CCNA certifications: review

Certification: Cisco CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Associate

Certification overview

Cisco is the most renowned academy offering courses for IT specialists in various fields. Having a Cisco IT academy certificate increases your chances of being employed in renowned companies, worldwide. This internationally recognized certificate will provide you the best credential you can have in the IT industry today. CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate. There are many courses and trainings that offer a variety of certificates one gets after completing the course. Cisco is always trying to be helpful for IT professionals and their trainees, so you can easily adjust your studying time, since there are many CCNA tutorials and CCNA video tutorials available on their official page. These videos help you cover all the programme topics, step by step and in a very understandable manner. However, these courses are not made just for specialists who wish a credential, but also for beginners and entry-level engineers, since Cisco provided a number of CCNA tutorials for beginners. They are available as CCNA tutorials pdf format and CCNA video tutorials. Some of the courses Cisco offers are:

CCNA Data Center, which is a programme specially developed for data center network administrators who wish to consolidate their knowledge, get professional supervision and training and a valid certificate, or those aiming to become one and get the best education in this field.

For example, CCNA Data Center exam is consisted of the following topics and percentages of questions:

- Network work philosophy 15 %

- Switches with LAN configuration and troubleshooting 21 %

- IP Addressing Scheme and Services 12%

- Router operations on Cisco networks with Nexus 52 %.

CCNA routing and switching is another programme for entry-level professionals,with up to three years of experience. Those enrolled into this programme, after completing it, develop their medium-size routed and switched networks installing, configuring, operating, maintaining and troubleshooting skills. There are many CCNA tutorials, in different versions, as CCNA video tutorials or CCNA tutorials pdf version available for this course as well.

CCNA service provider is specially developed for all technicians and specialists in the field of service providers who are looking for state-of-the-art solutions, techniques and technologies for service provider industry.

CCNA Service Provider Operations Certification is among the most wanted certificates in the IT industry. All IT technicians and specialists seeking for IP NGN core network infrastructure practice, upgrading knowledge and experience, as well as NMS tools and protocols education should attend this education programme.

CCNA Security training and certification programme is eligible and created for those technicians and specialists who wish to get credential in field of securing networks, establishing and installing networks, their maintenance, troubleshooting and recognizing, identifying and mitigating possible threats and risks.

Cisco Certified Network Associate Wireless, or more commonly, CCNA Wireless, is a specialized course and training in the field of wireless LAN. This certificate is very helpful and will launch its holder into very top of Cisco equipment-based wireless LAN systems and industry.

CCNA voice is perfect for specialists who are working with audiovisual traditional techniques. Today, Vide-over-IP networking is crucial for these kinds of specialists and getting a certificate in this field highly increases competetiveness.

Required Exams

In order to take some exams from Cisco, there are no prerequisites and anyone can take them. However, other exams, such as CCNA Voice requires any of the valid Cisco CCENT, CCNA Routing and Switching or Cisco CCIE ctraining passed, i.e. holding a certification. While some courses do not require it, others that do will use the above mentioned as valid.

Required Courses

For majority of the above mentioned programmes in Cisco, taking courses is only recommended, not obligatory. For example, to take the Cisco Service Provider Operations exam, it is recommended to have Supporting Cisco Service Provider IP NGN Operations, or more commonly SSPO training (courses). For CCNA Security, IINS training is recommended. These recommended courses will increase and consolidate trainee's knowledge and provide additional preparation for the exam and obtaining the certificate.

Study Material

There are lots of CCNA tutorials available on the official page of Cisco. A lot of them are CCNA tutorial pdf version, which are useful since a trainee can organize his / her own time as he / she wishes and repeat the procedures and read the information as many times as he / she likes and needs. On the other hand, there are CCNA video tutorials, which are suitable for audio – visual learning types, who gain knowledge better by seeing and hearing. Additionally, things are practically shown here, so this type of CCNA tutorials is more suitable for most of the users. There are lots of useful CCNA tutorial for beginners versions available at Cisco. Additionally, those who are flexible with time and online 24/7 can follow live CCNA tutorials on the official Cisco page.