If you’ve picked up this book because you want to improve yourself and your life with a better, more satisfying, and secure job, you’ve done the right thing. Whether you’re striving to enter the thriving, dynamic IT sector or seeking to enhance your skill set and advance your position within it, being Cisco certified can seriously stack the odds in your favor to help you attain your goals!
Cisco certifications are powerful instruments of success that also markedly improve your grasp of all things internetworking. As you progress through this book, you’ll gain a complete understanding of networking that reaches far beyond Cisco devices. By the end of this book, you’ll comprehensively know how disparate network topologies and technologies work together to form the fully operational networks that are vital to today’s very way of life in the developed world. The knowledge and expertise you’ll gain here is essential for and relevant to every networking job and is why Cisco certifications are in such high demand – even at companies with few Cisco devices!
Although it’s now common knowledge that Cisco rules routing and switching, the fact that it also rocks the voice, data center, and service provider worlds is also well recognized. And Cisco certifications reach way beyond the popular but less extensive certifications like those offered by CompTIA and Microsoft to equip you with indispensable insight into today’s vastly complex networking realm. Essentially, by deciding to become Cisco certified, you’re proudly announcing that you want to become an unrivaled networking expert – a goal that this book will get you well on your way to achieving. Congratulations in advance on the beginning of your brilliant future!
Cisco’s Network Certifications
It used to be that to secure the holy grail of Cisco certifications – the CCIE – you passed only one written test before being faced with a grueling, formidable hands-on lab. This intensely daunting, all-or-nothing approach made it nearly impossible to succeed and predictably didn’t work out too well for most people. Cisco responded to this issue by creating a series of new certifications, which not only made it easier to eventually win the highly coveted CCIE prize, it gave employers a way to accurately rate and measure the skill levels of prospective and current employees. This exciting paradigm shift in Cisco’s certification path truly opened doors that few were allowed through before!
Beginning in 1998, obtaining the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification was the first milestone in the Cisco certification climb, as well as the official prerequisite to each of the more advanced levels. But that changed in 2007, when Cisco announced the Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician (CCENT) certification. And then in May 2016, Cisco once again proclaimed updates to the CCENT and CCNA Routing and Switching (R/S) tests. Now the Cisco certification process looks like Figure I.1
Figure I.1 The Cisco certification path
The Cisco R/S path is by far the most popular and could very well remain so, but soon you’ll see the Data Center path become more and more of a focus as companies migrate to data center technologies. The Security track also actually does provide a good job opportunity as well. Still, understanding the foundation of R/S before attempting any other certification track is something I highly recommend.
Even so, and as the figure shows, you only need your CCENT certification to get underway for most of the tracks.
Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician (CCENT)
Don’t be fooled by the oh-so-misleading name of this first certification because it absolutely isn’t entry level! Okay – maybe entry level for Cisco’s certification path, but definitely not for someone without experience trying to break into the highly lucrative yet challenging IT job market! For the uninitiated, the CompTIA A+ and Network+ certifications aren’t official prerequisites, but know that Cisco does expect you to have that type and level of experience before embarking on your Cisco certification journey.
All of this gets us to 2016, when the climb to Cisco supremacy just got much harder again. The innocuous-sounding siren’s call of the CCENT can lure you to some serious trouble if you’re not prepared, because it’s actually much harder than the old CCNA ever was. This will rapidly become apparent once you start studying, but be encouraged! The fact that the certification process is getting harder really works better for you in the long run, because that which is harder to obtain only becomes that much more valuable when you finally do, right? Yes, indeed!
Another important factor to keep in mind is that the Interconnection Cisco Network Devices Part 1 (ICND1) exam, which is the required exam for the CCENT certification, costs $150 per attempt, and it’s anything but easy to pass! The good news is that this book will guide you step-by-step in building a strong foundation in routing and switching technologies. You really need to build on a strong technical foundation and stay away from exam cram type books, suspicious online material, and the like. They can help somewhat, but understand that you’ll pass the Cisco certification exams only if you have a strong foundation and that you’ll get that solid foundation only by reading as much as you can, performing the written labs and review questions in this book, and practicing lots and lots of hands-on labs. Additional practice exam questions, videos, and labs are offered on my website, and what seems like a million other sites offer additional material that can help you study.
However, there is one way to skip the CCENT exam and still meet the prerequisite before moving on to any other certification track, and that path is through the CCNA R/S Composite exam. First, I’ll discuss the Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices Part 2 (ICND2) exam, and then I’ll tell you about the CCNA Composite exam, which will provide you, when successful, with both the CCENT and the CCNA R/S certification.
Cisco Certified Network Associate Routing and Switching (CCNA R/S)
Once you have achieved your CCENT certification, you can take the ICND2 (200-105) exam in order to achieve your CCNA R/S certification, which is the most popular certification Cisco has by far because it’s the most sought-after certification by all employers.
As with the CCENT, the ICND2 exam is also $150 per attempt – although thinking you can just skim a book and pass any of these exams would probably be a really expensive mistake! The CCENT/CCNA exams are extremely hard and cover a lot of material, so you have to really know your stuff. Taking a Cisco class or spending months with hands-on experience is definitely a requirement to succeed when faced with this monster!
And once you have your CCNA, you don’t have to stop there – you can choose to continue and achieve an even higher certification, called the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP). There are various ones, as shown in Figure I.1. The CCNP R/S is still the most popular, with Security certifications coming in at a close second. And I’ve got to tell you that the Data Center certification will be catching up fast. Also good to know is that anyone with a CCNP R/S has all the skills and knowledge needed to attempt the notoriously dreaded but coveted CCIE R/S lab. But just becoming a CCNA R/S can land you that job you’ve dreamed about and that’s what this book is all about: helping you to get and keep a great job!
Still, why take two exams to get your CCNA if you don’t have to? Cisco still has the CCNA Composite (200-125) exam that, if passed, will land you with your CCENT and your CCNA R/S via only one test, priced accordingly at $300. Some people like the one-test approach, and some people like the two-test approach.
