My Cisco CCNA 200-301 online exam | Tips & Strategies

[Music] and welcome everybody once again to the Keith Barker channel here on YouTube it is fantastic to have you here and I gotta tell you I always get excited about talking about Cisco and configuration and the fundamentals because no matter what type of software-defined networking comes in the future the underlay network and the routing protocols and the other methods that are used to make that all happen are going to be valuable for a long long time so I'm extra excited today because I got to chat with you about the online testing experience I just had this week with Cisco Systems taking the 200 301 so if you're watching this in retrospect it is April of 2020 we had this little virus thing going around not such a little thing that's actually a pandemic and so the testing centers have been closed and Cisco now has opened up online testing for people for most of the certification exams so I wanted to do three things in this video and to share with you some insight on what that might be like and what to expect and also how you can best prepare to become not only certified as a Cisco CCNA individual but also learn the skills that are going to help you for the rest of your career if they involve networking of any type now if you're a software programmer and never have to touch the network maybe that won't apply to you directly but for most people who are gonna be working with and hanging around IT and working with network infrastructures most of the information in the CCNA is very very valuable okay so here's our three objectives stay on target stay on target number one I want to talk about the online experience for testing to give you a warm-up for what that feels and looks like to help you prepare and be ready for it so that when it when you go for your online testing you can avoid a few of the same mistakes that many people make - I want to share with you how to best prepare for your CCNA and then third I want to share with you the blueprint and my experience of how to decode that and how did I know what how much time and effort to spend on each of the topics which is going to be very very relevant okay so let's start off with me like oh I feel I felt a little I'm a little anxious sometimes I start an exam and I felt a little anxious about doing this video too is like I'm reliving the exam and those are those are healthy nerves that can be healthy when you start to take it exam so the key element is to prepare and then when you go in and take your exam just make sure that you're in the best mindset you can be and I'll share with you some tips on how to do that as well okay for the online experience I logged I've taken that online test before with people cert as part of ITIL a few years ago and so the online testing wasn't totally new to me but here's what I did the day before that day before the exam I went in and I did my full systems check they recommend that you take your computer and where you'll be taking the exam in your home or apartment or in your office wherever it is and do this whole test beforehand to make sure there's no last-minute surprises so I did and here's what the this the self test at the beginning is a lot like getting ready for the test on the day you take it he goes something like this find a space where you will not be interrupted meaning no one can be in the room no one can come in there should be no other noises in the house regarding people are humans if you have a cat or a dog that makes a noise I'm sure that's fine but no other humans can be present or around when you take the exam when you have when you start the exam no electronics of any kind no smart watches or tough I would just say take it all it off what I did was I took my Amazon I have a be careful Amazon echo in the kitchen I took my in the dining room I have a little dining nook area so I took mine in that area and I just I removed I went overboard because I thought I can make this simple I took all the chairs away from the table except for the one I was gonna be sitting in I took everything out of that area of the house and I just moved it all to another room the Amazon echo that was in the kitchen I unplugged I thought to myself I don't and I also turned the screen facing the other direction so I could even see it on the counter I don't need it we don't need anything to start talking at us or making noise during the exam because that can disqualify you what else so there's a checklist and they asked you to abide by those rules you can't cover your mouth like that so a couple of times I was like huh look at that I was like don't cover your mouth they just want to make sure that nobody's covering them off so part of it was by the way thanks for hanging out with me and the chatting about this exam is a lot of fun so they you register you have to take a picture they send you a link on your smartphone so you can take pictures and they have you take a picture of your ID the front and the back and you can also rotate it so if you took it long horizontal you could actually win the interface says do you want to rotate it you can rotate it to the right you know the right direction up so I did that for the front and back you could also use a passport if you wanted to and they asked you what type of identification you're going to use they also tell you in the app whether or not it's readable or not so I did that and this is great ok next step take a picture from and they they they graphically show you the images they want like if your desk is here they have a picture you're taking behind the chair facing the computer and eyes using my little kitchen table very small area and then they want one from the other side looking this way they want one from this side and this side and it has visuals too so they'll use a oh here's the chair here's the computer I'll stay on this side and take this picture she's sitting in for pictures they just want to confirm that the space there's nothing there and that nothing that you a person would compromise the exam or cheat with so great so I did all that and then they also did a mic test so then part of the software or you download a piece of software as part of the registration and you run it and it says please close all other apps except for this alright you know there should be nothing on the taskbar for any windows no other apps running except for their program so you run it and then it it test your audio making sure they can hear you because they're gonna be listening to your exam they test your video your camera and these to be a front-facing camera they also ask you did not have any other TVs or external monitors or things in place no drinks no papers nothing in the area and this time in the previously I had added Proctor when the before the exam start he says can you swing your computer around so I can see everything that wasn't the case here they had the pictures from the four angles they didn't ask me to swing the computer around for the like a live view of everything at that moment but they certainly could have there's a chat window I saw I was expecting four so once I did all that and said you ready to begin your exam I clicked on begin exam and then what happened was the whole screen is overcome by this app so there's no taskbar there's nothing else except for that and it looked just like an official testing environment from the screen perspective the same look and feel it was very comforting so I had that you have to accept the agreement and non-disclosure or you're not gonna disclose the questions you got and other info that page was like four pages long please read all this it doesn't count against your time click okay and as you continue to ask if you're over 18 Kelvin you may be in trouble for this one just so they ask if you're over 18 and kelvins at the time of this recording I'm gonna keep him fairly anonymous but he is a moderator and an admin on discord and I believe you 16 and smart as a whip in fact many of them have a bunch of I we have a great team of moderators on the discord