The answer is a resounding YES!...and this article shows
you how. For years, many would-be networking professionals
have been put off by the thought of expensive and time-consuming
courses, not having access to good quality teachers and mentors
and, very importantly, not having access to a practice lab.
Well, the industry's very open secret is that there are scores
of networking professionals delivering a very high standard
of service who are primarily self-taught. While it is true
that the advantages of instructor-led courses and live practice
labs for a would-be certification candidate are obvious, taking
the self-study route does have quite a few of its own advantages,
a couple of them being you can work at your own pace, and
can save a fair amount of money.
The biggest source of free and inexpensive resources is of
course the Internet, which is heaving with information for
the certification candidate. This is one area I've found where
the "you get what you pay for" rule just does not
apply. A lot of the information is very well written, accurate...and
free! There's information for beginners, articles for "gurus",
exam tips, lab practice material…quite literally everything
you need to prepare for and pass your exam.
Let us start with what total beginners can expect. There
are scores of people looking to embark on a career in networking,
sometimes making a complete start from years working in a
totally different field. People falling in this group are
particularly at a disadvantage because of how little they
know to start with. If this describes you, I have some very
good news. A quick search on the Internet for articles and
tutorials on basics such as OSI model, IP, routing, Internet
and networking will yield a wealth of information. For example,
a particularly excellent site for beginners is the computer
channel of the very popular "HowStuffWorks" site,
while Webopedia would be a good place for getting to grips
with computing terminology and acronyms. Many sites will have
free demos, articles, forums and discussion groups that will
help a computing novice start to get a feel for the field.
Not-so-new beginners can move on to exam specific searches
such as "CCNA certification", "CCNA exam tips",
"CCNA tutorials", "Cisco self study",
"online training", and the like, to get a feel of
the scope of the certification exam.
Another group of people looking for free resources might
be those who have some background in networking and would
like to save on study costs, which can be considerable. When
you add up the cost of tuition, course material, books, live
labs and perhaps even the cost of setting up a private lab,
it makes sense to consider making some savings. This group
should try searching for articles on specific topics, such
as IP Subnetting, VLANs, STP, WANs and Frame Relay, in addition
to the above links suggested for beginners. A word of caution
though – not everything posted on the Net is always accurate.
You will need to learn use your own judgment to discern which
sites are credible.
The final group of people who might benefit from some free
stuff are those very close to sitting for the exam. This group
would be well advised to hunt around for the masses of practice
resources, many of them free, that will help. We are talking
simulators, practice questions, and the like. If this describes
you, please do not forget to first visit Cisco’s very
own CCNA page, which has details of exam topics and format,
particularly important if you are completely self taught as
this should help you stay on course.
Finally, let us not forget Cisco’s own website, which
is a huge resource of excellent material on protocols and
computing standards that the certification candidate will
be tested on. It will take a while to learn how to extract
the best information from this massive site, but it certainly
is a skill well worth learning.
About the Author:
Helen Brookes a Cisco Certified Systems Instructor (CCSI)
and CCNP, has years of experience preparing candidates Cisco
Certification and has her own website, NetworkingBreak.com,
which, as well as focussing on how to find and use quality
free and inexpensive Internet resources to get Cisco certified,
features her very own Cisco exam "pratice-ator."
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