CCNA

Cisco reaches 1 Million certified, CCIE R&S Program Update, and NEW CCNA Voice Option

1. Cisco recently announced that, to date, they have certified over 1 Million individuals and over 20,000 people with CCIE certifications. WOW - can you believe that there are over 1 million people in the world who are Cisco certified? Pretty amazing!

When I achieved my CCIE, there were about 5,000 CCIEs. Now, 7 years later, there are 20,000.

2. Cisco announced changes changes to the CCIE Routing and Switching written certification test. In the latest revision, dubbed “4.0″, the new test will have hands-on troubleshooting and will now cover MPLS and VPN. This new version will come on line October 18, 2009.

To me, personally, this is critical news as I will have to take this test to keep my CCIE. I have to do this prior to May 2010 so stay tuned for news about this test as I will be following it closely.

3. Cisco has announced changes to the CCNA Voice certification. There will now be two options available for candidates wishing to achieve their CCNA Voice certification: A commercial option and an enterprise option.

Video: How to perform DHCP Snooping from Train Signal

In this sample of the Train Signal Cisco CCNA training course, Chris Bryant offers a demonstration on how to perform DHCP snooping in the Cisco IOS.

Cisco launches new CCNP & CCIE Wireless Ceritifications

Just launch, Cisco’s new CCNP and CCIE Wireless certifications offer wireless experts a chance to prove their expertise!

For some time, Cisco has offered the CCNA Wireless certification. Starting in June of 2009, Cisco will now offer a CCNP Wireless certification. This will fill the hole between the CCNA Wireless and the newly created CCIE Wireless.

Speaking of the CCIE Wireless,the new Cisco CCIE Wireless certification has also been officially launched. The writtern/qualification exam 350-050 was just made available this month, February 2009.

Good luck wireless Gurus!

VIDEO: Cisco CCNA Security Firewall & SDM

Learn how to use the Cisco Security Firewall and SDM in this step by step video, recorded by Chris Bryant, CCIE. This is a great way to prepare for your CCNA. Enjoy the video!

(or click on the video to go and watch it wider and in HD)

Video: Confused about the CCNA? Get the CCNA Certification breakdown!

The process to obtain your CCNA Certification can be confusing. Luckily, in this informative video, the guys at Train Signal offer a breakdown of how you can get your CCNA:

New Cisco CCNA Security Video Training from Train Signal

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, and Train Signal have released their latest video training course and it covers the Cisco CCNA Security certification. The course not only prepares you to pass the CCNA Security test (IINS 640-553) but also does a great job teaching you how to secure your Cisco network.

I have watched many Chris Bryant videos and, trust me, he is one of the best Cisco teachers I have ever learned from. There is a free demo of the course on the Train Signal website and it comes with a 90 day money back guarantee. Plus, you will receive a the associated Transcender exam and the video training on iPod, WMV, and MP3 formats for training on the go!

Here is a sample from the 13 hour training course.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Train Signal CCNA Security video training course

5 Networking buzz words you should know

In today’s quick tip, let me offer 5 Networking “buzz words” you should know:

1. Get VPN – Group Encrypted Transport – Developed by Cisco in 2006 to allow secure connections over the Internet which is very easy to implement and maintain.
2. GDOI – Group Domain of Interpretation – Provide a “key” to decrypt or encrypt your data - related to ISAKMP - see RFC3547 for more information.
3. MTU -  Maximum Transmission Unit – In relation to IP, it sets an upper packet size limit for maximum packets.
4. ICMP – Internet Control Message Protocol -  Messages that are contained within IP packets such as 0 for Echo Reply or 5 for Redirect. ICMP could be called the network managment protocol for IP.
5. WCCP - Web Cache Communication Protocol - WCCP is a protocol for communication between routers and Web caches. Two versions exist: WCCP Version 1 (WCCPv1) and WCCP Version2 (WCCPv2). The two versions are incompatible. Cisco IOS images can support either of the two versions or both.

For more information see the Cisco Internetworking Terms and Acronyms.

What is ARP and how does it work in the Cisco IOS?

The Address Resolution Protocol, or ARP, is a critical protocol in your network infrastructure. What is ARP? It’s an Internet protocol used to map an IP address to a MAC Address. Usually ARP just “works” and you don’t have to do anything about it. However, there are reasons that you may need to make ARP or configure ARP on your router.

Here is how you make a static ARP entry in the Cisco IOS:

In global configuration mode, use:

arp {ip-address | vrf vrf-name} hardware-address encap-type [interface-type]

Here is an example:

arp  10.28.6.14 0700.0800.1834 arpa 

To remove an ARP entry, use the no arp command.

To show arp entries, just type show arp and you will see results like this:

Protocol  Address          Age (min)  Hardware Addr   Type   Interface
Internet  10.4.2.4               10   0000.0c07.ac14  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0
Internet  10.3.3.3               10   0000.0c07.ac14  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0
Internet  10.3.2.7               10   0000.0c07.ac14  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0
Internet  10.4.2.1               10   0007.b400.1401  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0
Internet  10.3.3.7               10   0000.0c07.ac14  ARPA   FastEthernet0/0

As you can see, the IP addresses are mapped to the hardware/MAC addresses on Ethernet interfaces.

Just a tip, if your device’s MAC address isn’t showing up in the ARP table on a switch or router that it is communicating through, it will never be able to communicate. There must be some reason (like an interface down) that is preventing it from making that Layer 2 (Ethernet) to Layer 3 (IP) connection. You can also use the debug arp command to troubleshoot.

And, one final tip- on a Cisco IOS switch, you can use the show mac-address-table or show mac command to see MAC to IP address mappings.

For additional information on using ARP in the Cisco IOS, please see Cisco IOS IP  Addressing Service documentation.

How to put an IP address on an Ethernet interface

There are 4 easy steps to accomplish this task.  Remember that you will always need to access the global configuration mode to add interfaces. Let’s walk through these steps together.

First you should connect to your router. You would do this with the enable command.
router> enable            enter

Now we need to access the configurator to use the terminal.
router# config t            enter                 (Note: t for terminal)

Notice that the prompt changes as you go deeper into the router configuration. (> sign changes to # sign).

You should see the following message:
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

Next we need to configure the Ethernet interface.
router(config)# interface Ethernet 0/0    enter

Notice that the prompt now changes to (config-if)# indicating that we are now in configuration interface mode.

The final step is to type the IP address and subnet for the ethernet interface.
router(config-if)# ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0

Pressing CNTL/Z saves your changes and gets you back to the enable prompt. Of course you will want to verify your configuration. Type the following command at the enable prompt:
router# show interface Ethernet 0/0   enter

You should see the Ethernet 0/o is up and the IP address that we configured is displayed.

Eight Decimal to Binary Conversions to memorize for CCNA certification

128 – 1000 0000
64  -   0100 0000
32  -  0010 0000
16  -  0001 0000
8  -   0000 1000
4  -  0000 0100
2  -  0000 0010
1  -  0000 0001