server and oh my gosh they are from a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds and many of them are very very young and they inspire me and some of them are in my age and they inspire me and I'm grateful for all the moderators and everything's coming to that channel the discord server to just share information help other people getting that leg up with these fundamentals so my hats off to you okay back on target so before the exam oh I click on Start agreed to everything and then so I thought I thought that it was giving a moderator or somebody in a moderator a monitor a proctor who's online gonna say are you ready to start but I guess they had all the data they needed and I clicked on go and I had done the test before with a sample question to verify everything was working and it just went and the first question came up was like oh so here's a strategy for the exam I will cover that in Section three here coming up but part of this part of the excitement are part of the strategy for me is how many times do you get to see the live exam the answer is the real live exam you get to see when you take it it's just like whoa first question check it out here's the question I don't know what it is yet I haven't read it but it's a question I get to see the actual exam so there's I use that as an excitement mechanism just that I can get my brain going a little bit faster than any normal and anyway so I got that first question and I started reading it and then I like to smile during the exam now I I also sometimes look like this like in you've seen me troubleshoot mm-hmm so I was like don't cover your mouth they don't want you to cover your mouth because you might you know somehow I'll be sending messages to somebody about this exam so I took that firstly I like the first question I thought oh this is a thinking person's question and so I answered it and I moved on and then it's it's like a hundred I think it's just over a hundred questions like a hundred and two questions but that the actual number doesn't matter too much because that may change in the future so it's what I do like though is that there are so many questions and they and I'll talk more about this in the exam experience as far as the actual question and content that the questions were great most of the questions were great so I want to say that out front is that these required somebody not to have an expert knowledge of the technology but somebody who understood how these things work and I thought whoever the team that put these questions together did a really good job in my opinion a really good job of of extracting whether or not the candidate understands and if they're asked to configure can configure the various pieces so they did a great job okay so that was the that was getting into the exam and then at the end I'll tell you how it ended later so we'll go there all right so pictures space online experience get prep for that err on the side of caution just make sure if you have other people in your house or space that they are going to be completely removed and and hopefully quiet until you're done give yourself every possible chance for happiness and success on the exam okay that was number one the online testing experience I give it an A+ it was it was just like I wore pants I thought I could do this without pants but I thought if I get if I get us by the Proctor hey can you take the computer and turn it around see and I'm wearing like underwear underwear or shorts or saying you know I'll be our pants so I wore pants but it's so convenient cuz I took a shower like a half hour before thinking about things and then I went down to my you know kitchen area and set it up it was very very convenient all right step two how to prepare and study the this is important that I remember a story about water about a water supply and that there was a like a hundred gallon tank of water that poured into a small pool up on a mountain and then that then further went down to another pool and there are some animals and maybe some excrement stuff that might have gotten into that and then there was another pool down below where it flowed down not like a raging river but like some water that just gone through several pools on the way down where would we want to go if we needed some the cleanest and most accurate water possible and the answer is you go closest to the source and that's why well I'd like you to remember going close to the source is better than getting it second or third or fourth hand information and in that light I'd like to encourage everybody to download and have you print it out or have it on your computer the blueprint for the exam are for the for the CCNA tool 200 301 you can get it from cisco we're gonna look through it here in section three coming up but download the original blueprint that tell that where cisco is telling you please mister CCNA we have a lot of cisco gear out there in the world including underlay and overlay and now software-defined networking and network automation programming and we're it's cisco is a revenue generating company they want individuals to know how to work with their products because the more technicians and engineers know cisco the more people are going to support and recommend cisco it's it's it's a win-win situation and so cisco really wants you to know so they're giving you this list in the blueprint of exactly what they want you to start with is this stepping stone in your life as you get into the world of cisco so whether you've been working with juniper or HP or security products like Palo Alto and checkpoint or big IP with their f5 product or f5 with their big IP product they Cisco's telling you here is what we want you to learn and so I would download that blueprint and have it and then whenever you have a question about ok what should I be studying or what should I be focusing on go back to that source like don't don't go three pools down go right to the source the second thing I want to point out is the online Doc's to Peter lipu cough which I met back in 2000 what year is it is 2020 maybe it's close to 10 years ago maybe 11 I met Peter yeah I haven't told him I'm saying this but I'm going to I met Peter at when I worked with ine I was doing CCA training for I&E and I love ine great company and I am so the Bryan's are both great I think Brian McGinnis still is like lead architecture person ine still fantastic people all of them and ok going back to Peter so Peter the pooka people sometimes fail their CC II's that happens sometimes and so somebody was talking about oh I failed it twice or failed it three times and then I remember one of the I'm paraphrasing here Peter said something to the effect of yeah I know what it's like to take up that you know taking take I took the exam four times and he's and then he they says and as a result I got four CC II's which he had at that time he may have more now he's brilliant one of the most brilliant engineers that I have ever known and there's actually four or five people that he's like oh my gosh amazing and he's definitely one of them so I was honored to work just in his like in his orbit at that period of time so getting back to online documentation one of the ways that he studied Peter under bukhov and got four CC is as he goes I just here's my strat I'm paraphrasing here so Peter when you when you when you follow up with me go easy as I remember it Peter said I would just go to the documentation I would look at it I would read it I would lab it up verify it and move on and that's not a bad idea so I also like to chat with you about how to look at online documentation and actually get there in fact I mean let me just do that real quick with you because this is a technique that will serve you getting both the blueprint from Cisco and then when you want to learn how to configure something just go to the documentation for Cisco provides you now finding it may not be quite as easy as we might think so let me go ahead and bring it up see I think I have a webpage open do I have a page open not there yeah okay so