Course young fighter. Practical course on Cisco Packet Tracer. Conclusion
More recently, I published a short article, “The Course of a Young Fighter. Practical course on Cisco Packet Tracer . There I spoke about the experience of creating a training course for the internal needs of the organization. The main goal of the course is to quickly prepare a specialist for “field work”. Lessons in parallel published on YouTube in the public domain. The project itself was called NetSkills. After the publication on the YouTube channel, more than 2 thousand subscribers have been added. I received an excellent feedback (which I barely managed) and an incentive to get things done.
A few days ago I published the last video lesson and wanted to share some results and thoughts as a conclusion. Everyone who is interested, welcome under cat.
Small course statistics
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1) There are 23 lessons in total in the course. For someone it is a lot, for someone it is not enough. At the beginning of the course, I promised more typical network diagrams, but then I realized that this would not be entirely appropriate. Most likely this will translate into some separate lessons or courses.
2) Course duration was 9 months. Although I planned to manage about 6. I overestimated my capabilities. The reasons for the delay were different. Sometimes work, sometimes banal laziness. Now I can say with confidence that if I were more seriously engaged in the course and spent a little more time, then I could manage in a couple of months! But for now this is just a hobby.
3) During the creation of the course there were 56 thousand (now over 60) video viewing lessons. This is certainly less than Max from +100500, but nonetheless. It is evident that people are interested.
4) For 9 months, the channel has increased 2400 (now more than 2500) subscribers, which is also very good! And the total number of subscribers is now just over 3 thousand.
5) Subscribers also actively commented on video lessons and the number of comments on the course exceeded 5 hundred.
6) I received more than 100 emails with questions and clarifications. I tried to answer as much as possible and provide all kinds of help.
Here is such a small statistic.
I also noted for myself an important thing - the need for intermediate homework. This turned out to be very important for fixing the material covered. Unfortunately, I realized it too late. But next time I will definitely consider it.
As mentioned above, during the course publication process I received many questions. Many of them were the same and I decided to make up a small TOP novice questions. I will answer them again.
1 So, one of the most frequently asked questions: “Should I take the CCNA exam?” . Yes - in short. I will try to answer a little more detailed. Generally speaking, neither the CCNA certificate nor the CCNP certificate says absolutely nothing about a person’s competence. Yes, you can be sure that he owns some basic concepts, but no more. In the presence of current dumps, the exam can pass even a monkey (no matter how sad it may sound). But that is not the question. The question is, will a CCNA certificate help us? And then the definite answer is YES. As soon as you receive a certificate, your value in the labor market increases, no matter who says it. Naturally, this does not guarantee you a cool job right away with a good salary. Here you will need a good experience. But the certificate will clearly be a big plus in your resume and a good start in your career. Many companies intentionally look for people with certificates in order to build partnership with vendors (Cisco, MicroSoft, CheckPoint). Partnerships typically require certified staff.
2) Next question: "How to prepare for CCNA?" . There is actually no definite answer. There are many opinions on this subject. Someone thinks that it is necessary to go through authorized courses, someone thinks that there are enough books, and someone is just wondering about dumps. I can only share my opinion on this issue. I had to pass 6 exams (CCNA, CCNA Security and 4 exams from the CCNP Security branch), as a result of which I developed my own preparation algorithm. For me, just reading a book was always boring. And I once was very well advised to pay attention to the CBT Nuggets courses. And this is the best I've seen from the materials on self-preparation. Very qualified specialists who explain complex things in an easy and sometimes playful way. I recommend everyone to take their courses as a basis for preparation. There are only two minuses. The first minus - courses in English. But if you plan to be an IT specialist, then you need to get used to it and pull up your English. So maybe this is a plus. The second minus - paid courses.However, they can be downloaded for free on the torrent . This is piracy, but ... it saves money. If the English language is a big problem, then it is worth reading the books icnd1 and icnd2, they are also on the torrent in Russian. Although the new version of the CCNA exam is currently only in English. When preparing, be sure to use exam dumps that can be downloaded from examcollection.com. Total. To prepare for CCNA, I recommend using CBT Nuggets video courses, icnd1, icnd2 books and exam dumps so that you can clear up all the questions in advance and test your preparation. Just pay attention to the site 9tut.com where you can not only find out the answers to questions from the exam, but also their explanation.
3) The third question is: “Is Cisco Packet Tracer enough to prepare for CCNA?” . In general, yes, enough. I never understood people who bought whole laboratory stands for preparation, in my opinion this is unnecessary. Most common tasks can be implemented in Cisco Packet Tracer. Of course there are several topics inaccessible for modeling, but in this case, GNS3 comes to the rescue, to which one of the following courses will be devoted.
