CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) is a certification from Cisco, the world’s most famous company for manufacturing and selling networking equipment. This certification helps you to become familiar with a wide range of topics, such as:

To take the CCNA exam you have to schedule a test appointment through Pearson VUE, an electronic testing company. Pearson VUE has many authorized testing centers throughout the world and you can locate a test center in your vicinity. Since the COVID pandemic, it has also been possible to take the exam at home using your laptop. If you want to take the home option then you need to meet the testing requirements which include being monitored through your webcam.

The exam is available in English and Japanese and lasts for 120 minutes. After finishing the test you will immediately get the results. Cisco provides just the basic information about your score, so you can’t be sure which questions you got right or wrong!

The main benefits of passing the CCNA exam include the following:

Knowledge: Those passing the exam shows they have a base level of knowledge about how to run a network.

Skills: A person passing the CCNA exam gets in-depth practice in a range of tasks and skills.

Credibility: With the CCNA certification on a resume, potential employers see that a candidate has validation from Cisco and is familiar with a breadth of Cisco networking products.

Updating skills: Taking and passing the CCNA is valuable even for seasoned IT professionals, as it keeps them up to date on developments in networking.

Pay: Attaining a new IT certification, on average, leads to a nearly $13,000 salary increase, according to Global Knowledge's "2020 IT Skills and Salary Report."

Versatility: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that the demand for IT professionals is increasing. This makes CCNA a valuable certification to get, as it is adaptable to various IT career paths.

The first order of business should be to set the direction for your study. Cisco offers a syllabus for the CCNA certification, with a list of topics that are covered. Review this list, print it out and post it, and use it as your guide in crafting your course of study. Remember— if it's not on the syllabus, it's not on the exam, so limit your studies to the topics that Cisco highlights.

A good next step is to identify those areas where you’re weakest (hint: try a practice exam to help identify those areas) and make them the focus of your study and practice. Highlight those areas, and set a specific goal towards gaining a good understanding of each. Don’t necessarily neglect your areas of strength completely (you don’t want to forget what you’ve already learned!), but by turning your weaknesses into strengths you can dramatically increase your chances of passing the CCNA exam.

The CCNA isn’t an easy exam to pass, and it covers a lot of ground. And, like any technical discipline, if you don’t work at it consistently, your knowledge and skills will fade. Set aside a consistent, regular time for study, and make sure that you keep to it. Granted, it can be hard to keep this time blocked out, especially with all of the daily responsibilities and distractions that we all deal with. But the key to passing the CCNA is frequent and consistent study and practice, so it’s critical that you set this time aside, limit your distractions, and stick to the task at hand.

It’s not enough to know the theory behind the concepts presented in the CCNA curriculum. To successfully pass the CCNA exam, you need to how to complete tasks and understand how things get done in the world of Cisco. That’s an important point because general networking concepts and the way Cisco does things are not always the same—so it’s important to understand the details and specific methods and procedures for implementing different networking technologies, within the Cisco environment.

This point can't be stressed enough. A big portion of the CCNA exam consists of completing tasks on simulated routers and switches, just as you’ll do in real life. That’s why you must get practice time (preferably a lot of it) on Cisco equipment so that you can implement what you study within the actual Cisco IOS environment. You can buy or rent pre-configured sets of actual Cisco routers and switches that contain all of the equipment you’ll need to practice for the exam, and these sets are not as expensive as you might think.

Also, there are some excellent simulators out there, that let you configure virtual routers and switches from your personal computer. Take a look at Packet Tracer, which is an excellent tool available from the Cisco Academy, and Graphical Network Simulator 3 (GNS3), which is a free open-source tool that provides a simulated Cisco IOS environment (you can also use it to simulate the Juniper JunOS platform as well).

Practice All of the Topics on the Exam, Firsthand

Once your practice environment is up and running, make sure you take full advantage of it and practice implementing every protocol and configuration possible, so that you can see how everything works on the actual gear. Remember, things in real life don’t always work the same as they do 'on paper, and just because a book or guide tells you that a given configuration will produce a given result, nothing beats seeing it for yourself, especially on those (hopefully rare) occasions when the books get it wrong.