this is Cisco's home page cisco calm and if you go to support and see here so under support click on products see here I just could click on support again to make sure I'm in the right place support yeah and then check this out networking software right here and check my feedback monitor looks good iOS and nx-os so you click on that and then let's imagine that we're configuring OSPF or we're configuring DHCP or DHCP relay or port security or or ARP inspection what we do is wait for this to load and I'm gonna mmm maybe it's a busy day at Cisco or maybe it's me all right so it loaded and then you just grab an iOS version it doesn't really matter like which like iOS version 15.2 is gonna be really similar to 15.4 for most things and so just if you're running a version of iOS you want to look at that specific one you can grab it let me grab 15 lets me grab this right here just for grins so then what we're gonna do here this is so cool so from the and this is the the Daisy support product document product support and iOS and nx-os software if you scroll down this is where I want to take it right here configuration guides okay if we were gonna ask somebody hey can you walk me through configuring OSPF and what all the commands do and all the details these configuration guides Rock so we'll click on configuration guides and I would later or even right now if you want to pause me and unless it's the premiere but if this is recorded at a later date you're watching a later date pause me and just open a browser right now take this is my call to action for you open a browser right now and walk through so you can find this section of documentation support information that will help you with your studies and your labbing so if we go down to oh let's just take this ringer so first hop redundancy protocols like you know H SRP which is required on the it's on the blueprint in fact I'm the blueprint for CCNA section 3.5 we'll take a close look at that a moment describe the purpose first hop redundancy protocols so okay well here's a guide for it and the configuration guides I personally love because they walk you through the details including how to verify it so if we went to HTS RP version 2 also check this out we're gonna see a lot of information here like whoa-ho-ho it's like going into a restaurant and having a huge menu he's like oh what do i what do I eat like well let's start with the pieces and parts in the CCNA blueprint that you need to focus on so if you're studying first hop redundancy protocols I would say HSR P would be a great start and you could go ahead and take a look at vrrp and there's I there's a and G LBP gateway lib building protocol and just realize this documentation is like a huge menu and what we're gonna do is just go to a very small portion of it and get what we need and want from it so we'll click on HS RP version 2 and then just start scrolling so what I love is that it explains what these do how to configure them how to verify them and then you can lab it up in packet tracer or if you're using an emulator of some type or you're using the Cisco modeling modeling labs personal Edition which previously well that's what they're calling it now so it's fantastic so I wanted to give you the resources of downloading the blue print directly from Cisco for the exam and then also using these configuration guides that can help you identify how to lab it up configure it and verify it great great tools alright then get off that soapbox for a moment and stay on target here it's my list so okay how to prepare blueprint study material online Doc's and labbing it up labbing it up labbing it up having it up whenever whenever a person has a question like what is this route if you have the opportunity and packet tracer is free free from netacad again a free account packet tracers free I've got a whole series of packet tracer labs that are very very hopefull oh by the way Oh hold onto that thought and practice practice practice because what I'm about to share with you about Bloom's taxonomy and the questions and the level of how they ask the questions it's going to be important when you reinforce this and with the big emphasis it's really important that you understand how these protocols that you've been you're being tested on how they work because for 70 percent I would say 70 percent it's it's it's extracting do you really understand this protocol at the CCNA level that's it so it's not like oh I'm memorizing this number or this answer it's interpreting and we'll take a look at Bloom's taxonomy and I'll show you how to decode the blueprint to say okay how much should I study on this and how much do I need to just you know casually know and I'll share with it she'll read that with you here in just a moment okay so our three objectives are one the online exam experience I would also encourage you to test that machine the night before in the same physical location so there's no surprises Internet connectivity power all the rest and then secondly give yourself a half hour before the exam because I thought oh I did the test night before I'm ready to go but when I went in and let's I clicked on the wrong link I had to do all of it again right then so anyway just give yourself 30 minutes so you're not rushing your mic test was at 2:15 in the afternoon Pacific time I started at 1:45 and I was ready like by 2:05 and then they let me let me start early it's all done clicked on start and it said hold on there's a proctor your Proctor should start your exam in any moment hang on and then a moment later I started the exam and away we go okay how to prepare blueprint and then focus on what study from that blueprint use the online Docs when possible I'd also oh yeah she points out you need to plan on some kind of a study resource as well now I I would recommend everybody who's studying for CSUN they have access to a book and people ask me all the time what's the best book and the best book is one that you can relate to that you can read you know that it makes sense for you but we're not going to read it cover-to-cover I'm not nobody's going to read 400 page book or 300 page book cover-to-cover right but it's important as a resource so when I like Wendell Odom I've known Wendell Odom for a long long time he is a good man he is a good author he makes solid content I trust Wendell Odom there are other authors out there that I don't know as personally as far as their work I would so so the question is how do I verify whether or not a book is good as far as helping me as a reference guide and the answer is Amazon you don't have to purchase a book through Amazon but if you use Amazon and you search for the books on your topic like CCNA 200 301 make sure you have the right exam and then you look at the ratings you can look at the ratings and if if we have like 100 or 200 or 300 people that are all doing four and a half stars or better on a book heythat's and then you look at the comments that's probably a pretty good book or on the other hand if you have a book with like two ratings and one says I can't believe I bought this book it has a one-star and then it says you know the book was Man a three star that would help you steer away from that book so whether whatever resource it is you use Amazon as a book a book review guide to get that feedback also there's reddit I love reddit CCNA subreddit fantastic lots of great people but there are ideas and options like what do you use to study and here's the book I used and I liked it so connect connect on reddit if you want to jump on discord the discord server that I that we have we have tons of people there that are also willing to help and give recommendations to I'm looking at the feedback screen and I have I failed to turn off the alerts so I have a lurk monitor it's coming up and I'm recording this just a little bit before it goes live it's one take no cuts but I'm recording it so I so I don't have a live stream issue that gets cut off in the middle anyway so if you do subscribe by the way which I would love you to do and get alerts for when new