CCNA - Certification

i heard that cisco has changed the exam pattern for the ccna exams after sep 30. do any one know the complete details. please suggest some books for ccna.

will getting a ccna, get proper recognision to one in network administration?
what are the needs of a network administrator.
Skill sets, certifications needed. do they get respected as developers.
Do they have the pay scale as the developers?

i am from tamilnadu india

please help!! by answering me

As far as the new exam, take a look at some of the previous posts on this subject in this forum. There has been much discussion on this subject.

As far as books for the new test, I am not sure there is much out there yet specifically on the new exam, but the old books will give you much (about 90% of what you need). It sounds like you are just getting started. I would start there, as that is going to take quite a while, and then look for updates, ask questions (as there will have been a few people that have taken the test and can help you on the differences - I believe Sahirh is getting ready to take it).

Not sure what kind of recognition you want, but the CCNA (without any experience) will just get you in the door and it will probably be a while before any self respecting Network Engineer will let you near a router (one in production). Just because you pass the test, doesn't mean you understand routers. Many have found this out. You just get the bare bones information for the CCNA. That's why you have the CCNP. There they have separate tests for the router, switch, remote access and troubleshooting.

As far as do they respected as developers - developers of what? They are not developers (necessarily), but Network Engineers and Analysts.

Pay scale is commensurate with experience than with certifications (although they help). The same goes for developers. It depends on what they are doing, their experience, the size of the company, the economy.....

Hope this helps (may not be what you wanted to hear).

Basically the test format has changed, earlier you took just one exam .. 640-607 and if you passed, then you'd passed the CCNA,
now you have to do two exams:
640-811
640-821

or one single exam (640-801) which is just the above two rolled into one. The idea is that you can study for the exam in parts.

As far as books are concerned, tom is right, you'll get most of the material from the old books, but you really need to go over the new material. Since I'm recertifying on 640-607 I'm not aware of what books are available for the new exams, you can go to any certification site and see what books they recommend. Try this

www.how2pass.com/CCNA/ccna_640-801.htm
www.certcities.com
www.certyourself.com

Heres an amazon.com link to a book
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1...615-8231020?v=glance

Do you have any hands-on experience ? I'm from India as well (Bombay), and I know that there are loads of old CCNA holders who really no nothing at all.. they just passed because they read the braindumps a day or two before the exam and got alot of the same questions. Cisco is trying to stop exactly this... there will probably be more simulations on the new exams.

In other words, don't just run and spend Rs.14,000 for your exams if you don't have some background in networking.. have you ever used a router or switch ? If not, and if you can't get hold of them, try a router simulation software.. I recommend
www.routersim.com
www.boson.com
www.sybex.com
(Boson is really good it lets you design your own network and then configure it)

If you find a study guide by Todd Lammle for the new exams, I would study from that. His books may cover material in a lot of depth, but if you plough through them, you're pretty well equipped for the exam.

You could probably check
computerbooks.indiatimes.com
for more books. Just make sure you get books for the right exam.


Cheers,

I have routersim myself and really like it. I just upgraded just for grins and will probably use it next year when I have to sit for my CCNA recert.

I like to mess around with also (as I don't have any Cisco routers at my disposal).

I was just looking at Boson and it is a little more expensive than routersim ($250 vs $200).

I haven't used Boson but would be curious as to how it compares to routersim (which I like a lot).

If I remember correctly, you used to be able to get the Sybex simulator with certain book packages. The problem is that the Sybex engine is just an older version of the routersim program (I think) and is pretty limited. Now this was a couple of years ago, so don't know if it is the same.

That was the reason I went with routersim (also, if you were enrolled in the cisco academy, which I was, it was about $100 off) and it was limited (the 3.0 version). The newer version was much better and you had complete control over an inventory of routers and switches and how they connected. The newer version is even better, I've been told.

Hey, I have both routersim and boson router simulator.

routersim goes along well if you use Todd Lammles CCNA study guide, after all routersim is his company.. so all the labs are the same.

However Boson comes out on top for two reasons :
1.It supports way more commands
2.It lets you build your own topology, complete with windows boxes that you can run simulated ipconfig on (through 'BosonDOS' lol)

The build your own network thing is really good.. you can chain lots of routers together, setup different routing protocols for different groups... try and get the windows boxes on either end to talk etc etc.

Oh yeah and Boson has some nice labs as well, the have them for the CCNA, CCNP and a couple of CCIE labs (which were so easy that its just gotta be a demo ! ;0)


Later,