The key to passing the CCNA exam is preparation and lots of it. To pass the test, you’ll need to understand networking theory, facts, and practice, and be able to readily utilize the Cisco IOS interface, including specific commands and syntax. But, if you take the time to truly learn the material and get to know your way around Cisco routers and switches beforehand, you should find the test relatively easy to pass.

In this article, we can know everything about CCNA.

Overview of CCNA(Cisco Certified Network Associate)

It displays the iOS version, RAM space availability, process speed.

A CISCO router uses multiple memory storage types. These are

NVRAM for storing startup configuration files

DRAM for storing the configuration file presently being executed

The Logical Link Control (LLC) sublayer provides the logic for the data link; thus it controls the synchronization, flow control, and error-checking functions of the data link layer.

Examples of nodes include bridges, switches, hubs, and modems to other computers, printers, and servers. One of the most common forms of a node is a host computer; often referred to as an Internet node.

The data link layer is responsible for multiplexing data streams, data frame detection, medium access, and error control. It ensures reliable point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections in a communication network.

Network congestion occurs when the network is exchanging/carrying more data than it can comfortably handle. This also could be a reason why one minute you can connect your devices to a network, then lose the connection altogether and have a hard time reconnecting.

The most important criteria are performance, reliability, and security.

The application layer is used by end-user software such as web browsers and email clients. It provides protocols that allow the software to send and receive information and present meaningful data to users.

The maximum hop count for RIP routers is 15. Networks with a hop count of 16 or more are considered unreachable.

The show protocols command shows the global and interface-specific status of any configured Level 3 protocol.

An Autonomous System (AS) is a set of Internet routable IP prefixes belonging to a network or a collection of networks that are all managed, controlled, and supervised by a single entity or organization.

startup-config is the command to delete preconfigured files on the router.

Service Password Encryption command encrypts plain text password into type 7 password.

A scope is a consecutive range of IP addresses that a DHCP server can draw on to fulfill an IP address request from a DHCP client. By defining one or more scopes on your DHCP server, the server can manage the distribution and assignment of IP addresses to DHCP clients.

RTT is the propagation time between two nodes. It is the time taken to send a packet out of the interface and receive the acknowledgment.

A Full-duplex device is capable of bi-directional network data transmissions at the same time. 

Half-duplex devices can only transmit in one direction at one time. With half-duplex mode, data can move in two directions, but not at the same time.

A maximum transmission unit (MTU) is the largest packet or frame size, specified in octets (eight-bit bytes) that can be sent in a packet- or frame-based network such as the internet.

A Broadcast domain is a type of Domain wherein traffic flows all over the network. The Collision domain refers to a set of devices in which packet collision could occur. Broadcast domain refers to a logical set of reachable computer systems without using a router.

 It should include a subnet mask of each destination address.

A subnet, or subnetwork, is a network inside a network.

A subnet, or subnetwork, is a network inside a network. Subnets make networks more efficient. Through subnetting, network traffic can travel a shorter distance without passing through unnecessary routers to reach its destination.

IPv4 is a 32 bits address & IPv6 is 128 bits address.

Straight Cable:  Straight cable is used to connect different group devices. Like: Switch- Router.

Cross cable: Cross cable is used to connect the same group of devices. Like: Switch-Switch.

Rollover cable: Rollover cable is used to connect console port to the computer.

A checksum is a value that represents the number of bits in a transmission message and is used by IT professionals to detect high-level errors within data transmissions. Before transmission, every piece of data or file can be assigned a checksum value after running a cryptographic hash function.

There are three types of Data Transmission in CCNA:

Two basic network types are local-area networks (LANs) and wide-area networks (WANs).

LANs connect computers and peripheral devices in a limited physical area, such as an office, school, laboratory, or college campus, using links (wires, Ethernet cables, fiber optics, Wi-Fi) that transmit data rapidly.

WANs connect computers and smaller networks to larger networks over greater geographic areas, including different continents. They may link the computers using cables, optical fibers, or satellites, but their users commonly access the networks via a modem (a device that allows computers to communicate over telephone lines). The largest WAN is the Internet, a collection of networks and gateways linking billions of computer users on every continent.

