When is the best time to schedule the CCNA exam? 7 tips to help you maximise your investment.

In time you will be ready to schedule your CCNA exam, but how do you know when the time is right? Here are some tips for helping you ace the exam on your first attempt!

1. Fools rush in

There is an old adage, that "fools rush in". Clearly you are no fool, as you are working and studying hard to achieve something. So do not waste your money by taking the exam when you are not ready to do so. Failing an exam sucks, so don't pay for that feeling, the exam costs a fair bit, so make sure your money is put to good use.

Waiting an extra couple of weeks can make all the difference!

2. CCNA certifications cost more than money

Throughout your career, Cisco is going to get a big o' chunk of your hard earned cash (more exams, books, hardware and so on). The CCNA exams cost in the region of $250, so really, you only want to pay this once. There are much better things to spend your money on than repeating the CCNA exam.

Think to yourself "am I throwing this money away, or should I reschedule?"

You can reschedule your exam if you need to. There is no shame in rescheduling, just make sure you do it at least a few days before the exam.

3. Teach to Learn

Don't use just one source to study with. One source will never be enough. Look at other books, Google, and blog posts. Each will have a different way of representing the information, and you will find a natural preference for one over the other. Everyone is different and there is no cookie-cutter approach to studying.

Now, here's a little tip to gauge how well you know a subject:

If you can teach the topic to someone else, then you know it well enough

This is one of the reasons I started writing the other books, because if I could write it in such a way that made it clear to others, then I knew it sufficiently for the exam. You don't have to give an actual lesson on it, but try making some notes an reading them out-loud to the room (empty or not).

4. How to track your CCNA training progress

Knowing the technology enough to teach it, is no replacement for an exam environment. The exam is mainly multiple choice (and there is a trick to these that I will do a separate post about), drag-and-drop, and simulation. There are a number of very good practice test softwares out there. I would strongly recommend Boson's ExSim-MAX, There are other testing engines in the Resources tab above.

If you use a testing engine and can continually get 70-80% (or better), you are going to be ready soon.

5. Know who to trust

Don't trust any that have any form of "if you don't pass we will refund your money" guarantee. I failed my first CCNA exam, and tried to get a refund from SemSim, and they ignored my request, even though they were offering a money back guarantee. They still offer this, but they have not even updated their website (or probably the product) to the new CCNA exam and still reference the old exam numbers (beginning with 640-). Just have a look at their guarantee:

Oh no! This offer ends at midnight! We should probably rush out and get it before the offer expires.

Actually, check out the code on the page:

We have some code that gets the date, and then:

We call this code to say that the offer ends today. It'll be ending at midnight tomorrow as well, and the day after that....

Do your research.

Don't just rush in (and make the same mistake that I did), there are some excellent places to ask for recommendations, such as the CCNA Reddit page. You will get an informed, non-biased answer, and they are a legit bunch of guys. What do I mean by legit? Well, they don't like dumps.

6. Dump the dumpers

Dumps can be tempting. Dumps are where you are offered all of the previous questions that have come up, and use this as your method of testing. Imagine that, having all the answers and not needing to do that studying and hard work in order to pass. Dumps get outdated pretty quickly, Cisco change the questions, and it does show when you start working in networking as well.

You are only cheating yourself by using dumps.

Cisco won't really care, they will just cancel your certification. But it does not just end there, you won't be able to ask for a do-over. There will be no reattempting the CCNA exam. There won't be any sitting of any Cisco exam. Cisco exams are proctored by Pearson Vue, so Cisco will also tell Pearson, and Pearson might stop you registering for other exams from different vendors. So whilst this will not stop you being a network engineer, you will find getting certifications extremely hard.

Want some proof of this? Check out this picture!

You will need to work hard for your CCNA, but how hard?

7. Don't burn out

Sounds obvious really, but there is such a thing as too much studying. Everyone gets tired, and with that will come frustration. At some point you just won't be taking in details. 

Give yourself a break.

Whilst you do need to plan your study and keep to it, you also need to keep it realistic. When you get to CCIE level, then you'll need to be able to do eight hours straight in preparation for the lab exam, but for the CCNA, try and keep it a little less hardcore. I have heard may reports of people studying for their CCIE burning out and giving up, you don't want to burn out at the CCNA stage, you have a long career ahead of you! Study in stages, set a goal, and once you reach that, go out for a walk or something. Take a break. You will feel better for it, and your studying will benefit.

Hopefully this post has been useful to you. If you can think of any more tips for success, then please comment below!

CCNA and Beyond - The final stages

The second proof prints arrived last week, after getting held up by UPS (they didn't put a note through the door to tell me where they have left them - thankfully the kind people at the local UPS office let me get them after I proved my identity!).

I have two people working through the book, and this will allow me to do any last minute fine-tuning, expand on anything they don't understand, and basically make it ready for publication.

Without giving too much of the game away, this would be a good place to explain why I think this book will be useful to you as a someone looking to gain their CCNA.

