Technologies
If you are interested in learning about Cisco voice technologies, or your employer is already deploying (or in the process of deploying) a Cisco IP-PBX, the logical way to do this would be to pursue the recommended certification and training path from Cisco. You’ll need to pass the CCNA exam first, which provides a foundation for the basic IP and ethernet technologies that an IP-PBX runs on. After that, you will be eligible to take the CCNA (Voice) exam, and from there, even pursue the CCVP and futher higher level Cisco certifications.
Think About Specialization In IP-PBX technologies
In today’s competitive marketplace and economy, it is important for your career to have a specialized skill set. In the technology job market (specifically the IT networking market), one of the choices would be Cisco voice technologies, which I believe is set to grow. If you don’t specialize, you might find yourself lagging behind your peers when they move ahead of you when the economy picks up.
P.S. Follow me on twitter (@savvynetcert) and subscribe to my RSS feed for the latest updates (I update regularly). Send me a message on twitter to let me know what you want to see on this blog!
Cheers,
Francis (@SavvyNetCert)
CCNA Career – What To Do After You Get Your CCNA Certificate
by abpalancajr on
in ccna career
CCNA Career – Why You Should Care
I’ve written many posts about Cisco IOS tips and tricks, as well as Cisco IOS commands. In this post, I’ll touch on CCNA career options for the CCNA network engineer. One thing that every network engineer should be thinking about is what to do after you get the Classic CCNA (I believe Cisco now calls this CCNA Routing and Switching in some places). Specialization is the name of the game here, as there is more and more market demand on specialized skill sets for CCNA network engineers (and beyond). The full list of certifications and training available for the various Cisco certifications can be found at the IT Certification and Career Paths on the Cisco website. It is important for you, as the new CCNA network engineer (or soon to be network engineer), to consider what to do after you obtain your CCNA certification, so as to enhance your career prospects.
Cisco Routing and Switching Certifications
The most popular path by far is to specialize in Cisco routing and switching. Network engineers considering this path usually take the following certifications (in order): CCNA (Routing and Switching), CCNP, CCIE (Routing And Switching). There are a few good reasons for this.
First off, the routing and switching path is the oldest certification path available for Cisco network engineers. The original CCIE certification and exam has evolved to become what is now known today as the CCIE (R&S) certification. In a way, it’s the easiest CCIE to get, simply because there are more study aids available for this certification. There are very well established written and practical (lab) certification preparation material. Outside of the study aids and certification preparation material available online, there are also various boot camps which many Cisco training partners organize in order to help candidates prepare for the exam.
If you are not intending to go up to the CCIE certification, just having the CCNP certification opens many doors. What you learn when doing the CCNP certification is really sufficient for you work effectively as a network engineer in many companies as the core routing and switching skills are highly applicable.
Another point is that many technologies are dependent on the network, if you think about it. Many web technologies and media running over the network are highly dependent on having a stable network (with stable routing and switching) in your network. This guarantees that there will always be market demand for core routing and switching skills.
Start considering today what you want to do after your CCNA, your career depends on it.
P.S. I created a handy chart comparing the various CCNA books. Click on the link to compare and buy now!
Cheers,
Francis (@SavvyNetCert)
Cisco IOS Commands – Show Command Filters (Part 2)
This is a continuation from the first part of this series on show command filters. Please read part 1 on show command filters if you haven’t already.
Cisco IOS Command – Section Filter
The section filter Cisco IOS command is only available in newer Cisco IOS versions but is very useful should you have it available. In older versions of Cisco IOS, if you wanted to view the EIGRP routing configuration, the fastest way is to run the “show run | b router eigrp” command, which would have the following output, with the unnecessary parts of the configuration shown as well.
Router#sh run | b eigrp 999
router eigrp 999
network 10.0.0.0
no auto-summary
eigrp router-id 10.0.1.1
!
ip forward-protocol nd
!
ip http server
no ip http secure-server
[Extra Lines Not Shown]
When you use the section filter, it only shows the EIGRP routing configuration, as below:
Router#sh run | s eigrp 999
router eigrp 999
network 10.0.0.0
no auto-summary
eigrp router-id 10.0.1.1
Router#
This is a great time saver, and is extremely useful especially if you need to troubleshoot and are pressed for time.
