Sunday, September 27, 2009

3 Reasons Why You Want To Get Hands-On Experience For Your CCNA Test

By Francis Teo

Command line configuration experience is definitely a valued asset when you are starting out in the networking world and want to be a qualified and certified CCNA network engineer. If you want to become a good network engineer, you should certainly be looking at increasing your exposure to configuration of switches and routers at the command-line level. Mastery of Cisco IOS is definitely a key element of becoming a Cisco network engineer.

Here are 3 good reasons why you need to improve your Cisco IOS network troubleshooting and configuration skills:

1. To Get The CCNA Certification - Cisco has included simulation questions into the CCNA test for several years now. I believe that this was in part due to the demand of the market, which was looking for more certified people who have both theoretical and practical knowledge. These kinds of simulation questions test the CCNA candidate on configuration and troubleshooting skills at the Cisco IOS command line. Nobody knows exactly how important these questions are to the final score (except for Cisco), however, it is generally agreed that you won't be able to pass the exam if you cannot answer these questions well. This is one of the reasons why you need to have good configuration skills before even attempting the CCNA.

2. Employer Requirement - It's a well known fact that corporations prefer candidates who have hands-on configuration and troubleshooting experience, when compared to those without. If you demonstrate that you have the relevant skills, some corporations might hire you, and may look past the fact that you are not certified. It is also getting more common for corporations to conduct their own practical test to make sure that the candidate has the relevant technical skills to take on the job. If you want to improve your chances of landing that networking job, it is important that you brush up your Cisco IOS command line troubleshooting and configuration skills.

3. Memory Retention - Repetition is key if you want to remember all the common commands used by network engineers on a day-to-day basis. The best way to improve your recall of the commands is to practice consistently on a regular basis until you simply can't forget them anymore. This ease of recall is extremely important in critical network situations where you are called upon to troubleshoot and resolve the issue. There is very little time to consult reference books and you definitely need to be able to recall the commands in a snap if you want to solve the problem quickly.

About the Author:

No comments: