CCNA passed

[Rbutler]

Wooo 6 months of studying and passed the icnd2 which combined with the icnd1 gives me my CCNA. Hopefully my job will let me split time with networking and my typical admin duties and eventually move to networking.

Any network admins around here?

[MrFancyPants]

Congrats on passing. I remember when I took the CCNA exam, the EIGRP lab portion was broken so I was unable to configure as they asked, which really irked me. I still passed with about a 940. Also have a VMware VCP5-DCV which I need to upgrade to version 6.

I do network, server, virtualization, all of the above. My CCNA is up for renewal in March, so I'll be taking the CCNA Security exam in a few weeks. I've got a nice lab setup at home with a 3750G, 2960G, 2611 router, 5510 ASA, and HP DL360 server with 2 hexa-core Xeon CPUs and 72 GB RAM which I run all my VMs on. Makes it easy to practice for pretty much any cert I need to.

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[BigFatGuy]

I was a small-office (40 nodes) admin for 14 years, including some contract work (ie, I was unemployed during the .com crash...)

I went back to school to get my Cisco certs when I realized I hated the job, and figured, if I'm going back to school anyway, I should get the engineering degree I always wanted. :-)

[twidget1995]

Congrats! Pretty impressive accomplishment.

[hcbr]

Congratulations! I've been ad admin for almost 20 years now and the only advice I can give you is to just keep learning and applying and keep up with the certs. On the job experience is obviously #1 but the certs are also as important. Also traject your career path on what you want to do. I have many admin friends that either became senior engineers, Project Managers, Voice CCNP's etc. It all depends on what you find interesting and what you enjoy. I also recommend seeing if you can get a job working with routers and switches that puts your cert to use. I got my CCNP a while ago and that was one of the hardest challenges I had faced. I'm now a Mobile systems admin, but I'm moving on and trying to get into management. (i.e. finish my degrees including an MBA in Info Tech management etc)

Good luck and keep us posted on your endeavors!

[jdfthetech]

well done. a very worthwhile goal competed!

[igorts]

Congrats! keep learning (:-

[bigmike82]

Congrats! One down, many more to go!

[Rbutler]

My job does have a net admin opening and have the net admins on my side wanting me over there. Hopefully I will either be able to go over there full time or do part time net admin while I work as a regular admin.

CCNA was part of my school so next up is humanities then some basic database/SQL stuff and then my CCNA SEC. Really looking forward to being able to use the cert in the real world. virtual labs do well but only get you so far.

Game plan is to get in the door as a net admin while finishing school. School will give me a taste of a few different aspects and figure out which I like the most before taking the knowledge ive gained and start really focusing it on the direction I plan on going.

[MrFancyPants]

Really looking forward to being able to use the cert in the real world. virtual labs do well but only get you so far.

You can pick up some lab equipment pretty cheap on eBay, so you can spend your time practicing on the real deal. I bought my 24-port 3750G for I think about $120 for the layer 3 stuff, and my 48-port 2960G for about the same. If you're planning on going for the CCNA Security you'll definitely need an ASA as well.

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[hcbr]

My job does have a net admin opening and have the net admins on my side wanting me over there. Hopefully I will either be able to go over there full time or do part time net admin while I work as a regular admin.

CCNA was part of my school so next up is humanities then some basic database/SQL stuff and then my CCNA SEC. Really looking forward to being able to use the cert in the real world. virtual labs do well but only get you so far.

Game plan is to get in the door as a net admin while finishing school. School will give me a taste of a few different aspects and figure out which I like the most before taking the knowledge ive gained and start really focusing it on the direction I plan on going.

Definitely go for the net admin position, especially if you have friends in that area that can vouch for you. Getting your feet wet early is definitely a plus. As for the virtual labs, like one of the members mentioned here, you can get some good deals on cisco equipment to make your own personal lab. I did this for my CCNP and helped tremendously! great thing about it is that you can piece meal it yourself if you don't have much funds. But sounds like you're on the right track!

[catmman]

Congrats!