P.S. I created a handy chart comparing the various CCNA books. Click on the link to compare and buy now.
Cheers,
Francis (SavvyNetCert)
Cisco IOS Command Tip – How To Use Show Command Filters Effectively
by abpalancajr on
in Cisco IOS Commands
Cisco IOS Command Filters – Why You Need Them
For the beginning and CCNA network engineer, we spend a lot of time looking at the running configuration of the Cisco IOS router or switch. Filters are an extremely useful part of the Cisco IOS command line and every network engineer should be able to use them effectively as they save a lot of time when used properly. If you want to get your CCNA certification and be an effective network engineer, you should know this.
Ciso IOS Command Filters – Available In Cisco IOS
There are several show command filters for the Cisco IOS Command, which are usually used in conjunction with the “show run” and “show start” commands to view parts of the configuration.
Router#sh run | ?
append Append redirected output to URL (URLs supporting append operation
only)
begin Begin with the line that matches
exclude Exclude lines that match
include Include lines that match
redirect Redirect output to URL
section Filter a section of output
tee Copy output to URL
The most common filters to use with this Cisco IOS command are include and exclude, which return only the lines of the configuration which contain the specified word. For example,
Router#sh run | i interface
interface FastEthernet0/0
interface FastEthernet0/1
A more interesting use of this Cisco command would be to combine the filters, like as follows.
Router>sh ip nat trans | i Pro|15.0.0.1
Pro Inside global Inside local Outside local Outside global
--- 15.0.0.1 192.168.10.1 --- ---
Router>
In the above Cisco IOS command example, this is used to show both the header row as well as filter for a particular address in the NAT translation status output.
To Be Continued…
In a 2nd part of this post, I’ll be writing about the section filter. Do subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss it.
Cheers,
Francis (@SavvyNetCert)
Cisco IOS Command Tip – A Quick Way to Wipe The Cisco Router Configuration For Your CCNA Lab
by abpalancajr on
in Cisco IOS Commands
Very often when you are practicing for the CCNA exam in your home lab, you may want to reset the configuration to the “factory” state in order to reconfigure it from scratch. This is an excellent way to practice as deployment tasks usually are done on fresh devices shipped from Cisco. I have a CCNA tip which will save you a lot of time.
One of the quickest Cisco IOS commands to do this is to issue the “wr erase” command which will remove the configuration. After that issue a “wr mem” and reload the router just to be sure. This will restore your CCNA Lab environment to the factory default. This is an extremely dangerous command, please do exercise caution if this is being done on a live network.
Router#wr erase
Erasing the nvram filesystem will remove all configuration files! Continue? [confirm]
[OK]
Erase of nvram: complete
Router#
There you have it, an extremely quick way to reset the router to factory configuration. Note that there is a caveat on Cisco Catalyst switch platforms, as this command does not wipe out the VLAN database (vlan.dat), which is stored on flash. You need to delete the file manually, if not upon reload, you might find that the VLANs are mysteriously still there.
Switch#delete vlan.dat
Delete filename [vlan.dat]?
Delete flash:vlan.dat? [confirm]
Switch#
I hope you found this useful. Please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on twitter (@savvynetcert).
Cheers,
Francis (@savvynetcert)
[Update 27 Jul 2009: Formatting for commands]
Cisco IOS Command Tip – Showing ACLs Applied On An Interface
ACLs are a very important topic for the CCNA exam and any CCNA network engineer needs to understand how to use them well. I’m not a big fan of doing “show run” when there alternative commands available, especially if they can be run without privileged access. I mentioned in a previous post about the 3 Command Line Habits a CCNA network engineer should have, and staying out of enable mode (unless necessary) is one of them.
