People pursuing the CCNA certification have many options for preparing for their exam. They can follow the completely self-study path by reading ccna books and solving practice questions or they can attend an instructor-based classroom training. There is an option somewhere in between also (which in my opinion is the best option). This is a CCNA Video Training. With this option you still have the self-study element available, but you also have the benefits of an instructor-based training. Basically you get a video training package which walks you through step-by-step with visual examples, configuration explanations etc in order to learn and assimilate the material better.
 
The two biggest players in the certification industry which focus on video trainings are Train signal and CBT Nuggets. In this post I will list and describe the features of the CCNA Video Training packages offered by both companies for having a quick view if you want to make a decision which package better fits your needs. I hope people looking to choose between Train Signal Vs CBT Nuggets will find the following comparison helpful. Just keep in mind that both companies are excellent on what they are doing so whatever your choice is you will get top-notch training quality from both. However, in my opinion you will get a better value for money if you go with Trainsignal since they offer free practice questions and exams from Transcender and also they offer the training material in different multimedia format (iPod Video, MP3 Audio) together with PDF instructor notes.

The CCNA Training Packages described below will help you for both ccna exam options (either the combined CCNA 640-802 exam or the two-exam option with 640-822 plus 640-816).

Check out the training companies by yourself:

TrainSignal

CBT Nuggets

Learning to configure your Cisco devices from the Command Line Interface (CLI) is an essential step towards your Cisco networking career. This means that you need to learn how to configure the Cisco IOS operating system which runs on routers, switches and other network devices. Acquiring this hands-on experience with the Cisco IOS CLI will help you enormously in your network administration tasks or even for certification exams.

In this post I’m providing some useful keyboard shortcuts that you can use when configuring a Cisco device via command line. These shortcuts are sometimes asked in CCNA certification exam questions.

The above are the most useful and most frequently used shortcuts. There are many more but if you learn the ones above is more than enough.

DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Basically it’s a mechanism which assigns IP addresses to computers dynamically. Usually DHCP is a service running on a server machine in the network in order to assign dynamic IP addresses to hosts. All Cisco 800 series models have the ability to work as DHCP servers, thus assigning addresses to the internal LAN hosts. Without a DHCP server in the network, you would have to assign IP addresses manually to each host. These manually assigned addresses are also called “static IP addresses”.

In this post I will show you how to configure a Cisco 851 or 871 router to work as DHCP server. The same configuration applies for other 800 series models as well.

Router> enable

Router# config t

! define an IP address pool name and range
Router(config)# ip dhcp pool LANPOOL

! define a network range for the addresses that will be assigned
Router(dhcp-config)# network 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0

! define a dns name to assign to clients
Router(dhcp-config)# domain-name mycompany.com

! define a default gateway for the clients
Router(dhcp-config)# default-router 192.168.1.1

! define the dns server for the clients
Router(dhcp-config)# dns-server 100.100.100.1

! define a WINS server if you have one
Router(dhcp-config)# netbios-name-server 192.168.1.2
Router(dhcp-config)# exit

!The following addresses will not be given out to clients
Router(config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.10

Junior networking engineers often seek to earn a Cisco professional certification (CCNA, CCNP, CCSP etc) in order to prove their knowledge and get a better status in their career. I believe this is a wise move for network professionals since the journey you go through for obtaining your certification will teach you all necessary theory and background that is essential to have when working in the demanding and exciting field of networks.

Your study efforts for earning any Cisco Certification should include three elements:

1. Learning the theory behind the specific certification technology.
2. Getting practical hands on training for Cisco devices configuration.
3. Solving many practice questions related to the specific certification.

If you include the three elements above in your study efforts then you will have no problems in passing any Cisco exam. Parts 1 and 3 (i.e learning the theory and solving practice questions) can be carried out using books and other training resources. Part 2 can be obtained with practical experience at your workplace, with buying Cisco equipment for practicing (expensive option) or with software simulators. If you want to get all three study elements in a complete package then you will either need to enroll in a class-based instructor-led training (very expensive) or buy an inexpensive Cisco Online Training package (there are excellent Cisco Online Training packages for around $60-$70). These cisco online training packages are interactive courses which will teach you the theory for the specific certification, simulations will show you how to do things, question and answer sessions help you remember what you learned etc. Plus you study on your own pace, starting and stopping the online course anytime you want. I think for a measly $60-$70 for a complete cisco training course it’s an excellent price.