Im taking the CCNA class currently and the Network+ in a month. What can you tell me about these tests, warnings, lessons learned, what to expect? Any advice aside from study my tail off? Will the network+ test be as tricky as A+? as in CompTIA trying to get me?

A+ was tricky for you? not to sound like a dick but you may have some problems with CCNA then. the test questions are some of the trickiest ive ever seen. i have 7yrs experience in the field and held 2 previous incarnations of the CCNA and i will tell you....this new CCNA test is a ball breaker. seriously. i failed it twice after intensive prep before i passed it.

i wouldnt waste the money on Net+, its not what it used to be and no one really respects it anymore. if you are coming into the field with certs and no experience then it might help you  but if you have 3+ years of networking you wont learn anything from it.

good luck.

I never bothered with the Network+. It's not really respected by anybody, that I'm aware of. Don't waste your time. The CCNA is your stepping stone towards your CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, etc. Don't stop there.

When I was studying for my CCNA, I started with the Cisco Press books. I didn't have alot of experience at the time, and I suffered as a result. I didn't even bother attempting the tests, because I knew I wasn't ready. I then purchased the Sybex book. Perfect! Many of the example questions were quite similar to those on the actual exams. The included simulator was pretty handy (you will have simulator questions). The book covered everything I needed for the exam - there were no suprises. I passed with a near perfect score.

I've never taken a certification class for any of my certs. Ever. The Cisco Press books were given to me, and the Sybex book was like 50 bucks. I tend to be more impressed with people who self study. It shows drive and motivation. If you're really ready for this line of work, you should be capable of studying for certifications on your own, without a class. If you need to be led by an instructor for these lower-tier certs, you are probably not cut out to be a network engineer. Guys who need a little supplemental training while studying for their CCIE lab are a noted exception.

Hope that helps!

i took some ccna lases, its easy except for all the math, that i suck at.. so i never took my test.

I second the Sybex book recommendation.    Everybody I know that has cisco certs used the sybex book for ccna,  then cisco press for ccnp,ccsp,etc...   Read the book cover to cover once,  I recommend doing it in parts.   Then go through it again taking notes and going over test questions.   The flash cards and practice exams on it are pretty good,  albeit way easier than the test itself.  

What is on the test varies depending on when you take it.  My test had a lot of OSPF questions that I wasn't expecting.  Our intern  just took it a few weeks ago and OSPF was only in 1 question.    The key things are to know the 7 layers, subnetting and your basic configs.    Be sure to be ready for the simulation questions, as they are worth more and can make or break you   (show run is your friend).

However, if you thought A+ was tricky,   you better bring some KY to the testing center for the CCNA.

Quoted: A+ was tricky for you? not to sound like a dick but you may have some problems with CCNA then. the test questions are some of the trickiest ive ever seen. i have 7yrs experience in the field and held 2 previous incarnations of the CCNA and i will tell you....this new CCNA test is a ball breaker. seriously. i failed it twice after intensive prep before i passed it. i wouldnt waste the money on Net+, its not what it used to be and no one really respects it anymore. if you are coming into the field with certs and no experience then it might help you  but if you have 3+ years of networking you wont learn anything from it. good luck.

The A+ core hardware exam seemed to have just as many "opinion" questions. Or questions where they were using wording to try and foul you up. I have experience with the hardware and basic OS but the test seemed to focus on the the unimportant nagging details. Im taking the OS portion in a week and a half.

As for the CCIE and network engineer, thats not my career goal and I dont particularly care. Im hoping to be an entry level network technician/pc support technician. This is not a career goal for the rest of my life but for the time being. And judging from your responses Im guessing I should wait until after Network+ until I take my CCNA because Ive already paid for both classes. There is a possibility though of me switching my Network+ class for I think its 2273? Administrating Windows xp/2003 environment or something like that.  Seem a bit more useful?