One of the tasks we often need to do is to find out what ACLs are applied to an interface. Often many novice network engineers would do this:
Router#sh run int fa1/0
Building configuration...Current configuration : 137 bytes ! interface FastEthernet1/0 description External Link no switchport ip address 15.0.0.1 255.255.255.0 ip access-group MY-ACL in end
Showing the running configuration of an interface requires you to be in enable mode and what the router (or switch, as the case may be) will need to actually generate the runtime configuration and display it.
A faster way would be to do this (this may not work in older versions of IOS):
Router>sh ip int fa1/0
FastEthernet1/0 is up, line protocol is down
Internet address is 15.0.0.1/24
Broadcast address is 255.255.255.255
Address determined by setup command
MTU is 1500 bytes
Helper address is not set
Directed broadcast forwarding is disabled
Outgoing access list is not set
Inbound access list is MY-ACL
Of course, we are also able to view the ACL with the associated line numbers without entering privileged mode.
Router>sh ip access MY-ACL
Extended IP access list MY-ACL
10 permit ip 20.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 15.0.0.0 0.0.0.255
20 deny ip any any log
Router>
Hope that this has been a useful tip. Please help me by filling out this survey and letting know what you need to know. Please subscribe to my RSS feed so you won’t miss any new posts.
Cheers,
Francis (@savvynetcert)
Becoming a CCNA Network Engineer – 2 Paths to Your CCNA Career
CCNA Career Tip – Why Obtain the CCNA, Not Just the CCENT Certification
There are currently 2 ways to obtain the CCNA certification and to launch your CCNA network engineer career, the 1 exam (640-802 CCNA exam) or the 2 exam method (640-822 ICND1 and 640-816 ICND2). After passing the ICND1, you will become a certified CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician, which is considered by Cisco to be the new entry level networking certification for Cisco networking.
In reality, because the CCNA certification has been the entry-level Cisco networking certification for so long, most employers are familiar only with the CCNA certification (together with the CCNP and CCIE certifications), so it would be harder to get a job with just a CCENT certification. Because of this, I strongly recommend getting the CCNA instead of just the CCENT. After you have finished the CCNA certification, there are several other paths and specializations that have been introduced by Cisco, and they are summarized on the Cisco IT certification and career paths site.
How To Choose – 1 CCNA Exam or 2 ICND Exams
First off, there is no cost difference in going either route. The ICND1 and ICND2 exams cost $125 each, while the CCNA exam costs $250. Both ways will effectively give you the CCNA certification.
If you have prior experience with other networking certifications (e.g. Network+), and you are already somewhat familiar with the OSI model, basic routing and switch, IP addressing and subnetting, I would recommend studying for and attempting the 1 exam CCNA test just to get it over and done with. Personally, I took the 1 exam CCNA test and passed first time. I noticed that many of the questions required the combined knowledge of both the ICND1 and ICND2 sections of the CCNA exam syllabus, and for that reason, may be slightly more difficult.
If you are new to the IT industry, I would definitely recommend that you take the ICND1 and ICND2 papers separately to obtain your CCNA certification. IT networking is still quite a niche career choice when you consider that there are so many programmers in the IT industry as a whole. There are also many terms and concepts unique only to Cisco and networking. In order to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed, I encourage you to do the CCNA exam tests separately if you are new.
Don’t forget that there are many options for self-study material and plenty of help is always available if you are lost. Please see my post on CCNA books for more advice on CCNA preparation material. Above all, don’t be discouraged. The road to CCNA is long but rewarding.
P.S. I created a handy chart comparing the various CCNA books. Click on the link to compare and buy now.
Until next time,
Francis (@savvynetcert)
Cisco IOS Command Tips and Tricks – 3 Command Line Habits a CCNA Network Engineer Should Have
by abpalancajr on
in Cisco IOS Commands
Whether or not you’ve still in the process of CCNA preparation or are already working as a CCNA certified network engineer, it’s best to form good command line habits as early as possible. Even with many GUI configuration tools, most Cisco network engineers still spend a lot of time in the Cisco IOS command-line interface. For many tasks, it’s simply much faster to use the command-line. The below 3 habits and associated Cisco IOS commands are essential for any networks engineer. The earlier you start doing these, the better. A good place to start would be at your home lab (if you have one).
