Computing: Cisco Certified !

I have fancied achieving Cisco Certification for a long time, but only recently could I justify the time and money investment.

It seems I have been studying for years for my Cisco Certification exam (CCENT) , but probably only the last 4 or 5 weeks. I bought three books to read, although in honesty I have only really read "CCENT/CCNA IDNC1 Official Exam Certification Guide" thoroughly (ISBN 1-58720-182-8)

Having read the book, I bought a Cisco CCNA Lab kit from eBay, which consisted of a 1600 Router and 1900 Switch. Unfortunately the switch was useless as it had the old operating system but at least provided me an environment I could use. The Router was good as it allowed me to review and practise the commands.

Luckily I was also able to go on the official Cisco course with Global Knowledge in Wokingham
The course was great as it gave good hands on experience with some "proper" Cisco boxes and also gave the WAN routing as well. It also gave further confidence as the instructor was adamant the exam is based on the courseware rather than the book (the book goes into a lot more detail than the course itself!)

After a week revising after the course I went to the exam. I was feeling a little nervous as the exam itself consists of multiple choice (Which I am used to) but also gives you simulation questions where you have to remember roughly what you need to do and then go and do it ! Most of the multi choice questions were fairly straightforward and felt I knew the answers to most of them. For my first simulation I struggled to remember some of the (very simple) commands to begin with, but used the help and managed to get back on track.... in the end the tasks were quite straightforward but not knowing how many more of these questions to expect, I was worried about running out of time. As it turned out, I only got two more simulation type questions and they were both quick and straightforward, so actually finished with 15 minutes to spare.

On clicking the button to end the exam and get the results, the wait seems interminable (around 30 seconds probably!) but I got the good news that I had passed :-) My score was 909 out of 100 (804 was the passing score) so had actually passed with margin to spare

I am very pleased to have got this first level certification and now hope to take the second stage (ICND2) to achieve the full CCNA certification (then maybe the Firewall Specialist) Of course, this would all be after learning the new Oracle technologies I need to understand, so a busy year or so ahead for me !!