CCNA – Cisco Certified Network Associate

If you are looking for information on the CCNA Exam the best place to start is on Cisco’s Website

If you are looking for some direct training links the learning network store has some great courses and they are currently offering free trials to some of their products – Free CCNA Training 

The exact location is under their Training and Certification pages here CCNA

The CCNA used to be Cisco’s entry level exam and back when I passed it (7 years ago!) it was. Now they have a new entry level exam called CCENT – Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician.

If you know nothing about networking then I would say go for the CCENT, if you know what a router and a switch is and have an basic knowledge of networking then go for the CCNA.

They both form the foundation blocks to your career in networking.

I am currently pursuing my CCIE in Routing & Switching and this blog is dedicated to my progress through that journey.

I thought though as most people start at the CCENT / CCNA level and don’t really know where to go for information – it would be beneficial to point you in the right direction.

For basic training I can highly recommend www.ine.com

Their CCNA training product is here :

http://www.ine.com/self-paced/ccna/bootcamps.htm

The online videos talk you through everything very well, other CCNA training is available from The Bryant Advantage he has a lot of free tutorials on his site and also offers access to racks of cisco hardware to practice on.

If you do want to practice commands on a few routers then GNS3 is what you are looking for – it is free and if you can get a valid cisco router image you can some some virtual routers on your PC for some real hands on training.

Currently they do not support switches but it is great for settting up 3 routers in a simple network to test out RIP / EIGRP / BGP etc.

Anway I need to get back to my studies – so if you are thinking of going for your CCNA I hope you found something of use here.

If you want any advice leave a comment and I will come back to you when I can.

Good luck in your studies.

Roger