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Anyone Here have their CCNA/CCNP/etc?

GenericMind

GenericMind

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So after 8 years of working for a company I've decided to make a minor career switch to focus on the parts of my old job I liked the most: Networking. My first step is to study for and then pass the CCNA(Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam. I've seen there various programs and classes you can take to prepare for it, but they range from weeks-long, months-long, and even over a year. They also cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars to take. If I make studying for this exam my JOB, and spend 4-5 hours a day preparing I think I can learn it teaching myself in under a month. So far so good. A few days in and I'm already halfway through the material for the first part of the exam and am grasping everything fine. Since you can take the exam in either one overall exam or two separate ones, I'll decide which to do when I get into the 2nd part materials and see if it's all too much to retain at once.

Does anyone where have a CCNA or CCNP? Anyone attempted but failed to get one, or even flirted with the idea? I'd be interested to hear feedback from anyone that has any kind of experience with getting/trying to get those certs and their experiences during that process.
 
I took an intro course to get into it but bailed after looking over the study materials, some of it just seemed to be generic networking stuff that you learn using Linux or BSD anyway (what Cisco gear uses) but the advanced features even on the older switches I got to mess around with seemed pretty handy to use at scale. A lot of businesses have been cutting their on-site IT budgets lately to shift resources to cloud (I read The Register a lot) so that could have an impact on the availability of CCNA-related jobs going forward.

I guess if you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals (OSI model, subnetting, QoS, etc) then the vendor-specific parts shouldn't be too hard to memorize, might as well do it and see where it takes you, even if you end up hating it having the CCNA will make it easier to segue into another niche
 
The hardest part of the CCNA for me was the subnetting. If you can subnet network addresses into specific sized chunks for domains and hosts, you'll be golden. That is if you can remember the hundreds of acronyms and all the working parts of the OSI model, switching and routing protocols, and the most commonly used ports. When I was going over the materials, my instructor admitted he failed it his first time. So if you don't mind dishing out $250 for the test, and/or have your company pay for your training, you can re-take it after 2 weeks? if my memory serves me correctly.
 
Yeah I actually just got into the subnetting portion on Friday. Seems to be the most difficult so far. There's just so many freaking acronyms to remember. for everything else. I know you can retake the test shortly after even if you fail, but I don't want to shell out the extra money so I might just take the test split into two parts. If I can't learn/memorize the material for part one, pass that, and then study for and learn the material for part two I don't deserve the damn thing anyway.

Interesting you mentioned cloud computing thujone, Cisco actually now offers multiple specializations in their CCNA/CCNP/CCIE certifications. So once you get your CCNA, you can take another test to get your CCNA specialty cert, and one of those specialties is cloud computing. Maybe I'll look into that.
 
Phlamer, did you actually get your CCNA or did you just take classes on it? I'm wondering how the actual questions on the exam compare to what you learn in classes or the materials.
 
GenericMind said:
Interesting you mentioned cloud computing thujone, Cisco actually now offers multiple specializations in their CCNA/CCNP/CCIE certifications. So once you get your CCNA, you can take another test to get your CCNA specialty cert, and one of those specialties is cloud computing. Maybe I'll look into that.
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it's probably worth it, the more certs you can add to your LinkedIn profile the more suckers will pay you. now I'm thinking maybe I should get it too, wouldn't mind finding a cushy sysadmin job where they pay me to work on side projects lol
 
Yeah that was basically my thinking. I don't have a degree in CS or anything and when I was looking at potential jobs all of the ones that looked interesting wanted one. After doing some research it sounded like a CCNA and then maybe a CCNP is perfect for getting your foot in the door for those types of interviews. Degrees are nice but something like the CCNA is so comprehensive and specific to networking that chances are if someone is looking for a candidate to do in-house networking, someone with a CCNA is probably going to be much more prepared to do those things than someone with a degree in CS. Like I read in some network career article: A degree shows you can learn things over a 4-year period. A CCNA shows that you can learn everything you need to about networking in a short amount of time.

