CCNA;CCPA and so forth

Pitbull

Pitbull

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Are these good qualifications to go for?

They seem a tad expensive. Was looking at CISCO courses and certification. Was just wondering if it's really worth the time and money to do it?
 
Depends on what you want to use the Certifications for.
 
I would assume to work withing the CISCO enviroment?

Or does it cover something other than networking+CISCO?
 
Pitbull said:
But is it really worth all the money and time?

I mean in relation to being JAVA certified or doing MCSE+MCSD and so forth.
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Well those are all different career paths so it depends what you want to do.

If you want to get into Low Level Networking then the CISCO Certs. is the easiets way to get into the industry and if you work your way up to a CCIE it will be well worth the effort.

MCSE is working with Microsoft Servers so if you want to do that then MSCE+MCSD is the way to go.

Java is a programming language so do you want to be a programmer?
 
Network Design for me please, hotels, factory’s and estates and so forth.

Sorry for the Hi-jacking Pitbull
 
Cisco CCNA is going to help YOU understand networks with more insight aswell as give you the basic knowledge of working on the devices. Being Cisco CCNA doesnt give you special powers but it will help YOU at the end of the day.

Dont waste your time studying at Intec or these other online training institutions. Torque-IT has the best training environment for any Cisco qualification. Instead of working on simulators that have a 1/8 of the functions that a real device has, rather go to a training institute that allows you to work on real devices. Sure the courses are more expensive but the quality of the education you will receive cannot be compared to self study or small training institutions.
 
If you cannot afford the courses then do self study - rather spend the money on bandwith and download what u need - study books, simulators and what is very good is the CBT nuggets videos as well as the CISCO Network Academy series plus the cisco website has all the info you need - u just need to learn how to search for info:)
 
CCNA is a great qualification, it shows a basic understanding of networking, and whilst some of it is aimed at cisco equipment it mostly covers networking, OSI models and troubleshooting.

It does not have to be expensive either, get the book for R600, get gns3 and do some simulations. There have been numerous threads on this if you search for CCNA.

Will it get u hired straight away? Maybe, will u get a massive salary, i doubt it. CCNA is a great starting point, but experience trumps qualification everytime. CCNA will get you the interview, but if you cant apply it to real world situations then ur not going anywhere.

The exam is R1800 if booked through pearsonvue and the study material will cost you around R600, so its hardly an expensive IT qualification.

Remember you have to recert every 36 months unless you qualify with a higer cisco exam.
 
Yes Cisco is a good way to go. CCNA is the basics, but dont let that fool you in any way. It is still not that easy. It is completely different from N+ and those basic exams.

You will do things linke basic routing, configurations, vlans, Class A,B and C subnetting, etc...

The Exam is about 1 hour 30 mins and you have to do 5 simulations where you need to trouble shoot routing and vlans and all sort of things. With all that you still need to do 44 other quistions aswell. You also need 82.5% to pass.

If you do not have access to live Cisco equipment you will battle. I recently got the Packet Tracer 5 app from Cisco which seems to be able to do more than all the other simulators I have used. It is well worth buying it. GNS3 is an emulator which is the best because you use real IOS images from Cisco deviced but it is difficult to do a big simulation since it is very resource intensive.
 
emptyshadow said:
Yes Cisco is a good way to go. CCNA is the basics, but dont let that fool you in any way. It is still not that easy. It is completely different from N+ and those basic exams.

You will do things linke basic routing, configurations, vlans, Class A,B and C subnetting, etc...

The Exam is about 1 hour 30 mins and you have to do 5 simulations where you need to trouble shoot routing and vlans and all sort of things. With all that you still need to do 44 other quistions aswell. You also need 82.5% to pass.

If you do not have access to live Cisco equipment you will battle. I recently got the Packet Tracer 5 app from Cisco which seems to be able to do more than all the other simulators I have used. It is well worth buying it. GNS3 is an emulator which is the best because you use real IOS images from Cisco deviced but it is difficult to do a big simulation since it is very resource intensive.
Click to expand...

the amount of simulations vary per exam, but budget time properly because it is a massive factor. Especially if u suck at subnetting.
 
Definitely do a CCNA, it is one of the more respected IT certifications. Partly because you cannot braindump it, together with the fact that you need something like 80% to pass. If you do pass then you know networking....
 
Conradl said:
Definitely do a CCNA, it is one of the more respected IT certifications. Partly because you cannot braindump it, together with the fact that you need something like 80% to pass. If you do pass then you know networking....
Click to expand...

I would say not know networking but rather understand the theory. A year after doing my CCNA and working in network related job everything just started making lots of sense.
 
dabouncer said:
Torque-IT has the best training environment for any Cisco qualification. Instead of working on simulators that have a 1/8 of the functions that a real device has, rather go to a training institute that allows you to work on real devices.
Click to expand...

For the average Joe Torque-IT's kit will seem seem like manna from heaven but it aint the best, that I can vouch for without a doubt. At the time their kit seemed ancient to me and I did 10+ courses at their Rivonia branch.
 
Cisco Kit

ponder said:
For the average Joe Torque-IT's kit will seem like manna from heaven but it aint the best, that I can vouch for without a doubt.
At the time their kit seemed ancient to me and I did 10+ courses at their Rivonia branch.
Click to expand...

What were all of those ????

Do you have any idea of the cost of kitting out a FULL CCNP lab with all the latest stuff as recommended by Cisco ???

That is just the equipment -- not all the books and other stuff.


MW
 
ponder said:
For the average Joe Torque-IT's kit will seem seem like manna from heaven but it aint the best, that I can vouch for without a doubt. At the time their kit seemed ancient to me and I did 10+ courses at their Rivonia branch.
Click to expand...

So based on your explanation i would assume all those courses were Cisco courses which would mean you are probably a CCIE or similar? If you feel this way about their ancient equipment then please post another institute for prospective students to study at that dont rely on simulators and actually have real equipment to create small to medium routing and switching labs regardless of the age of the equipment?

Do you realise that most Cisco equipment that may seem ancient to you is probably running the latest ios image and performing its duties quite fine?
 
ponder said:
For the average Joe Torque-IT's kit will seem seem like manna from heaven but it aint the best, that I can vouch for without a doubt. At the time their kit seemed ancient to me and I did 10+ courses at their Rivonia branch.
Click to expand...

The bundled kit is just a summary of the official course book.
BTW, the learning press Cisco course books suck, i found the sybex ones a million times better!!!

As for hardware, i think what was provided was more than acceptable.
If you are doing anything above a CCNA, u should be using ur own labs/simulations/emulators anyway and working with the products in real world environments.

I use torque now purely as a place to fetch certain materials and a prometric centre, if u enrol in their full time courses above CCNA I think u might be wasting ur money.
 
Recommendation

tau1z said:
BTW, the learning press Cisco course books suck, i found the sybex ones a million times better!!!

If you are doing anything above a CCNA, u should be using ur own labs/simulations/emulators anyway and working with the products in real world environments.
Click to expand...

Re Cisco Books

Cisco have their own Cisco Press -- hundred more titles there than just the cert books.
( MTN business should be looking at their front page :) )

What would you suggest as a book to use to run through all the *Cisco approved* Lab Exercises for CCNA. The actual hands on exercises using REAL equipment ????


Own Lab -- how many people have one of these ????

I have come across only ONE guy offering a private Cisco "Pod" available for online practise and cert.

MW
 
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