If I was looking for a new hire for my group, the fact that you have a CCNA would pretty much eliminate my caring whether you have a Network+ cert.  It supercedes the Net+ much like a MCSE supercedes a MCP or a CNE supercedes a CNA.  So, that said:  The CCNA is a bitch.  The material isn't particularly hard or challenging, but it covers an awful lot of ground.  I took it before they changed it to 2 tests.  I don't think I've ever had to study quite so much total material for one test.  The new split test format should be much easier.

I would recommend CCNA, maybe CCDA right afterwards as there is a lot of duplicated material so you'll already be up to speed on 60% of the stuff from the CCNA studying, and the CCDA is somewhat uncommon therefore it stands out on a resume.  Then the MCSE and so forth.

Futuristic
CNE, MCSE, CCNA, PP-ASEL

Your use of the term "PC nerds" may turn off some of us that are in this as a profession.

Do you want to become a member of Best Buy's Geek Squad?

If you can work on PC's, getting certified by HP/IBM/Dell would make you more profitable to a prospective employer, rather than a paper CCNA

At least they can get the warranty dollars from the big 3, if they are an ASP.

But what do I know.....

MCSE NT4.0/2000, CCNA, CCNP, A+, Toshiba, Compaq

We have been seeking candidates with CCNA and it's kind of tough to find them, at least with a current certification.  Network+ doesn't do much for us.  We are a Cisco-centric shop and would like our candidates to have some specific hands on with the Cisco products.

So, has anyone attempted the CCIE lab lately?

Net + =not needed
CCNA = Not the easiest test, to say the least . Study- Study- Study

Quoted: Your use of the term "PC nerds" may turn off some of us that are in this as a profession. Do you want to become a member of Best Buy's Geek Squad? If you can work on PC's, getting certified by HP/IBM/Dell would make you more profitable to a prospective employer, rather than a paper CCNA At least they can get the warranty dollars from the big 3, if they are an ASP. But what do I know..... MCSE NT4.0/2000, CCNA, CCNP, A+, Toshiba, Compaq

If your offended easily, or misunderstanding me. I am a nerd, and it will be for now a profession as I have owned my own DBA doing pc support for customers as a side job while in college - not that its all that big but im simply trying to get you to understand i am part of the pc community. Love pcs, love networking etc. Its meant to get attention from people like you to stop, read, and post a helpful reply. Anyways, I just talked to my sales guy and im switching the Network+ to the 2273 section of MCSE. That way I'll have managing and administrating a server 2003 environment. Working for a big 3 doing troubleshooting or working on their stuff would be a nice quick fix, but shreveport i dont think has one of those warehouses. And no Im not planning at Best Buy...read my last post.  Anyways, i found out that the first test of the two test system is apparently not required, a pretest test, and not necessary to waste money on. Thanks for the help guys, I'll be studying a whoooole lot once this week is up.

Gettin 'er done!

As a general thing, most of the certification tests I've taken have all had trick questions.  You have several choices, all of which might look good.

Don't fool yourself into thinking, "well, under some circumstances, that might be true."  You have to know their dogma cold and regurgitate it on demand.

Quoted: As a general thing, most of the certification tests I've taken have all had trick questions.  You have several choices, all of which might look good. Don't fool yourself into thinking, "well, under some circumstances, that might be true."  You have to know their dogma cold and regurgitate it on demand.

Yea and thats the problem i was running into with A+. I was warned about wrong information on different brands of study materials, and I think thats what happened. Something I knew to be right or wrong i was finding the opposite on some study materials. It's gay! But I passed so Im cool now. I just hope the CCNA has al ittle better quality control on its materials. Im going to buy that book the others recommended

How you guys have the drive to continue to take all of these tests is beyond me.

I'm in computer adminstration/enginnering but I need to get out, how are you supposed to be secure about your job when you can experience 30 years of change in your job within just 5 years?

Do you really think you'll be able to keep that up for 20-30 years?

This type of work cycles older people out and cycles newer people in, I can't even see myself doing this in 10 years, who knows where things will be at.

Tough to plan a future that way.