4) The next question immediately arises: ”Cisco Packet Tracer or GNS3? Which is better? Another controversial issue. Express your opinion. For newcomers, Cisco Packet Tracer is the best solution today. It is easy to use, not demanding on the characteristics of the computer and it is enough for most tasks from the course CCNA. GNS3 is more functional, interesting, allows you to model devices that are not available in Cisco Packet Tracer. Commands in routers are not trimmed. You can take full advantage of the Cisco ASA firewall features. You can create heterogeneous networks from devices of various vendors (Cisco, Juniper, CheckPoint, Mikrotik, etc.). But GNS3 is very demanding of computer resources, there are a lot of bugs that will put a beginner in a dead end. Thus, I strongly recommend that beginners start with Cisco Packet Tracer, and then switch to GNS3 to solve more interesting and complex tasks.
5) “What books to read?” . Another very common question. At least icnd1 and icnd2. And then everything depends on your tasks. Always try to set clear goals. A task like “I want to learn Cisco” is a wrong task. And the task “to organize a network with Internet access for 50 users” is correct. Already this task can be divided into smaller ones: “configure VLANs”, “configure ip-addresses”, “configure NAT”. For these requests it will be much easier to find the right literature. By setting yourself a specific task, it will be much easier for you to advance in the learning process. Here is my advice.
6) “What else should a networker understand?” I also often hear this question. Here you can say: "The more, the better." But most require specifics. Express your personal opinion. In my opinion, the networker is simply obliged to navigate in unix-like systems. To be able to configure the ip address, set the route, restart the service, use the vi editor, the grep utility and much more. A huge number of network devices works either on linux or freebsd. Therefore, a minimum set of knowledge must be present.
7) Often there are questions like “In the head porridge, everything is messed up, what to do?” . This problem occurs when a person re-read theoretical materials and did not pay enough attention to practice. In such cases, I recommend to relax a couple of days and start working with specific practical tasks. Try to simulate several networks, try the settings in Cisco Packet Tracer, this will help to structure your knowledge. You will still have questions in terms of design (where to put the switch, where the router, etc.), but these are temporary difficulties, you will definitely figure it out over time.
8) “How to develop?” . This is a philosophical question. On the Internet a huge number of books on personal and career self-development. For example, I like Brian Tracy's book Coming Out of the Comfort Zone most of all. I highly recommend reading. I will not go into details on this topic, because she is very extensive. I will give only a few tips. Plan your time, be sure to read IT news, regularly watch webinars, subscribe to YouTube channels of famous IT companies, in general, be in the trend! IT should be your favorite hobby.
There was also the experience of training new employees in the course created. The result was pleasantly surprised. Within a week, a person manages to complete approximately half of the course, and by completing intermediate tasks, he can already start setting up not complex network configurations. It is noticeable that employees are much more willing to learn video lessons with parallel practice in the Cisco Packet Tracer (What could not be said about reading books). The effect of the courses is definitely very positive.
Based on the experience gained, there are plans to create a small course on GNS3, as well as to prepare for commissioning (development of an L2 / L3 scheme, ip card, cable journal). If successful, it will be possible to significantly simplify and improve the training of new specialists.
PS Many thanks to all subscribers for their support and constructive criticism!
A few days ago I published the last video lesson and wanted to share some results and thoughts as a conclusion. Everyone who is interested, welcome under cat.
Small course statistics
')
1) There are 23 lessons in total in the course. For someone it is a lot, for someone it is not enough. At the beginning of the course, I promised more typical network diagrams, but then I realized that this would not be entirely appropriate. Most likely this will translate into some separate lessons or courses.
2) Course duration was 9 months. Although I planned to manage about 6. I overestimated my capabilities. The reasons for the delay were different. Sometimes work, sometimes banal laziness. Now I can say with confidence that if I were more seriously engaged in the course and spent a little more time, then I could manage in a couple of months! But for now this is just a hobby.
3) During the creation of the course there were 56 thousand (now over 60) video viewing lessons. This is certainly less than Max from +100500, but nonetheless. It is evident that people are interested.
4) For 9 months, the channel has increased 2400 (now more than 2500) subscribers, which is also very good! And the total number of subscribers is now just over 3 thousand.
5) Subscribers also actively commented on video lessons and the number of comments on the course exceeded 5 hundred.
6) I received more than 100 emails with questions and clarifications. I tried to answer as much as possible and provide all kinds of help.
Here is such a small statistic.
I also noted for myself an important thing - the need for intermediate homework. This turned out to be very important for fixing the material covered. Unfortunately, I realized it too late. But next time I will definitely consider it.
Frequently asked Questions
As mentioned above, during the course publication process I received many questions. Many of them were the same and I decided to make up a small TOP novice questions. I will answer them again.