videos come out thank you for subscribing and whoever just subscribes yeah you're now permanently part of this video congratulations alright okay also books so get a book that you can use other reference it can be like ebook or it could be a physical book or Kindle doesn't matter and as a reference when you're studying something maybe go back and look at that and use that as a reference to help get more information on that topic a lot of people use video training you already know probably that if you don't already here's here's my customer here's my how do you call it advertisement I work at CBT Nuggets full time that's my full time gig and then on this on that in my free time which is Wednesday afternoons and Saturday and Sunday I release new videos all regarding CCNA and CBT Nuggets we have an offering for CCNA 200 301 now we have a subscription model the way it works will be brief here is that it's a flat rate subscription on a monthly basis month-to-month or you can buy an annual and that gives you access to our entire library so you know python and programming and vmware and cisco and Citrix and f5 etc etc so also there's a free trial that's also important for anything you consider there's free trials like I won't name them because there's a lot of them and there's a lot of good ones so if you have if you're gonna purchase for training a soup a soup to dessert training system whether it's video it's very likely gonna be some kind of video based course at some point because a lot of people learn really very well that way is get a trial you know like a seven-day trial or a 30-day trial that's refundable if you don't like it and and just check it out and if it works for you great so get the resources preparing for success I would say at least one book and one method of online training probably and CBT nugget is a great one there are some other really really good ones and there's also a lot of free stuff here on YouTube and this this channel Keith Parker channel is here to help support your learning regardless of whatever using as an official mechanism for training our goal in this channel isn't to cover every single topic this everything you'll ever need to know that's not possible but what I can do oh my gosh after I sat while I was saying the exam I was having these little oh my gosh I mean with things like those videos in my master playlist like 90% of them are so spot-on with what's important to know I mean I'm not just not half but like 90% are all super relative and there's a couple where I went a little bit too far I think in my opinion based on all right they didn't need to know that much but that's okay having a little extra knowledge never hurt anybody but the master playlist I was like oh it's it's it's good and so that's free on YouTube as a Reese source to help you with whatever other training material you're currently using so if you haven't already click on subscribe check out their master playlist and you can use the master playlist in a couple master playlists in a couple of different ways one is you could if you're new just go through it just boom boom boom just gives you a little bit time every day and enjoy and then lab up I've also got new packet tracer labs you can use to get hands-on practice as a resource again to whatever your main course of study is the other option is take a look at the master playlist and just go down say yep I know trunking I understand VLANs ah you know what I'd like to brush up on they just RP or I'd like to brush up on DHCP relay or I'd like to do a lab on XYZ maybe the wireless LAN controller or whatever it is and that you can pick and choose okay all right so let me I'm gonna go to task number 3 here which is the exam experience itself and to do that let me leverage the blueprint I have here on my computer let's take a look and again I'm so grateful to have you join me here for a few minutes or what could be as long as you have for for being here and they do great there we go okay there is a non-disclosure with Cisco and certification exams in general which is you know you're not supposed to disclose what they don't want you to disclose so that that won't be happy I won't be don't be disclosing anything here that I shouldn't and what I'd like to do is share with you how we can know as we look at this official blueprint from Cisco and let's take a couple moments here and annotate a little bit of this a couple pieces here the following topics are guidelines for the content likely to be included however other related topics may also appear on any specific delivery of the exam so basically what's that means this you might get some questions that are a little bit out of scope but I can tell you this as we go through this blueprint together right now spend a few minutes doing that most like 95 percent maybe 98 percent okay I'll go for 95 95 percent of the entire exam in my opinion was spot-on right here in this blueprint and then a few that were like what which are minor like we don't need to mention those like a rounding error um we could just treat those if you're if you're going through the exam my strategy is I'll go through enjoy the questions think about them answer them to this my ability and then if I see something I don't know like what is the default timer for let's picked up a new protocol ABC the ABC protocol it's like uh yeah I you know I I don't know but there's four choices and I have no clue what it is so I'm gonna choose one and not waste a lot of time just frustrated about that and smile like yeah you know what that's a good that's interesting question I don't know at the interest or if you get a question that's out of what you feel is out of scope it's like well that is not fair have a moment if you want I did I did yesterday when I took this exam I had a few moments where I was like and then I thought you know what that's okay it's only one question out of like 102 and you don't need a a to pass it's like well they could change their passing score at any point but you can miss a lot of you can miss several questions and still pass and it's just a pass or fail it's not a competition with who has the you know the highest possible score it's did you pass the exam and meet the requirements that cisco laid out for you so I have some fun and I had that a few times with the questions I thought what but those were the exceptions not the rule most of these questions were just my goodness spot-on and I also wanted to talk with you just for a moment about Bloom's taxonomy because its relevance I think I have a graphic here if I don't I will bring one up huh let me bring up a new tab blooms okay Bloom's taxonomy this there's no test on that let me go to images there we go we'll just grab one of these this is this is so just so base a it's just a Google search for Bloom's taxonomy I'm just gonna grab one let's grab this one right here and I will bring it even bigger there we go if we said yeah great great great so Bloom's taxonomy and this is why I love the exam I mean I just thought it was just fantastic Bloom's taxonomy is about the levels of of knowledge or understanding or applying that knowledge and so at the bottom we can call that let me change my color here to go to black I was gonna call it one they probably had another level but here at level 1 is just remembering a fact that would be an example of just out of blue what is the what's the port number there we go what's the port number for this XYZ protocol yeah whether it's TCP or UDP or whatever and that would be where are you just like oh yeah I know the port for that it's you know sixty nine hundred or whatever it is and that would be a that would be very huge recall a fact I would say probably about in my opinion and I just thought this yesterday with them I towards appreciating it I'd say about 30 percent of the exam was I remember that detail and so if I didn't know detail like whatever was I like ya don't have a clue I don't have a clue it's one of these four and I would make an educated guess like if there was if they're asking for a port for a certain