The Gateway-to-Gateway Protocol (GGP) is an obsolete protocol defined for routing datagrams between Internet gateways. It was first outlined in 1982.

A point-to-point link-based system provides dedicated links between two devices. For example, a wired system that connects two computers can be thought of as a point-to-point link. This is in contrast to a broadcast system where one system connects multiple other devices.

VLANs allow network administrators to automatically limit access to a specified group of users by dividing workstations into different isolated LAN segments.

A router is a device that communicates between the internet and the devices in your home that connects to the internet.

Every individual or business with an internet service plan will have two types of IP addresses: their private IP addresses and their public IP address. The terms public and private relate to the network location — that is, a private IP address is used inside a network, while a public one is used outside a network.

The IP address is 127.0. 0.1 is called a loopback address. Packets sent to this address never reach the network but are looped through the network interface card only. This can be used for diagnostic purposes to verify that the internal path through the TCP/IP protocols is working.

The Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or OSI Model for short) is a layered, abstract description for communications and computer network protocol design, developed as part of the Open Systems Interconnection initiative.

In a networking model, period encapsulation refers to a manner in which protocol facts are introduced to the information. The term de-encapsulation refers to a technique wherein statistics delivered thru the encapsulation method are removed. Protocol records can be added before and after the statistics.

Packet switching- all incoming data is switched to packets. It deals only with packets (data with IP address)

Packet filtering- A router sends and receives only packets. It is used in WAN, so all incoming packets are filtered mainly for security.

Internetwork communication- joining of two or more networks.

Path selection- A router is used to select the shortest and best path from source to destination.

QoS- Quality of Service: QoS is the ability of the n/w to provide better or special service to a set of users or applications.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a client/server protocol that automatically provides an Internet Protocol (IP) host with its IP address and other related configuration information such as the subnet mask and default gateway.

The registry key used in normal mode is 0x2102 to 0x210f and to recover the password we have to use the registry key 0x2142.

VTP is a protocol used to distribute and synchronize identifying information about VLANs configured throughout a switched network.

VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) Modes, Server Mode, Client Mode, Transparent Mode. A network switch, which is participating in VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP), can have three different modes.

STP in chemistry is the abbreviation for Standard Temperature and Pressure. STP most commonly is used when performing calculations on gases, such as gas density. The standard temperature is 273 K (0° Celsius or 32° Fahrenheit) and the standard pressure is 1 atm pressure.

All IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, written as 8 sections of 16 bits each.

IPv6 multicast addresses use the prefix ff00::/8, shown in Table 4-10, which is equivalent to the IPv4 multicast address 224.0. 0.0/4. A packet sent to a multicast group always has a unicast source address. A multicast address can never be the source address.

EUI is Extended Unique Identifier 64. It is an interface ID, which is typically composed of mac addresses. We can create a EUI-64 interface in a 48-bit mac address by inserting the “0xfffe” between the upper three bytes and lower three bytes of the mac address.

Global unicast addresses (GUAs), also known as aggregatable global unicast addresses, are globally routable and reachable in the IPv6 Internet. They are equivalent to public IPv4 addresses. They play a significant role in the IPv6 addressing architecture.

A Wide Region Community (also referred to as wan), is a big community of records that isn't tied to an unmarried place. WANs can facilitate communication, the sharing of records, and plenty extra between devices from around the sector thru a wan provider.

Some of the most common WAN protocols in use today are "Frame Relay," "X. 25," "Integrated Services Digital Network," or "ISDN," and "Point-to-Point Protocol," or "PPP." "Frame Relay" and "X. 25" are similar in that they are both packet-switching technologies for sending data over large distances.

LMI is a signaling protocol developed by Cisco and others. It is used to exchange messages and information on the state of connection. Using LMI, both end of the connection; determine the state of PVC and DLCI value defined, and whether the end node is active.

Communication is a process of sending and receiving data from an externally connected data cable whereas transmission is a process of transmitting data from source to destination.

Subnets are used in IP networks to break up the larger network into smaller network. It is used to optimize the performance of the network because it reduces traffic by breaking the larger network into smaller networks. It is also used to identify and isolate network problems and simplify them.

