Discounted Cisco training - any use?

kkelly77

Found THIS DEAL for discounted online Cisco training.

Just like to get some feedback, if there any Cisco certified people on the forum, if this deal is any good i.e. the price and certification. From the small print it looks like there is an extra cost for the exams which is not included in the price. Thanks.

qaswww

have you any experiance

kkelly77

qaswww wrote: »

have you any experiance

A bit. Worked in IT but was about 12-13 yrs ago. Did the A+ exams and have data cabling experience.

L1011

Do you intend to work with Cisco equipment? If not, don't bother. There are more valuable general certificates available.

In this case I suspect the content is no better than what is already free either.

kkelly77

MYOB wrote: »

Do you intend to work with Cisco equipment? If not, don't bother. There are more valuable general certificates available.

In this case I suspect the content is no better than what is already free either.

No specific plans to work with their gear but from the course content description, there are a number of modules which would be generic across any networking platforms.

What other valuable certs would you recommend MYOB?

L1011

Having done the CCNA, a huge amount of the content is absolutely useless outside of Cisco equipment. Massive, massive waste of my time and money seeing as I haven't touched anything other than a 857 DSL router since doing it or even gone for a job with a company that uses Cisco kit. That which is generic is below Network+ level, and that's cheaper to do as far as I know.

What area do you actually want to go in to?

kkelly77

MYOB wrote: »

Having done the CCNA, a huge amount of the content is absolutely useless outside of Cisco equipment. Massive, massive waste of my time and money seeing as I haven't touched anything other than a 857 DSL router since doing it or even gone for a job with a company that uses Cisco kit. That which is generic is below Network+ level, and that's cheaper to do as far as I know.

What area do you actually want to go in to?

Thanks for the advice MYOB.

I took some data cabling/fibre optic training last year and thought some network training would complement it nicely. Also, just trying to keep the grey matter exercised I'd love to work with fibre optic. It's great stuff.

moc moc a moc

MYOB wrote: »

There are more valuable general certificates available.

I'd love to hear what certs you have in mind.

And if you're going to say a Network+ is more valuable than a CCNA, I want some of whatever you're smoking...

L1011

moc moc a moc wrote: »

I'd love to hear what certs you have in mind.

And if you're going to say a Network+ is more valuable than a CCNA, I want some of whatever you're smoking...

Vendor certification for the vendor you intend to work with, or whatever the current generation of the AD design MCP is, as it is nearly entirely networking. The ridiculous treatment of Cisco certification as a catchall has devalued it hugely.

I get CVs in from people who have crammed/braindumped CCNAs, in the former case sometimes paying thousands for classroom training, and haven't been able to explain extreme networking basics to me.

In any case, if people do want to work with Cisco equipment, it'd likely be a better option to buy the official training books that come with the actually somewhat usable simulator and work on them, rather than buying dodgy classes from an unknown third party off Groupon.

roast

Slightly OT, but...

Anyone have any positive/negative opinions on the GNS3 simulator as a learning tool?
Better/worse than hands-on learning with physical equipment or official simulators?

heffsarmy

Packet tracer will do you for the CCNA exam, it covers all the labs required. GNS3 is learning curve to setup, but once done your grand. If you plan to go further into the cisco world, investing in lab equipment is good idea. GNS3 falls short on the switching side, you have to become creative but your better of with real equipment. The CCNA exam has been recently updated and the last date to the current exam is september 30. Check out the cisco website for the new updates.

moc moc a moc

roast wrote: »

Anyone have any positive/negative opinions on the GNS3 simulator as a learning tool?

(FYI, GNS3 (or more specifically, dynamips) is an emulator, not a simulator)

I find it better for labbing than hardware due to the convenience of being able to set up a whole load of routers in a few clicks of a mouse. If I have a free half hour in work and I start wondering what will happen if I apply a route map containing 'x' to an incoming BGP advertisement with 'y' set, it's much easier to whack a few virtual routers together in GNS3 to try it out than to grab and cable up physical routers, wait for them all to boot, wipe and put them back on the shelf when finished, etc.

As mentioned above, if you go beyond the CCNA, you'll want hardware switches as GNS3 can't fully emulate switches due to the fact that they contain custom ASICs. Should be enough on its own up to CCNA, though.