protocol maybe we could rule out oh I know that you know this ports for that like TCP port 80s for web services so it's probably not gonna be that and 443 is is TCP port for HTTP probably not whatever so you can rule out a couple make your best guess smile and think ah I'm moving on so I'd say about thirty percent work just remember and most of them if you do remember are easy and a lot of that does come from the practice and hands-on also that you just say oh yeah I've seen that before a few times because I've configured it and seen it so remembering and then the next level level two is where I think about proud I'm gonna say 70 ish that's the issue there 70ish percent of the exam I feel was that level two and the little teeny bit of layer 3 which is applying so level two Oh Bloom's taxonomy has explained ideas or concepts classify describe discuss explain identify locate recognize report select translate those are all elements that we might used to describe the knowledge or the understanding of that level and then apply is use the information in new situations so they're saying example might be like this you have device a and device B device a is config like this 1 2 3 device B is configured like this 3 2 1 they're connected together they're both powered up what's gonna happen that is applying you have to understand okay what how does that technology work so I drew a cable there but I mean there's lots of things we can have going on it could be an OSPF adjacency it could be link aggregation control protocol between two switches it could be static routing between two devices and so they are an access control list that's you know applied on one side or the other side in or out and so the key here is if you have to understand those concepts they want you to make sure you understand those concepts or whatever they're testing and not just understand them but also in this situation what would happen and the reason I love that is because this if they have a 500 or a thousand different questions variants on you know there are various topologies that they're gonna be using and so forth a person would have to know that person would have to know how that works and this is where I was I had a question in that vein where I was asking me to apply take my in knowledge and what would happen if this occurs and I thought oh my gosh I just realized that you know my the master playlist on Keith Parker then this YouTube channel is just so good for because that's what I'd really focus on is how it works and what's going to happen and the results of it happening and the packet tracer Labs to reinforce that and walking through when it doesn't happen correctly so I did have a few moments of not daydreaming but fantasizing like oh wow the person who watches that video called you know two ways that are out must win or why routes have to win twice whoever watches that video is just gonna be like yes and I could say that for 90% of those videos in the master playlist all right so I felt like 70% of the exam even though there weren't simulations 70% of the exam was asking me about applying or did I really understand how a concept worked and not just what is this what is that that was like 30 percent so I wanted to pass that on now from the blueprint how do you how do we identify like what should we really know at the level two and level three versus just memorize at level one and I have a secret the not secret I'd have a an idea on that I like to share with you and as we scroll down this list let me point out some terms and make sure I'm in frame all right have I told you I'm glad you're here well if I haven't in the last 10 minutes I'm very glad you're here and I'm also I'm very glad that you're either studying for CCNA or revisiting your skills or helping others it's fantastic these skills about the underlay networks which is primary what we're focused on are important and networks don't always function correctly so it's important to how these terms and these concepts down so for network fundamentals here says explain describe compare mostly in my opinion those are like level 1 typisch sections where you'd have to you know explain how something works or remember how something works going a teeny bit into two-bit I would say things like explain I'm just gonna circle um explain describe or compare are gonna be mostly level one like you need to remember X Y Z like how does switches work how do you outers work IP addresses and so forth like that what their purpose and then if I remove that for a moment and we scroll down a little bit let me go ahead and compare and contrast that to this right here at one point six is our first configure if it says configure I would encourage everybody within the sound of my voice whether it's live here or court order listening to it later I would encourage you to take that to a blooms level 2 or level 3 which means I can regarding ipv4 dressing of course we understand how it works we've studied it but we can also configure it verify it and predict what would happen apply it in a new situation like a network you didn't build here's this IP address here is that IP address here's the VLANs involved this device tries to ping what happens or the router gets a packet what happens so the configure is that in my mind keyword that says okay we need to spend more time on it and it's really kind of simple because if we do the task where it says configure and you actually do the hands-on practice to reinforce it you'll get that additional knowledge and then when those come up those questions about this technology and what would happen you'll have seen it you'll have experienced it and you'll probably be pretty good with it if you've done the hands-on practice if you're just memorizing facts and details it's very unlikely that you'll do very well with some of those level 2 questions because they're asking you to apply in level 3 and to apply that knowledge to a new situation to a new topology that you didn't build you didn't set up what's going to happen the link aggregation Kurt are the the ether Channel or is going to be used this protocol or that protocol and the show command is this or based on a show command what causes that cause and effect that's also another really great way to test that live level two and level three is by simply saying I hear the show command and based on that show command what was used in the config static routes dynamic routes what type of discovery protocols being used it's just I felt it was a really really good example okay so coming back here and let me scroll also I would like to just take a moment and with these blueprint items and let's talk about yes or no regarding did they you know adequately test on these areas and again that the exam could be a thousand questions and they're only giving you know one hundred and two per candidate so we're gonna vary and so forth but explain the role of function of network components I would call this a warm-up exercise because once we start configuring and working with these devices routers and switches and so forth we're gonna have a really comfortable understanding of how they work also somebody asked me once in the chat hey do we have to understand multi-layer switching right here is saying layer 3 switching this says router which is just layer 3 routing and layer 3 switches means multi-layer switching which implies VLAN interfaces switched virtual interfaces which we have videos in the playlist on and doing routing or H SRP with switched virtual interfaces so the answer is absolutely yes based on what Cisco is telling us right here access points there's a whole nother section on Wireless as well controllers regarding DNA Center and wireless LAN controllers there's two other big areas in the blueprint we're getting beat both of those endpoints and servers so I would say you know module one is a warm up and most of those concepts and pieces are covered elsewhere further in one point to describe the characteristics of network topology architectures yes they said yes and this would be this would be like