Quoted: We have been seeking candidates with CCNA and it's kind of tough to find them, at least with a current certification.  Network+ doesn't do much for us.  We are a Cisco-centric shop and would like our candidates to have some specific hands on with the Cisco products. So, has anyone attempted the CCIE lab lately?

I have been told by many folks that the CCIE is perhaps the hardest certification in Information Technology to get .But if you get it you can pretty much write your own check. $$$ Cha-ching $$$

guess Ill be staying poor and stoopid...

CCNA is easy if you can subnet in your head. If you are going to take the Microsoft test for 2003 that is equivalent to the windows 2000 infrastructure exam, pack a lunch buddy. You just bit off a big piece of a shit sandwich.

Quoted: Quoted: Your use of the term "PC nerds" may turn off some of us that are in this as a profession. Do you want to become a member of Best Buy's Geek Squad? If you can work on PC's, getting certified by HP/IBM/Dell would make you more profitable to a prospective employer, rather than a paper CCNA At least they can get the warranty dollars from the big 3, if they are an ASP. But what do I know..... MCSE NT4.0/2000, CCNA, CCNP, A+, Toshiba, Compaq If your offended easily, or misunderstanding me. I am a nerd, and it will be for now a profession as I have owned my own DBA doing pc support for customers as a side job while in college - not that its all that big but im simply trying to get you to understand i am part of the pc community. Love pcs, love networking etc. Its meant to get attention from people like you to stop, read, and post a helpful reply. Anyways, I just talked to my sales guy and im switching the Network+ to the 2273 section of MCSE. That way I'll have managing and administrating a server 2003 environment. Working for a big 3 doing troubleshooting or working on their stuff would be a nice quick fix, but shreveport i dont think has one of those warehouses. And no Im not planning at Best Buy...read my last post.  Anyways, i found out that the first test of the two test system is apparently not required, a pretest test, and not necessary to waste money on. Thanks for the help guys, I'll be studying a whoooole lot once this week is up. Gettin 'er done!

Good luck,

The CCNA test was easier than the 4 tests for CCNP, but it can be done without a school.

Work hard on the 7 layers and subnetting. Then the IOS. If you are real familiar with the rest you will make it through.

Thank you sir for the vote of confidence

I am currently studying for my CCNA, RHCE, and SSCP at the moment. Using the sybex CCNA textbook is so much easier than reading any crap from Cisco. I swear, they must have a friggen robot writing Cisco documentation. The release notes I have to read for several of our Cisco Guard XT 5650s is like reading a dictionary. Good luck dude!

Only real reason I'm doing these tests is money incentive from the company I work with, otherwise I wouldn't really care how many letters come before my name. The company I work for is not only paying for the tests I pass, but is also paying for the literature and is even giving us a free 14 week RHCE 2 hour study class that I get to go to once per week during work! If I pass these 3 tests they'll tack on 8k more a year. W00T!

I love my job.

I took the CCDA first and it was harder than CCNA, had no problem with CCNA.  When I took it, Cisco gave me couple of CD-ROMs and a book, a lot of material to cover is right, problem was I didn't know what to concentrate on so I did everything

The CCDA test also asked questions completely not found on the CDs and the book, I passed it on the 4th try because I called up Cisco to bitch and ask for the answers after I failed.

I remember the CCDA exam much better because I had to take it so many times, after that I took the CCNA which came easy.  The book and CDs say there's no one right answer in designing a network, which I wholly agree.  But in the exam you bet yer ass there's only ONE right answer to the question  It also asked stupid questions like what product you'd reocmmend, given the requirements.  Which means you need to know the Cisco product line, hell I'd sooner look it up instead of memorizing every fucking one of them, totally useless.

But I learned things that to this day still help me in troubleshooting and network design.  The OSI 7 layer stuff I considered pretty useless, and I was right, unless you're writing network codes, it's of little use in the real world IMHO.

