CCNA Enquiry

[malco1987]

Where would you suggest someone pursue their ccna course, i am looking around for the best learning environment and friendly teachers, ur experience with any of the suggestions would be appreciated

ps.. nothing outside of Kingston, st. Catherine & st. Andrew

[Malloc-X]

You can try the HEART in Stony Hill

[Ropy]

You can try the HEART in Stony Hill

I second that. Their instructors are certified Cisco trainers and they have all the equipments that you'll ever need.

[malco1987]

You can try the HEART in Stony Hill

I second that. Their instructors are certified Cisco trainers and they have all the equipments that you'll ever need.

cool thanks for the info will check it out

[kevon]

What about doing it on your own. A book and a router simulator is all you really need. Saves a ton of money.

[ricardoblingbling]

You can try the HEART in Stony Hill

i called them and they said rockfort thats where they do it and i spoke with a person from cisco it runs from 9 months to a year the cost for it is $65K and it starts feb. you can choose from Mon and Wed or Tue and Thur 5 - 8 pm or Saturdays (whole day) at the end of this you'll get 4 certy's from cisco and heart plus you can go do the CCNA exams hope this lil info helped u

[Ropy]

What about doing it on your own. A book and a router simulator is all you really need. Saves a ton of money.

A ton of money will be saved, but a ton of practical experience would have been lost. The troubleshooting skills that you learn with the physical hardware cannot be had with a simulator.

[kevon]

A ton of money will be saved, but a ton of practical experience would have been lost. The troubleshooting skills that you learn with the physical hardware cannot be had with a simulator.

That is true..but the practical experience can always be gained in volunteer service after the exam.

[SleepyX]

Malco, here are some free lecture series for CCNAs, so you do not need to hunt around the torrents for videos. Also for introductory (TCP-IP) stuff, I actually recommend the Wikipedia over most modern textbooks. Also, use the links to the RFCs to improve your genjutsu, and search for cheap Cisco routers on ebay to improve your taijutsu.

Good Luck

[druhan]

my advice is to go through heart...get the hands on experience with the routers....they actually have internship programs with digicel....erickson...etc..so that one more plus. Third you get a 65% discount if you pass ALL the semester finals (4 semester in total). At least you can say i have a year experience when you finish.

The first question most interviewers ask is about your hands on or real world experience. Simulators are frowned upon and no admin is going to hire you solely on the basis that you have only worked with emulators.

I know you can purchase routers on ebay....but one of the challenges is the duty...their are nightmare stories with customs and routers....so its up to you. But everyone's link is different. My advice is definately hands on...so if you can get couple 2950's switches..couple routers from.2600 series or 1800. that would nice.

if you cant ....then use a combination of cisco network academy lab (heart) and software such as GNS3 emulator (you would need to find the IOS for each router you want to use) or packet tracer 5.3 simulator. for the ccna level any decent laptop can run GNS3 as long as your topology isnt huge (lots of routers). You can use etherswitch modules in routers to get similar behaviour like switches in GNS3 as that software cannot emulate switches really. why? switches are hardware to do switching process not software like how bridges. GNS3 doesnt know how to emulate that hardware and it would require some serious programming to do so.

New packetracer can do etherchannel (ccnp topic) and to extent BGP and requires much less resources. GNS3 though is as close as its gonna get to the real thing using software but you can actually pass ccna by just using ONLY packet tracer. (Not recommended though) you will have hell in your interviews if you do. unless you gonna lie which i dont recommend it will come back to haunt you.

There are sites i can recommend but link me and i will give you not posting it here

firstly videos are a must - if you doing self study...helps you to visualize and tie the concepts in.....

recommend CBT Nuggets by Jeremy Ciora (think i spelled it right lol)
Wendell Odem book (official CCNA text)
CCNA Exploration 4.0
Youtube is your friend
Packet Tracer 5.3
other videos for different view on topics
(Trainsignal, CCNA Video Mentor)
Command Line reference guide

as i said link me for more details.