a level 1 stuff do you know or do you not know so I can't disclose what they asked but I would say that for this blueprint item they did an adequate job at at the level 1 of asking some basic questions about some of these topics and if you know it you know it if you Dells like I have no clue and if you if you didn't study that at all I didn't read you didn't you took this blueprint section you said well I'm not gonna study it you take the hit and you move on you don't need to pass all the questions but I would suggest studying everything and and trying to get as many points as you can and getting across that passed threshold so I thought they did a good job at level 1 for those questions moving down I without you know without MDA blowing it up I would say they did a great job at at 1.32 and do they ask every possible question about every possible sub bullet maybe maybe not and your test is gonna vary but I would say I guess the key here is don't skip any sections because it's gonna be an exam where they're gonna ask from these like sections 1 2 3 and 1 that 4 there were questions on every single major category like 1.3 1.4 1 2 5 and so forth all right 1.4 here we go identify interface and cable issues now it doesn't say you have to correct them but it here it spells out why do collisions happen errors happen and this is I'm gonna do the point that the answer that one question is the mismatched and duplex would do it there are other reasons as well and speed speed mismatches on interfaces and what happens and what's what would be the result if there was a mismatch those are all valid types of questions and then for 1.5 here compare TCP and UDP and here again what I love about this is that there's other sections which are going to rely like other protocols that use TCP and UDP so instead of just asking a question like what are the characteristics of TCP or what are the characteristics of UDP what they could do is say something like let's take NTP Network Time Protocol and they could say what are the characteristics of the transport protocol used by NTP this was not one of my questions by the way not just an example and so what that does is that's like whoa I have to know or at least have an understanding of NTP and then realize that NTP uses something at layer four right it's TCP or UDP and then based on what it's using at layer four then I could answer the questions about reliable layer 4 transport protocol characteristics like the three-way handshake and acknowledgments and sequence numbers and all that unless it's UDP and if it's UDP that I would say it's connection list doesn't give a hoot it just just sends it and hopes for the best and so that would be a great example of how they could test on you know comparing TCP and UDP without just asking the question and I like that I like that a lot because it doesn't it requires more it requires a level 2 in that case rather than just spitting out okay here's the characteristics of TCP all right so heads up that those that's what it felt like quite a bit when they were asking indirect questions that I had to think about realize what was happening in separate other part regarding that protocol and then answer it moving forward here configure so the configure you should I mean that that just means configure to me means level 2 or level 3 configure and verify ipv4 addressing and subnetting and let me give myself I just pause for a moment and talk about the playlist that I'm very happy about I made this playlist on the YouTube channel and I think ever right here yeah I called it subnet Saturday and it starts off with the basics like I don't know what an IP address is I don't know what a mask is I have no idea how it works and then it works all the way through what is the mask binary decimal to binary blocksize the finger game which is a winner by the way and host bits vlsm reverse-engineering very important by the way and route summarization and then vlsm with packet tracer as a lab to help reinforce it so with IP addressing oh oh oh I'm so glad let me bring up the big screen so what am I one of my nervous points was going in is that even as a CC CIE when I'm doing equations and I don't have a subnet calculator which you don't on an exam I will write out the powers of 2 like 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 and then I will put the mask out I'll draw a line I will circle the circle the block size to identify the ranges for that subnet you know great we've tied all that in the subnet Saturday so if you're new to that take those in order and then if you get to a part where you say I guess I know this skip that go the next one but they build on each other so make sure you have that background knowledge so my nervous point was that whenever I took an exam in the past at a testing center they would give you like a plastic sheet laminated piece of paper with a whiteboard pen that you could make notes on scribble and in my setup for this online lab I took I was like yeah you can't no papers no drinks no pens no anything no watches so there was just nothing and I thought I don't know I hear was my double edge concern number one for learners who are studying this for the first time how are they going to do it right yeah because if you have to do it in your head there's plenty of opportunities for mistakes how are they gonna do without paper and pen and I thought for myself hmm how am I going to do this without a paper because literally you've seen me on the subject Saturdays I am doing the math just like I've taught you to do the math and then I say do the maths or math sit here in Europe I've taught a way of doing subnetting which does not ever require you to say boolean logic or 2 to the power of X because those are some things that help people just say up can't do anymore so my whole subnetting Saturday thing is all about how a human with a piece of paper can write out a few things and solve any IP subnetting question for ipv4 I mean any like here's a host with its IP address what is the range of valid IP addresses for the subnet that that host is on check out the reverse engineering video or what is the mass need to be to support this many hosts or what does the mask need to be to support this many subnets all that's in these subnets Saturday playlists so let me just show you real quick so that oh yeah it's here you can find it so on my YouTube page I've got that master playlist I've got one for subnet Saturdays I've got one for security and I've got one for all of the packet tracer labs so they're all there and I've included most of those in the master playlist if you won't go through that one so I thought to myself oh no I'm gonna be toast because I'm gonna be doing this in the exam with the Proctor watching on camera you know counting out and trying to figure out in my mind the range so you take the subnet you add the fighting out the block size add the block size that's the range is it the second octet or the third octet keep that on my head and then pick out the right answer fortunately there's a button built into two buttons built in to the testing interface one is - there's a comment option third so you can leave a comment on a question if you want to and then for the test writers if you feel like there's an unfair question or something weird but there's also a button you can click on I never did so you can text or chat with the proctor who's watching you and after watching a panel or if you're using AI to see where you're looking I don't know anyway there's a button for that and then there's a button for a scratch pad so you click this button for the notepad I figure what the term was but it's definitely it's obvious you click of a button or this notepad it brings up a little window in their app that lets you add raw text erase erase the whole page clear the whole page so we see do everything you want to right there so the only negative is that you you can't write with a pen unless you do what I did coming up anyway this get a stay on topic so you can actually bring that up and then write out your 