I took my CCIE written a few years ago, and took the lab about 6 months after that.  I came close to passing but not close enough.   After that I just ran out of time to devote to the practice labs, not to mention the costs of taking the practical several times.

Frankly I'm getting burned out on certs, and on technology in general.  All my certs have expired and I'm not sure I'm going to renew them.

Former MCSE, CNE, CCNP, CCDP, IBM PSE

Quoted: How you guys have the drive to continue to take all of these tests is beyond me.

For me, the answer is simple. It's what I love to do, and it's the only thing I'm extremely good at. I've been in IT for 8 years (I'm 26). In that time, I've had to change quite a bit. I started off fixing PC's in a small shop. After a while, I started doing it on site. Then, I stopped servicing anything other than business PC's onsite. Being a simple PC tech lost it's alure (and profitability), so I got into networking. After I grew tired of handling networking projects for a bazillion different customers, I started working as an in-house sysadmin. After growing tired of seeing the same problems everyday (and watching my skills become stale), I went back into consulting. After discovering that many companies prefer to handle most of the networking projects in-house nowdays, and that being a stright network engineer doesn't pay as much as it used to, I got into IP telephony. So now I drink the Cisco AVVID Kool-Aid.

Every job and opportunity has been better and more rewarding than the last. I've been fortunate enough to have been exposed to more technologies and problems than I ever thought possible. It's fun. I'm proud of the perspective and depth of knowlege it's given me.

Doing nothing but voice is the coolest gig ever. I don't have nearly the same headaches as a regular consultant. I just design the solution, implement it, and move on to the next project. It keeps things interesting. We've got IP Telephony implementations down to a fine science. We've done so many, we can accurately plan a complex 3000 phone multi-site deployment down to the day (and deliver on it!). Best yet, not very many people know voice yet, so it remains a valuable (and well compensated) skill.

I guess you could say I improvise, adapt and overcome. I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think it'll ever get old. I'll continue getting whatever certification is needed to allow me to continue doing what I love.

Quoted: Quoted: How you guys have the drive to continue to take all of these tests is beyond me. For me, the answer is simple. It's what I love to do, and it's the only thing I'm extremely good at. I've been in IT for 8 years (I'm 26). In that time, I've had to change quite a bit. I started off fixing PC's in a small shop. After a while, I started doing it on site. Then, I stopped servicing anything other than business PC's onsite. Being a simple PC tech lost it's alure (and profitability), so I got into networking. After I grew tired of handling networking projects for a bazillion different customers, I started working as an in-house sysadmin. After growing tired of seeing the same problems everyday (and watching my skills become stale), I went back into consulting. After discovering that many companies prefer to handle most of the networking projects in-house nowdays, and that being a stright network engineer doesn't pay as much as it used to, I got into IP telephony. So now I drink the Cisco AVVID Kool-Aid. Every job and opportunity has been better and more rewarding than the last. I've been fortunate enough to have been exposed to more technologies and problems than I ever thought possible. It's fun. I'm proud of the perspective and depth of knowlege it's given me. Doing nothing but voice is the coolest gig ever. I don't have nearly the same headaches as a regular consultant. I just design the solution, implement it, and move on to the next project. It keeps things interesting. We've got IP Telephony implementations down to a fine science. We've done so many, we can accurately plan a complex 3000 phone multi-site deployment down to the day (and deliver on it!). Best yet, not very many people know voice yet, so it remains a valuable (and well compensated) skill. I guess you could say I improvise, adapt and overcome. I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think it'll ever get old. I'll continue getting whatever certification is needed to allow me to continue doing what I love.

You sound EXACTLY like me(even the age).

I'm still in the consulting/networking stage.

I keep telling myself I need to get into a specific area if I'm realisitic about staying in computers.
My boss just keeps tempting me with raises and it keeps me.

I really don't have the love for computers like I used to, that's pretty cool your able to keep up your motivation like that, I just don't have the drive.

If I can find a gig like you have I would stay. Setting up a project, getting paid and moving on to the next sounds almost too good to be true.