Study Update # 3

Yesterday I was exhausted so I didn't go through some of the Cisco Web Video for PPP over serial router links. However today I managed to wake up pretty early so I started with that and knocked it out pretty quick. There's no new topics to learn today in my Cisco ICND2 book. Chapter 11 is mainly different ways to approach questions that may come up in the Cisco exam regarding routing protocol sims. So that means it shouldn't be to hard of a day hopefully however I need to lab some things out Packet Tracer. It's a crazy feeling knowing that I have a least some understanding of most of the topics to obtain the CCNA. Also as I'm going through this preperation I'm seeing how everything builds on top of each other and starting to realize why there are other higher Cisco exams (CCNP, CCIE). CCNA seems to cover a lot different topics and going into just enough detail to keep you from wondering what else can be done. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go for my CCNP once my CCNA is done, something I thought would never come out from my mouth!

EIGRP Theory/Basic Configuration

I just finished studying the EIGRP routing protocol chapter. It's similar to OSPF in a lot of the ways it works but it's easy to point out the differences. The main one being that it only works on Cisco products. It has a lot of the same features of OSPF such as Hello Updates and even authentication although they are named differently and setup a little differently. Overall not to bad, the chapter was only around 20 pages so I got through the chapter, a lab, and practice questions in about 2 hours. It's Saturday so it's time to go out play for a little bit!

Study Update # 2

Well after studying OSPF earlier today I took a break and ran some errands along with hanging with family. I finished up the night with reviewing access-list information from the Cisco learning Network. I began by going through some of the Cisco web video but I decided to lab up a quick network using Packet Tracer first. I set up two Class B networks using the default mask along with a gateway to the internet using a Class A address. I used two routers in Point-to-Point configuration which had one router being the gateway to the internet (Class A network). I practiced some commands on the other router such as turning auto-summarization off and setting a default-network to reach the Class A internet. Last but not least I practiced creating an extended ACL that would prevent a particular host from sending SMTP packets to the internet but could allow all other traffic. All went well so I decided to finish up the Cisco web videos and now it's time for bed!

OSPF Chapter 9 Completed

After about 4 hours of reading theory and labbing OSPF configurations with GNS3, I believe I have the basic concepts of this routing protocol down. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be but I did get tripped up over the initial configuration. First I tried creating a simple 3 router topology using a simulator program called Packet Tracer. However I noticed that OSPF protocol would never start, after a little research it turns out that OSPF doesn't even work for Packet Tracer! I had to use the GNS3 emulating program that uses the actual IOS to implement the protocol. I still had problems though until I realized that I was in correctly inputting my wild-card masks. I was using "10.0.0.0 0.0.0.0" as the subnets I wanted OSPF to look at. I failed to realize that when you use 0.0.0.0 you're pretty much telling the router to look for that specific subnet number. Once I changed the logic to "10.o.o.o 0.255.255.255" on all the routers OSPF sub-commands everything came up perfectly :)

(P.S. when you use 255 intead of 0's in the wild card mask you're pretty much telling the router to ignore that whole octect. So when I put 0.255.255.255 instead I told the router to look for any subnets with 10 in the first octect number but ignore looking for any specific numbers in the other octects.)

Study Update Numero Uno

Well I'm a little over half way to finishing the ICND2 book, I'm averaging 1 chapter a day a long with labs and additional studying. This comes out to about 5-7 hours total I spend a day studying for the most part. I should be done reading the official book around May 18th, then I'm going to study and lab for the next week or two in hopes of taking the last part towards my CCNA. During my CCENT studies last month the hardest thing was getting subnetting down good. When I say good I mean being able to subnet within 30 seconds and pretty much to the point where I can do a good majority of it in my head. CCENT was mainly theory with some basic router and switch configuration thrown in. To be completly honest I knew about 80% of the material already I just needed to either brush up or learn more detail about certain subjects.

So far during my ICND2 studies there's been a lot more topics I've needed to grasp in more detail. So far I've learned about switching using VLANs, VTP, STP, and of course the beloved Route on A Stick (RoAS). This was the first 3 chapters of the book by the way just to give you an idea of how in-depth the second part of CCNA is. I also recently learned how to create and trouble shoot standard and extended ACL's, verify subnets within VLSM, Routing Protocol Theory, and route summarization this past week. It's a lot to take in but my plan is to understand each topic and then go back to each one in detail to learn everything in between.

Today...well yesterday (May 7, 2009) I spent time reading theory on the difference between Distance-Vector and Link-State Routing Protocols. I want to say I spent about 5 hours going through the chapter of about 30 pages and doing some additional course work along with taking some brief notes. Everything with this chapter was self explanitory but I have to remember not to get many of the Distant-Vector loop preventing tools mixed up. Mainly I need to remember the difference between split-horizon, poisoned routes, and poison reverse. These are all used on top of a few other things to aviod packets from continuelessly looping in a routing network.

After reading this chapter you'll finally realize why Link-State protocols can converge much faster. Link-State protocol uses an algorithm on each router to determine the best route. So unlike Distant-Vector, routers doesn't depend on it's neighboring routers to tell it which route to take. It simply calculates all the info its recieved from every router in its network and picks which path it should take on its own.