Always Save Your Configuration
After doing any configuration to the Cisco IOS router and switch, and verifying that the configuration change was good, the configuration should be saved to the startup configuration. Please note that (most) configuration changes take place almost immediately, however in case of power loss or in the rare event that your device crashes, you’ll want the device to have the latest configuration. The command used in most CCNA preparation books and CCNA materials is “copy running-configuration startup-configuration” or “copy run start” for short.
One extremely useful tip here is that the older command “wr” and “wr mem” almost always works and is much easier to type and to remember to do (see below). However please note that the “wr” commands are not available when you are attempting the actual CCNA test and are doing the simulation questions in the test.
Router#wr
Building configuration...
[OK]
Router#
Router#wr ?
core Write Core File
erase Erase NV memory
memory Write to NV memory
mib-data Write MIB persistence data to NV memory
network Write to network TFTP server
terminal Write to terminalRouter#wr
Always Backup Your Configuration
By backing up your configuration I mean to copy the running configuration off the network device. In terms of data redundancy you should always have a copy of the configuration somewhere else. The easiest way to do this is via TFTP. Various free TFTP servers are available for all platforms.
Stay Out of Enable Mode – Unless Necessary
All network engineers should be careful when entering privileged mode in the Cisco IOS command-line interface. One thing I have seen CCNA network engineers do is to make going into and staying in enable mode a habit. In my opinion, this is extremely dangerous as you are allowed to execute practically any command in privileged mode. A typical network engineer would be logged into several devices at once. To safeguard against the possibility that you accidentally copy and paste text (while in enable mode), you should make it a habit to exit enable mode once you are done executing any command that require that level of access. The command to do this is “disable“.
Router#
Router#enable
Router#disable
Router>
P.S. I created a handy chart comparing the various CCNA books. Click on the link to compare and buy now.
Cheers,
Francis (Twitter – @savvynetcert)
Cisco IOS Command Tip – Extremely Useful Show Interface Cisco IOS Commands
by abpalancajr on
in Cisco IOS Commands
To become an effective Cisco network engineer, it is extremely important to master Cisco IOS commands. Of these, the various show interface commands are the most commonly executed by any typical Cisco network engineer (at least those who know what they are doing!) If you work in an environment where speed is critical, this is even more important. When a network issue is reported, I’ll most likely use one of the below commands on the directly connected switch or router to do a basic check before looking at anything else.
show interface description
The sh int desc Cisco IOS command is the one i use most often on Cisco IOS whenever I need to do a quick check on router and switch interfaces. This command works on both routers and switches. It shows a summary of all the interfaces, their status (both physical and protocol) as well as the description. If you named the interfaces properly when setting this up, you can quickly identify if this is likely due to a cabling fault or perhaps something else. Below is a sample of the output. Please note that this command is undocumented (will not show up on the IOS contextual help) in many versions of IOS, however it does work on most of the IOS versions released in the past few years.
Router#sh int desc
Interface Status Protocol Description
Fa0/0 admin down down To Provider A
Fa0/1 admin down down To Provider B
Fa1/0 up down
Fa1/1 up down
show interface status
The sh int status command is another very useful Cisco IOS command. This shows the status (connected/notconnect), the VLAN, speed and duplex settings as well as type of switchport. This command only works on switchport interfaces (on Cisco Catalyst switches as well as switchport modules on Cisco routers). Very useful when you need to check if the VLAN has been configured correctly as well as whether there are any speed/duplex mismatch or other issues.
Router#sh int status
Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type
Fa1/0 notconnect 1 auto auto 10/100BaseTX
Fa1/1 notconnect 1 auto auto 10/100BaseTX
Fa1/2 notconnect 1 auto auto 10/100BaseTX
I hope you found this CCNA tip useful. Please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on twitter (@savvynetcert) for more CCNA tips and tricks and CCNA materials.
Cheers,
Francis (SavvyNetCert.Com)