Getting pretty deep into the subnetting calculations right now and it's definitely more difficult than everything else I've learned so far. So much to freaking remember!
 
don't forget about ipv6 too :)

but yeah a lot of people working in tech suffer severely from the Dunning-Kruger effect so just a bit of passion and schmoozing can leapfrog you over a lot of the guys with CS degrees who might know a bunch of fancy theories but unless those theories are being used at their work then it was all wasted money.
 
IPv6 is the next section. Can't wait lol.

Basically all I did was was download a torrent of Cisco's official CCNA video training course. It's 27 hours of video broken up into 4 sections for the first part of the exam and 4 sections for the second part of the exam. They usually charge $800 for access to it but someone has it on PirateBay. It's extremely comprehensive and much better than the other free videos I browsed through when I was first thinking about starting this whole thing. I'd recommend it to anyone thinking about taking the CCNA. I could even provide the torrent link via PMs if someone wanted it.

thujone said:
but yeah a lot of people working in tech suffer severely from the Dunning-Kruger effect so just a bit of passion and schmoozing can leapfrog you over a lot of the guys with CS degrees who might know a bunch of fancy theories but unless those theories are being used at their work then it was all wasted money.
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That's pretty much what I read. Before I dove in I wanted to make sure it was actually worth it so I read dozens of threads around the net from people asking basically the same question. Pretty much every answer from people who have been working in that field(and people that hire in that field) for years had the same answer: A CCNA will usually at least get you in for an interview regardless of a degree. And more important than any certifications or degrees, if you can prove in the interview that you know your shit and you can convince them you're able and eager to learn you'll be a strong candidate for the job. Half of the Network Admins/Engineers and tech hiring people in all those threads said they didn't even have a degree.

The most appealing thing about this line of work, to me, is that there's such a clear path for advancement. Unlike my last job it's pretty much guaranteed that if you excel in your position you'll have ample opportunities to keep moving up. Killing it as an entry-level network assistant or internal IT help desk? You can start looking into Jr. Network Admin jobs. Do awesome in that? You can go for Network Admin or Network Engineer. Get some years under your belt doing that? Set your sights on a Senior Network Admin/Engineer or Director of IT.

And like you said, there's a huge demand for consulting or contract work for those types of people if they want to do side jobs. We're talking $75-$150/hr for consulting. That's a nice chunk of change.
 
I never did the Cisco certs. I did Novell (back in the day), the MCSE, and the A+.

The only certs that mean anything to anyone are the Cisco certs and the hacking ones like CEH and CISSP. The others don't mean much to anyone. Don't ever put a cert on your resume if you're a software developer. They pitch those. Operations departments like certs though. Network+ might help too.

I just wrote a bunch of practice cert questions for InfoSec and a few small app people. If you know even a little bit of info with some handson knowledge, you'll be fine.
 
thujone said:
ooo good to know. do you know why that is?
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Software development is a lot of college grads. So, you don't want to say "I'm just as good as you with this cert." lol They will ride you harder in interviews (if they interview you at all) and some more picky bosses with higher education degrees will just pitch the resume.

I don't find this to be true of operations people at all. Operations people seem to be the exact opposite. College isn't important to them and certs are considered just as valuable. Some places will pay for your certs.
 
thanks, that sounds similar to what i've experienced in hiring for software jobs. I do have post-secondary developer credentials but it's not as la-dee-da as a CS/Eng degree and I'm trying to get into a DevOps position, so was thinking that if I also had some sort of networking certificate it would boost my appeal for that type of job.
 
Yes, for the DevOps position I got, I did say that I had the A+ and MCSE. I leave that off of my development resume.

DevOps IME is most automation. My job was all PowerShell automation (I am a Windows developer). So, I emphasized my networking, Windows administration (which is minuscule for me) and any automation tasks I was able to do. I suppose it depends on your team, but they are OK if you have just a little networking/infrastructure experience... enough to talk about it basically and then you know 1 scripting language well. I did do a C# program that they used to bypass standard FTP logins, so it was like a web app that interfaced with their FTP site for users to upload files without needing to know FTP commands or have any third-party application.

DevOps was one of my best experiences but the only negative side to it is that operations people don't understand how difficult it is to write software. :) I would get something like "this will take you like 2 days, right?" when in the back of my head I was thinking a month. They just don't know.
 
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