I rested for a little while along with setting up some more of my social networking accounts (LinkedIn, Twitter, YoungEntrepreneur) which I'll post links to a little later once I have some more posts up and going. I then went to Cisco website to go over some free webinars they have there which is great by the way (www.cisco.com) to go over some more information about VLANs an VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol).

Tommorow I should have some new routing protocol theory down which is dum dum dum...OSPF. I have a feeling tommorow is going to be a long day of studying, a lot of labbing is going to be involved plus I'm going over access-lists later that night, wish me luck!

Current IT Certs and Progress

Over the course of a little over 2 years now I've been obtaining IT certifications. Mainly because I was interested in filling in certain knowledge gaps but knowing you have a certain IT certifications is a pretty good feeling. I started off with A+ since I figured it would be the easiest for me (which it was) and give me a chance to see how I feel about self studying and taking tests. From there I knew that there was some networking knowledge that I didn't know to much about or had much experience such as Novell IPX/SPX protocols and things such as Token Ring. I was also doing consulting work for the company I was working for so I seen quite a few older networking topologies being implemented still so that had me curious. The next logical step was Network+, which was a little harder but really didn't give me the feeling as if I had a higher level of expertise with the subject from obtaining this certification.

I moved to a new company where I was doing all in house work in a complete Microsoft/Cisco environment. I was working under a manager that handled all the SQL systems so I was kind of moving towards that way. I was handled quite a bit of Windows XP and 2003 servers so my next logical action was to take some MCP certs and who knows, maybe get a little bit crazy and go for the mysterious MCSE! I'll have to admit the knowledge required to past a MCP exam is quite the step up from CompTIA certs (A+, Network+). However Microsoft has to have the worst testing formats. Not only are the majority of their questions meant to trick you and trip you up if you don't read carefully, at the very least each question is a PARAGRAPH long! Again that's the short easy questions, most of their questions are about 2-4 paragraphs. That's the main reason why you get 4 hours to take one of their exams compared to other vendors usual 60-90 min. time frame.

I'll mention briefly that I'm recently Cisco certified...wahooooo, BUT it's only the CCENT the basic of the basics of Cisco certifications. Not that this exam was easy by any means honestly I think there testing format is just right. No long winded questions plus their straight-forward but they test you to make sure you know your stuff. I'm going to attempt to take the second half ICND2 at the end of this month (May 2009) or early next month (June 2009). I spent one month studying for the CCENT (April 2009). I'm putting in much more time per day for the ICND2 because it is the meat and potatoes of the CCNA. Being that I learned most of the basic networking info throughout highschool and the years of experience is paying off tremendously in obtaining my goal. Honestly I wouldn't of rushed this cert in a 2-2.5 month time frame but I'm out of a job at the moment and I need revenue coming in ASAP! I promise for my next Cisco certs I'm going to take my time and buy a lot more material for studying though.

So a quick recap of IT certs I have so far...A+, Network+, Microsoft Certified Professional with Windows XP/2003 (2 certs), CCENT, and oh yea I took some ITIL training when I had off time at one of my previous contracts but I haven't tooking the test....yet.

A Little about Me

Well as you all know my name is Shawn Moore and I grew up in the St. Louis, MO area. My life with IT actually began back in high school. I went to a magnet school where you could specialize in all types of trades. I always figured I would be involved with technology somehow I just didn't know what exactly. We had a program that was called "Computer Networking" and at that time I have to admit I had no clue what that was. For some strange reason though I knew this was the program I needed to be in ASAP!

This program started the beginning of my sophomore year and I'll never forget, our very first task was to assemble a PC to be used as our own personal one that would be used throughout the year. Given that these computers were about 5-10 years old it still was very neat putting your very own computer together. It took me a total of 3 weeks I believe before I found enough working parts in the class room to assemble a computer that could barely run Windows 98 (This was back in 2002). Once I was finished though it felt like a huge accomplishment and I couldn't wait to delve more into this program!

Flash forward a year with a little basic PC support knowledge, our next topic for the rest of my high school career would be nothing other than Cisco! I never heard of Cisco and still had no real clue of what networking was. However as time went on I realized that for some strange reason I enjoyed learning about network, communication, and the layout of networking equipment. I had a lot more interest with networking then I did putting a PC together and for some reason I could grasp the concepts easier. So much so that by the end of Senior year I was the top student in our Cisco Network Academy class in our school. I've never been the "Top" anything so I knew that was telling me something.

Before I graduated I landed an internship with a very well known radio broadcasting company in which I was gradually shifting from becoming a network engineer to a systems administrator. Not that this was a bad thing and at the time I really didn't know what the real difference was since this was my first time working in a live environment. As time went on I've obtained full time positions working in a variety of fields within IT. From Systems Administrator to Network Applications Monitor however I never touched programming to much besides SQL as I really didn't have a love for it. Ironically in most of my positions I've had to manage a switch or router in some form and what I've come to realize was that was the most enjoyable part about all my positions.

That's why I've decided to start my path through Cisco at this very moment. I figure why do something you only kind of like doing when you can do something that you love doing! So here I am half way to my CCNA title and to explain the experience to you all. I kinda wished I would of thought about creating a blog at the very beginning of trek but hey you live and learn right.....right?