I think we knew it was coming at some point and Cisco has recently announced a refresh for the 640-822 (ICND1), 640-816 (ICND2) and the all in one 640-802 (CCNA) the last day to take these tests and get certified are September 30th of 2013. You will notice some old references no longer mentioned on this refresh, so let’s go over the differences and some of the changes Cisco has made to the associate-level certification track. Continue reading
Since network technicians work with IP addressing, it is hugely important to understand subnetting. I remember back when I started to learn subnetting it was confusing and I wanted nothing to do with it. The thing that made me change my mind was after I understood it and how important it is. In the “Cisco world” they don’t cover useless topics, there is always a reason why they expect you to know this and it’s not just for the exams. Subnetting has always had its moments with people and in this blog I’ll do my best to show you what I have done to make subnetting an easier experience. Continue reading
Working towards the CCNA Cisco talks about a hierarchical network there are three layers to this design. Access Layer, distribution layer and the core layer. Each of them have their own set of functions and is also considered to be a best practice when the network continues to grow and for redundancy along with just a better way to manage it. Continue reading
I’ve found this table that I created a while ago and it lists common WAN connections that businesses use. I have used this table like a reference guide to familiar myself into other protocols. People don’t think of it much but the WAN is a different beast compared the LAN as it uses different protocols besides Ethernet. The WAN or wide area network is what connects us to remote locations within a organization. If we have an office in New York and another office in Wyoming we need these offices to be connected to each other so that they seem to be on the same network even though they are miles away these types of WAN connections and protocols would do it. Continue reading
In today’s post I wanted to talk about the widely used Ping command. Which is one of the best methods (I think) to begin network troubleshooting. When part of the network goes down it is sometimes hard to figure out why? When you issue the ping command or the extended ping command in a Cisco router several ICMP codes can come up on the router. Let’s discuss them! Continue reading