Frame Relay is a WAN protocol that provides connection-oriented communication by creating and maintaining virtual circuits. It has a high-performance rating and operates at the Data Link and Physical Layers.

Cross cables are used to connect the same group devices while straight cables are used to connect different group devices.

Latency is the amount of time delay that measures the point from which a network device receives a data frame to the time it sends it out again towards another network segment.

MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit. It refers to the maximum packet size that can be sent out onto the data line without the need to fragment it.

In full-duplex, both the transmitting device and the receiving device can communicate simultaneously, that is, both can be transmitting and receiving at the same time. In the case of half-duplex, a device cannot receive while it is transmitting, and vice versa.

This is Ethernet that makes use of fiber optic cable as the main transmission medium. The 100 stands for 100Mbps, which is the data speed.

BootP is a protocol that is used to boot diskless workstations that are connected to the network. It is short for Boot Program. Diskless workstations also use BootP in order to determine their own IP address as well as the IP address of the server PC.

Unicast: It specifies one-to-one communication.

Multicast: It specifies one to group communication.

Broadcast: It specifies one to all communication.

Multicast: It specifies one to the nearest communication.

Public IP is used across the internet while private IP is used within the local LAN.

Following are the main advantages of LAN switching:

1. It allows full-duplex data transmission and reception.

VLAN facilitates you to create a collision domain by groups other than just physical location while conventional LAN domains are always tied to a physical location.

Access Port: It connects network hosts to a single VLAN and only carries the traffic of one VLAN. In this, traffic is sent and received in native format without any VLAN tagging.  Access ports are basically used to connect switch ports with computers with a minimum of 10 Mbps speed. 

Trunk Port: It generally connects to another switch and is able to interact with several other VLANs. By default, it is a member of all VLANs in the VLAN database. The trunk port is basically used for multiple connections between the switch to switch and switch to routers. 

Switching is a process in computer networks that enable us to interconnect links to form a larger network. It works at the DLL frame and uses hardware address or mac address of devices on LAN (Local Area Network) to segment a network.

Types of routes available in routers include:

Static Route: This route is also known as a non-adaptive route. It is either directly configured on an active interface of the router or manually added to the routing table by an administrator.

Default Route:  In this, the router is configured to send all packets towards a single router, and it does not matter whether or not it belongs to a specific network. It is especially used when networks deal with a single exit point.

Dynamic Route: This route is also known as the adaptive route. It makes automatic adjustments of the routes as per the current state of the route in the routing table and also uses routing protocols to find network destinations.

A Window refers to the number of segments that are allowed to be sent from source to destination before an acknowledgment is sent back.

Data packet is a unit of data that is made into a single package for transmission over a network. They are also referred to as a network layer package and are also used by IP protocol as they contain the IP information which is attached to each packet. They contain much essential information like email messages, website data, and VoIP (Voice-over-IP) calls. Each data packet has a unique numeric identification number that defines the packet number and order.

Network congestion occurs when too many users are trying to use the same bandwidth. This is especially true in big networks that do not resort to network segmentation.

The LLC sublayer stands for Logical Link Control. It can provide optional services to an application developer. One option is to provide flow control to the Network layer by using stop/start codes. The LLC can also provide error correction.

A network is a system of interconnected devices that communicate using some protocols (or standards) to exchange resources and services.

PING – Packet Internet Gopher is A utility that verifies connections to one or more remote hosts. The ping command uses the ICMP echo request and echo reply packets to determine whether a particular IP system on a network is functional. Ping is useful for diagnosing IP network or router failures.

When a switch receives a signal, it creates a frame out of the bits that were from that signal. With this process, it gains access and reads the destination address, after which it forwards that frame to the appropriate port. This is a very efficient means of data transmission, instead of broadcasting it on all ports.

The job of the Data Link layer is to check messages are sent to the right device. Another function of this layer is framing.

The number of bits transmitted per second is called Bit Rate.

Bit rate = Baud rate × Number of bits per baud.

The number of signals per second is called the Baud Rate.

Baud Rate = Bit rate / Number of bits per baud.

Peer to peer networking or you can say P2P networking is the shared application architecture that segregates the tasks or the workloads among peers.