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 and then you can you know use your mouse and click and draw around you use the pen tool the text tool and you can hit the undo button so you can what I did is I left my powers of my 1 2 4 8 16 32 once etc at the top and then I just erased the other parts that I was working with for each of the questions that were related to IP addressing and subnetting related questions ok so what I had is I I have a machine and this is I was just so lucky I'm luckier than I am smart but I had this touchscreen computer that I was using for there's a Wacom companion or maybe so studio probably free coaches but it has a touchscreen so I forgot I mean I I mean I was using this laptop the whole time I have a keyboard and mouse and then I clicked on the link for the notepad just the scribble paper to come up and I I took my mouse I clicked on the pen tool and then I took my finger and I thought oh this is too good to be true because I could literally write with my finger the powers of 2 and then do my math without ever having to use my mouse but I could have done it with the mouse so it's not a showstopper it's just an extra so nobody needs to buy a tablet computer with a built-in tablet screen for that but I want to tell you that the the option of using some scratch paper for notes and it's also there persistently so unless you erase it if you bring it up later it's the same notes so you could have the powers of 2 or that 1 2 4 8 16 etc across the top calculate your block sizes and so forth those skills by the way are they're important for the real world but also for certification everything in my subnet Saturday playlist looking at now what the exception of maybe two videos which are less important are critical so if you're going into CCNA you're taking the exam if you know subnetting and you're solid with it if you can take a whole bunch of IP addresses and from those IP addresses identify what subnets they're in and then the ranges for those subnets and then apply that in a creative way which I'll leave to the test to deliver that for you having that knowledge of how to do that is very very important okay so I just wanted to mention that as part of what I I thought was great so you have a paper that you can click on and bring out and work with all right continuing on okay see what else I'll see you here 11.8 configure and verify ipv6 addressing and prefix and then it goes on to say compare ipv6 address types global unicast you know unique local link local anycast multicast modified you UEI eui-64 one of the most amazing things is that if they want to test you on routing they have options they could test you on routing with ipv6 or ipv4 the concepts are the same right I mean they are understanding they are the same so they could test you on routing tables and I had a configure routing and verify routing based on ipv4 or ipv6 so I wouldn't I would encourage no-one to skip ipv6 to say it's just ipv6 I'm gonna focus on ipv4 because if they if if they had a bank of questions and they had 20 that we're gonna ask about routing and each candidate was gonna get two or three of them they could pull from ipv6 or ipv4 you with me because they could test the same knowledge but throwing you ipv6 addresses so if you're not comfortable with ipv6 addresses or you've been postponing learning ipv6 addresses check out you know I would study that and also I've got some packet tracer labs regarding ipv6 that I created previous all to this point which are they're great so I would encourage you not to skip ipv6 at all yeah I so 1.8 1.9 I thought were fair ask questions and they also were like at level two or maybe two and a half to three where they were saying this is this this is that what would we do in this situation to perform some function or to get to a point and you'd have to know based on the options that were chosen and what the result would be okay then 1.10 we're still a section one oh my gosh I got to pick it up a little bit all right a little bit of water okay if this is the first time by the way that you're looking at the blueprint it's not a bad idea to see the whole blueprint also as I encourage you to download this and have it for yourself and get right from cisco site go to Cisco comm certifications CCNA exam objectives and download it okay so there's verify IP parameters for clients in any fashion you want to windows mac OS I wouldn't just for the real world alone I would encourage you to be familiar with that describe wireless print principles so it says describe some anything well I don't really need to know it that much but later it's gonna ask you to configure Wireless in this blueprint so you'd want to this is like a warm-up exercise for the configuration that's coming I would say that's also a fair set of questions as far as like a fair test on this 1.11 explained virtualization fundamentals amen good job Cisco nailed it yep so I would you know how how virtualization the Funt not not hey go ahead and configure in VMware using V Center distributed switch that connect nothing like that but like what is virtualization what are the mechanisms how is it supported how does it kind of work just from a general perspective fantastic and then 1:13 describe which would be like a layer 1 that's funny because avi is he's switching is layer 2 but problems taxonomy as far as how tough I would say the basic understanding of how switch works is important so level 1 to level 2 their network access configure V and verify VLANs spending spending multiple switch which implies trunking access ports data and voice so if you're not a voice guy like I don't need to worry about voice VLANs it's on the blueprint that's all I'm gonna say they're the default VLAN compared to the native VLAN I would get those squared away in my mind because they're definitely not the same ones asking about what is the default VLAN like on a switch when you bring it up perhaps for other aspects of defaulting and the native VLAN is regarding the VLAN that doesn't get any tags 802 that when Q tags by default so just having that clear in your mind and also trunk ports like how do how our trunk ports negotiated you know I like literally it says configure and verify for both these I would hands-on practice get the practice doing it because that's the only way that you'll really get to have the skills they want you to have and then if you configure it and do it a couple different ways like with trunks this is just talking about trunks in general if we're using dynamic trunking protocol DTP our dynamic trunk protocol and we're negotiating the trunks right so then we have like desirable auto desirable desirable on auto what are all those combinations what's going to happen if one's this way ones that way those are all very important to know just in general and then they're gonna ask you can you at level two can you address that or can you um can you based on the scenario or these questions do you know how it's going to work including in fact everything so everything says configure just consider it to be they really want you to know it configure and verify layer two discovery protocols CDP and lldp and I gotta tell you I I love these because I work I mean I've been doing teaching for a few years and I've been a CCIE since 2001 and I research frequently and I practice blueprints like you should and I didn't study every one of them I I should have I mean if I was brand new I like okay here's the strategy what is for this bullet item configure and verify layer 2 protocol CDP and lldp this isn't what is my current knowledge of that and now if I was like an expert on CDP I know the three or four ways of viewing it and I know how it works and I'm a five out of five on that like an expert great and for lldp which is what which that's exactly where I am right now with lldp link layer discovery protocol I know what it does I know it's the open standard for discovery protocols on Cisco devices that are not just Cisco but that's about all I know I I just I didn't study it I didn't I failed to study it and