At 11:13 AM 5/14/01 -0400, Steven Wagner wrote:
>2000 servers. I have a decent knowledge of networking concepts like DNS,
>TCP/IP, and the like. The problem is that I have very limited exposure to
Do you really understand TCP/IP? It is fairly complicated and many people
easily say they understand it, but you need to really know it inside
out. (Sorry if you do know it well, just it's a big "gotcha" for new guys).
CIDR, Subnetting against any bit boundary, (Does w.x.y.z/28 mean anything
to you? Which ips are network address and the broadcast? How many valid
hosts can you have?) TCP flow control mechanisms, differences between UDP,
TCP, and RAW packets (basically using their own protocol as opposed to tcp
or udp), multicasting. Understanding how TCP functions, aka three way
handshake, functionality of all the different flags (SYN, ACK, FIN, PUSH,
URG), ip fragmentation, and quite a bit more. Understanding the OSI model
helps a lot too. If the stuff I mentioned is pretty easy for you to
understand, you probably have a good handle on it. If not, sorry to say,
you probably do not have a good handle on it and failure to understand
those mentioned before is going to bite you in the butt hard for the higher
end certifications like the CCIE. To get up to speed on it, a good book on
it is
TCP/IP Illustrated Vol. 1 by Stevens.
Of course that is the icing on the cake. Routing protocols in themselves
will add more issues to learn and worry about. I believe for the CCNA you
only need to understand RIP and IGRP.
>routers, switches and all the juicy stuff you need to know to have a solid
>foot in Cisco technology. I am sure that almost everyone starts where I am
>when they begin to want to work on that coveted CCNA certification. So I
>guess my question is this...where do I realistically start to get myself
>decent knowledge of the material? Step by step ideas would be most
>appreciated as I
The CCNA is the entry level certification in the Cisco world. It is
generally about basic network concepts and how to configure a Cisco router
and switch. Do not take my word for it though, the requirements are listed
on the webpage.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/10/wwtraining/certprog/testing/current_exams/640-507.html
In the end, you really have to understand IP, since that is the primary
glue of the entire Cisco empire. Double that with routing protocol
behavior and Layer 2 behavior. (much easier said than done).
>want to take this as seriously as I can. As follow up questions, what books
>are best to get to learn? What hardware should I consider buying to get
>started on the studies? Any help I can get will be invaluable and I thank
>you in advance. Any opinions on my MCSE evaluation are also welcome. I do
>not mean to minimize the value of MCSE, I just think that once you get your
>CCNA, your MCSE looses alot of its power on your resume. Thanks for the
>forthcoming responses.
>
>Steven Wagner
I have nothing against people with certifications. I just care if they
really understand their material, with or without the paper backing them
up. Not sure if you can really equate the CCNA against the MCSE, it is
somewhat like apples and oranges. One is geared towards routing and
switching, the other is geared towards systems administration of Windows
machines. They know a bit about each other (understanding some host
behavior is always a good thing that network admins should know, and MCSEs
understanding their own transport/network protocol behavior is always a
good thing to know), but for the most part, I do not see them competing
against the same space, hence, why would the MCSE lose more power if they
are placed hand in hand with each other?
-Carroll Kong
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