The devices known as Routers do the process of routing. Routers are the network layer devices.

The router is a networking device which is used to transfer the data across the networks, and that can be wired or wireless.

Routers use headers and routing tables to determine the best route for forwarding the packets.

Router analyzes the data which is being sent over the network, changes how it is packaged and sends it over the network.

Static routing: Static routing is a routing technique where an administrator manually adds the routes in a routing table. Static routes are used when the route selections are limited. Static routes can also be used in those situations where the devices are fewer and no need to change in the route configuration in future.

Dynamic routing: Dynamic routing is a routing technique where protocols automatically update the information of a routing table.

Routing is the process of finding a path on which data can pass from source to destination. Routing is done by a device called routers, which are network layer devices.

CCNA is an information technology certification from Cisco Systems. CCNA certification is an associate-level Cisco Career certification. The Cisco exams have changed several times in response to the changing IT trends.

CCNA

In this query why do we subtract 2 from 2^three whilst calculating some subnets? Whilst in CCNA books 2 isn't always subtracted?

When you want to Subnet the Class B 172.16.0.0 to a / 19 subnet, you add 3 bits to the default Class B netmask (which is /16)

The number of subnet available is 2^3 = 8 Subnets.

Concerning the number of Hosts you can have per subnet, it is 2^13-2 The number 13 comes from 32 (number of bit in a netmask) - (number of bits affected to the MASK part 19)

You substract 2 for each subnet because the first host and the last host are reserved for Network and Broadcast address.

While subnetting Class B address how to find out subnets number?

I want help with simple configuration on devices (switches, routers, and PCs) on cisco packet tracer. Any idea?

CCNA Routing and Switching

I am new to GNS3 and Cisco's Packet Tracer. Besides using GNS3 to simulate complex networks, practice using it for the CCNA exam, and using Dynamips emulation software to simulate Cisco IOS, how is it used in the real world by big companies and corporations?

What can GNS3 and Packet Tracer be used for besides simulations?

I am reading book 'CCNA Routing and Switching Study Guide - Lammle, Todd' wherein there was a command to create an interface (int f0/0).

On CISCO Router command when I am giving a command Corp(Config)#int f0/0

It is displaying error message as "Invalid interface type and number". Please help me with this command.

CISCO Router Interface Commands

select student_name,roll_number 
from
mytable
where
(course = 'CCNA' or course = 'MCSE') and course NOT Like '%network%'


How can i create an equivalent nested boolean query in elasticsearch?

Nested boolean query in elasticsearch

I met a question on the CCNA exam which I got wrong and even though I found it on different websites with a few explanations available, I'm still confused about it.

The question is about what arp entry will a host have in its arp table after a successful ping to a another host on a different router. Now, through all my CCNA studies so far I've always been taught that the IP source and destination addresses do not change in the packet during the routing process, but only the MAC source and destination addresses change. However, the correct answer was indicating that both the IP and MAC addresses of the gateway were present in the arp table of the sending host, and no sign of host B.

This got me confused. And if this is the case, how will the default-gateway router know the destination IP of the other host? It's probably just a tricky question but still... Any clear thoughts on that?

CCNA IP routing - arp issue

For the networking major, my friend told me they would need to get CCNA Routing and Switching certificate for the education.

But for the software major, is there any certificate that needed to get just to be certified as a programmer?

Certificate for programmer?

So i've been making and using my Discord bot (written in javascript) for about 5 months, ive learnt quite a bit and it works nicely. Only thing is, i dont understand how it actually works in terms of hosting? I have it running at home 24/7 on a raspberry pi but i mean, and ive hosted websites at home too, so i've done port forwarding etc for my websites, but you dont have to do that with a discord bot? Can anyone explain how it all works? 

How does hosting a Discord Bot work since there is no port forwarding, and you do not know my ip address?

I have text file it contains following information.My task is to remove special symbols from that text file.My input file conatins

This is sample CCNA program. it contains CCNP™.

This is sample CCNA program. it contains CCNP.


how to remove special characters from string in a file using java

While going through a CCNA book,i found that switch creates separate collision network on each port.Can someone explain this? 

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