So I finally decided to take the CCNA exam – 12 years after going through a great portion of the topics during my training as an IT professional.<\/p>\n
Since my vocational college was (and still is) a Cisco Networking Academy (1999-2003) we used the Curriculum as a part of our daily lectures and they have given me both the knowledge and the motivation to dig into one of my favorite areas of IT engineering.<\/p>\n
Back when I set up my first 10Base2 Local Area Network at the age of 15 – I knew practically nothing about IP Adresses and how to deploy them correctly. At some point, I got the 192.168.1.1\/255.255.255.0 thing right and Local Area Network gaming opened up a whole new world to us. Keep in mind, back then most of the kids our age had only limited access to the internet.<\/p>\n
Together with the GNU\/Linux Operating System networks not only became my profession, but also my passion.<\/p>\n
The last few years I spent with designing, implementing and\u00a0troubleshooting\u00a0medium sized networks in a university campus environment. After recently planning and deploying a medium sized wireless network (130 Lightweight Access Points) my next 2\u00a0candidates\u00a0on the list of exploration (and at some point perhaps mastering) will be BGP and MPLS at a CCNP level, so I might as well take the CCNA on my path and then go for the CCNP. Even with many years of experience the CCNA exam will definitely not be a cakewalk since there are always some gaps that need to be filled (Frame-Relay, y u no go extinct!) and the exam yet has a reputation to be hard.<\/p>\n
My Lab is still missing some WIC-1T cards + DCE\/DTE crossover cables but then i should be good to go.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/robinward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lab.png\" "\\"lab\\"")
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