I spent a few years studying for my CCNA, due to changing jobs I started a CCNA course that took place one night a week at my local college, dropped it due to a new job (which meant I would be returning after the class had started and would miss most of it), and then picked it up again, reverting to self study.

Once I got my CCNA, several years after starting the studies, I started to hear the words "You have your CCNA, you should know how to do this", or "You got your CCNA, this should be easy". Well, the answer, in both those cases, was "no, actually, this is probably CCNP level at minimum", and this is all partly due to the other party not understanding the topics covered by the exams, or what it actually entails.

The first job I had post-CCNA was actually very well suited to what the CCNA taught me. Most of the clients had just a couple of devices, and life was simple. I could configure a switch and a router, easy.

I then moved to an enterprise-level company and my whole viewpoint changed. There were multiple routers, multiple switches, and the CCNA had not properly prepared me for this. It did not talk about cause and effect when working with large-scale networks, and it was all very daunting.

So I studied for my CCNP, and life got easier, and I studied for my CCIE and life became easier still. Things made more sense as my knowledge widened, and there element of "oh-boy, this is complex" reduces.
During my CCIE studies I started to make notes, pages and pages of notes. I started with BGP, and thought that I would give publishing on Kindle a try. So I did. I published BGP for Cisco Networks, and it was received pretty favourably. I did make to make a second edit of it though, but we live and learn. A colleague then suggested I try Createspace, and publish in paperback, which I did, and this does better than Kindle, so it's nice to know that print is not dead.

I then published MPLS for Cisco Networks, and after that VPNs and NAT for Cisco Networks, and again, these do pretty OK, given the fairly small market that they are aimed at.

I included my email address in the books, and get a couple of emails a week, then overwhelming response is that people like the fact that my books are a little bit different. Instead of examples with a couple of devices, you actually have to build a network from start to finish.

So when (and I hope you will) buy my book, don't be alarmed at the large network you will have to build, there are fifteen routers, four switches, as well as three routers acting as clients and a server. There is a troubleshooting section, which also has fifteen devices, and you need to fix it to get from one end of the network to the other.

Then there is a chapter which brings in some of the CCNP topics, but which you should know earlier on, and will show how a network truly operates.

This is more like real-life though, and, I certainly feel, a better way of learning how to build networks from the ground up.

The book should be published either at the end of this month, or early February.

CCNA and Beyond - A sneak peak at the cover

The first draft has been finished, the cover has been completed, and the proof copies have been ordered.

Here is a sneak preview of the front cover:

CCNA and Beyond: First draft completed!

After months of work I have finished the first draft of CCNA and Beyond.

The book is designed to teach you all the topics for the Cisco Certified Network Associate exam, and more.

In it you will learn all the topics by building a full network.

The traditional approach has always been to demonstrate a topic using just a handful of routers or switches, all the topics are self-contained, and there is little relation to other topics.

This book is different, there are fifteen routers, four switches, a server and two hosts. As you go through all the topics the network will grow, and evolve, as networks do in real life.

This book is aimed at preparing you for life as a network engineer, taking you beyond the CCNA topics, with examples of real life scenarios, hints and tips.

It is all based around UNetLab, which offers a great platform to start your networking career, and will continue to support you as you learn and develop.

Stay tuned for more updates, but it should be released (via Amazon) in January.

Why you should get your CCNA Certification

So, you are looking at starting a career in networking, but where to start?

There is a wide range of vendors, each with their own certification.

There is CompTIA's Network+, which is a vendor neutral certification, meaning that it is not tied to any one manufacturer, you can learn the basics of the majority of networking, covering many topics, but how can you get hands-on experience if it is truly vendor neutral?

Then we have the vendor-specific ones from Cisco and Juniper (there are others, but these are the main ones). Both Cisco and Juniper have the lions-share of the network, but for the beginner, Cisco's CCNA certification is a great place to start.

This is for a number of reasons.

Why start networking with the Cisco CCNA?

#1 Cisco is easy to get

Cisco equipment is easy to pick up on the second-hand market. Routers and switches can be picked up very cheaply on eBay. Cisco equipment is easy to run in a virtualized environment. Platforms such as UNetLab and GNS3 make for a great way of learning how to network. We'll post about how to get started with UNetLab in the coming weeks.

#2 Cisco's CCNA is in demand

Cisco is hugely popular and demand for CCNA engineers remains high. About two years ago I posted on my other blog about the demand for CCNA, CCNP and CCIE engineers. This has not changed much in the last two years. The average CCNA job pays around £42,500 in the UK, in the USA the CCNA salary can vary anywhere between $53,000 to $89,000. By comparison my first IT job salary started at £12,500!

#3 The CCNA is just the start

Once you have your CCNA you can then go forward and gain your CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), or look to specialize in network design (CCDA/CCDP, for Design Associate and Design Professional respectively).

#4 Networking is fun 

Networking can be really good fun, and very rewarding. It can also be extremely frustrating at times, but then so can any career.

This site is designed to help you find your career in networking a fun one.