1 So, one of the most frequently asked questions: “Should I take the CCNA exam?” . Yes - in short. I will try to answer a little more detailed. Generally speaking, neither the CCNA certificate nor the CCNP certificate says absolutely nothing about a person’s competence. Yes, you can be sure that he owns some basic concepts, but no more. In the presence of current dumps, the exam can pass even a monkey (no matter how sad it may sound). But that is not the question. The question is, will a CCNA certificate help us? And then the definite answer is YES. As soon as you receive a certificate, your value in the labor market increases, no matter who says it. Naturally, this does not guarantee you a cool job right away with a good salary. Here you will need a good experience. But the certificate will clearly be a big plus in your resume and a good start in your career. Many companies intentionally look for people with certificates in order to build partnership with vendors (Cisco, MicroSoft, CheckPoint). Partnerships typically require certified staff.
2) Next question: "How to prepare for CCNA?" . There is actually no definite answer. There are many opinions on this subject. Someone thinks that it is necessary to go through authorized courses, someone thinks that there are enough books, and someone is just wondering about dumps. I can only share my opinion on this issue. I had to pass 6 exams (CCNA, CCNA Security and 4 exams from the CCNP Security branch), as a result of which I developed my own preparation algorithm. For me, just reading a book was always boring. And I once was very well advised to pay attention to the CBT Nuggets courses. And this is the best I've seen from the materials on self-preparation. Very qualified specialists who explain complex things in an easy and sometimes playful way. I recommend everyone to take their courses as a basis for preparation. There are only two minuses. The first minus - courses in English. But if you plan to be an IT specialist, then you need to get used to it and pull up your English. So maybe this is a plus. The second minus - paid courses.
3) The third question is: “Is Cisco Packet Tracer enough to prepare for CCNA?” . In general, yes, enough. I never understood people who bought whole laboratory stands for preparation, in my opinion this is unnecessary. Most common tasks can be implemented in Cisco Packet Tracer. Of course there are several topics inaccessible for modeling, but in this case, GNS3 comes to the rescue, to which one of the following courses will be devoted.
4) The next question immediately arises: ”Cisco Packet Tracer or GNS3? Which is better? Another controversial issue. Express your opinion. For newcomers, Cisco Packet Tracer is the best solution today. It is easy to use, not demanding on the characteristics of the computer and it is enough for most tasks from the course CCNA. GNS3 is more functional, interesting, allows you to model devices that are not available in Cisco Packet Tracer. Commands in routers are not trimmed. You can take full advantage of the Cisco ASA firewall features. You can create heterogeneous networks from devices of various vendors (Cisco, Juniper, CheckPoint, Mikrotik, etc.). But GNS3 is very demanding of computer resources, there are a lot of bugs that will put a beginner in a dead end. Thus, I strongly recommend that beginners start with Cisco Packet Tracer, and then switch to GNS3 to solve more interesting and complex tasks.
5) “What books to read?” . Another very common question. At least icnd1 and icnd2. And then everything depends on your tasks. Always try to set clear goals. A task like “I want to learn Cisco” is a wrong task. And the task “to organize a network with Internet access for 50 users” is correct. Already this task can be divided into smaller ones: “configure VLANs”, “configure ip-addresses”, “configure NAT”. For these requests it will be much easier to find the right literature. By setting yourself a specific task, it will be much easier for you to advance in the learning process. Here is my advice.
6) “What else should a networker understand?” I also often hear this question. Here you can say: "The more, the better." But most require specifics. Express your personal opinion. In my opinion, the networker is simply obliged to navigate in unix-like systems. To be able to configure the ip address, set the route, restart the service, use the vi editor, the grep utility and much more. A huge number of network devices works either on linux or freebsd. Therefore, a minimum set of knowledge must be present.
7) Often there are questions like “In the head porridge, everything is messed up, what to do?” . This problem occurs when a person re-read theoretical materials and did not pay enough attention to practice. In such cases, I recommend to relax a couple of days and start working with specific practical tasks. Try to simulate several networks, try the settings in Cisco Packet Tracer, this will help to structure your knowledge. You will still have questions in terms of design (where to put the switch, where the router, etc.), but these are temporary difficulties, you will definitely figure it out over time.
8) “How to develop?” . This is a philosophical question. On the Internet a huge number of books on personal and career self-development. For example, I like Brian Tracy's book Coming Out of the Comfort Zone most of all. I highly recommend reading. I will not go into details on this topic, because she is very extensive. I will give only a few tips. Plan your time, be sure to read IT news, regularly watch webinars, subscribe to YouTube channels of famous IT companies, in general, be in the trend! IT should be your favorite hobby.
Training inside the company
There was also the experience of training new employees in the course created. The result was pleasantly surprised. Within a week, a person manages to complete approximately half of the course, and by completing intermediate tasks, he can already start setting up not complex network configurations. It is noticeable that employees are much more willing to learn video lessons with parallel practice in the Cisco Packet Tracer (What could not be said about reading books). The effect of the courses is definitely very positive.
Plans
Based on the experience gained, there are plans to create a small course on GNS3, as well as to prepare for commissioning (development of an L2 / L3 scheme, ip card, cable journal). If successful, it will be possible to significantly simplify and improve the training of new specialists.
PS Many thanks to all subscribers for their support and constructive criticism!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/258217/
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