but it's here on the blueprint so if I miss questions on lldp because it does say configure that's on me that's on me I'm totally responsible for this blueprint as far as configure and verify later to discovery protocols it said configure I should have given it more due diligence both CDP and lldp and they're gonna they're gonna ask about something in this item because they're asking configure and verify all right and then ether Channel fantastic again I'd be prepared for many of these questions that say configure for not to be just a direct question like hey was this or what's that that'll be a layer one a level of Bloom's level one but rather here is the output of XYZ and based on this output what configuration was used to implement it and that could apply to IP protocols routing protocols IP addressing ipv6 addressing ether Channel the discovery protocol you're using it layer two or CDP or lldp giving you some kind of show command and then saying based on the output here what command was used to implement this and practicing will give you that experience all right 2.5 describe the need for basic operations of rapid bending so you see how says described so you don't have to be an expert at spanning tree but you definitely want to be aware of how it works with roots and reports and designated ports and blocking and it says rapid spanning trees so I guess we don't need to worry about you know basic span a totally 802 that 1d but it's specified right here route ports route bridge and other port names port states and also the benefits of port fest so yep there you go 2.5 and also save it every single one of these I feel they've tested appropriately in my experience again without giving any way any of the details of what those questions were but rather that yes they asked him compare Cisco wireless architecture and ap modes now this is the like this has come up before earlier we had described or explained different you know wireless stuff and it's coming up again so Wireless has been in this blueprint twice so far it's gonna be in here I think two more times so that's a huge clue that we should be familiar with those terms if something shows up in the blueprint four times we definitely want to do some due diligence and studying for it okay describe the physical infrastructure connections of wireless local area network components ApS okay there you go Wireless again how they work Wireless LAN controllers was lag how's that fit into the mix where and they did a good job on that too and here's yet another one 2.8 describe access point and wireless LAN controller management access connections and how you control those that's what tac-x is all about tech well I'm not going to teach it but you know what are your options for connecting to it and managing it and oftentimes just as a heads-up tack acts textplus officially is used for controlling like if you and I were managing to go to a bigger screen if you and I were managing a lot of Cisco devices and we wanted to control triple-a like the authentication authorization and accounting so that maybe Kelvin is allowed to log in and do this set of things so that's the authentication authorization piece and Trevor is allowed to log in and do a separate set of things that be the authentication of Trevor and then the authorization for what are we authorized him to do and that's through technical controls and then I get to log in and I get read-only or something so we're all authenticated with Triple A as administrators we all have control of what's we're allowed to do that's the author is the authorization part and then the accounting part is keeping track of what we did so the accounting records and those are all hopefully stored on a separate server are going to be protected so that Trevor Kelvin and myself we can't go modify him and that way an auditor can go back and say oh who deleted all that oh it was Keith mmm okay I thought he had read-only access we have to take a closer look at his privileges so as far as tax that's usually designed to control access for managers and administrators who manage the system we're radius is a common protocol for authenticating authorizing users like Bob or Sally connecting getting authorization on the wireless network is so forth using Triple A so tech X controls administrators and radius is typically used to manage and authorize and authenticate individual users but that's just a general guideline but since it's a bullet here we'd want to be aware of how that interacts with the wireless LAN controller and then right here configure we're here if it says configure we're looking at blooms level 2 or higher and the components of a wireless LAN controller for connectivity using GUI such as so not from the CLI but from the interface for the wireless LAN controller wireless LAN creation security settings QoS profiles advanced wireless LAN settings if we've never been into the interface which they're asking us to do how you know and I've got a packet tracer lab or two on Wi-Fi our wireless LAN controllers if we've never been there all those questions are just gonna be a guess and they're asking us right here telling us like the fourth or fifth time Wi-Fi has come up and now they're asking us to configure it and if they ask us questions about where stuff is or any questions about the interface we would be hard-pressed to know it unless we've done the practice ok section three IP connectivity this is all the IP connectivity for ipv4 and also some ipv6 I want to share with you one thing and that is at CBT Nuggets part of me taking the exam as ice want to make sure that we're covering all the topics to a thorough depth where a seesnake candidate would have two things one they get it you've been through these videos or whatever training material are using you go through you go through the videos you do the hands-on practice you know it so you're working on a pseudo no play network or production network you can go in and implement and verify whatever it is and then the second objective also as a trainer is I would love to have you have loved a yeah my intent is for you to have success in demonstrating that skill and those abilities in an certification exam testing it so I went back and I looked at my notes and my videos for this is on CBT Nuggets you get a I'll put a link below you can get a free 7-day trial if you click on the link I'll add that to the description of this video if you want to check it out so this this course which is like 50 plus hours including labs that are provided here it's Jeremy Chara myself and network chuck and so we go if I take a look down at the IP routing portion which I was just at a moment ago there we go going just a little bit ok so configure and verify static ipv4 routes and all this collapse those skills there's a whole bunch of videos in them and then configure and verify ipv6 static routes and we at CBT Nuggets we just take a section and we refer to it as a skill with the intent by the end of that skill for you to meet the objectives that we had in training so whether it's configure and verify Cisco ipv4 static route sorry PB 6 static routes our dynamic routing with IP with OSPF s that's described this is implement then I have done on first hop routing protocols and they have labs so even though in the task list and the blueprint it says I think described or compared I also have labs on the FH RPS including first top area HSR P and V RP and they even to own for GL BP because it only takes a few minutes and it trains you own what they are and that way you can have first-hand knowledge of those protocols and I walk you through each one like this ones like nine minutes seven minutes 12 minutes for GL BP but so anyway going back describe and interpret a cisco r.i.p routing table predicted IP router cisco routers forwarding decisions like okay how do outs get into the routing table which route is going to be used and then troubleshooting IP network and then going for net and TP and some other topics as well so for this is so this is this is amazing because I felt like when they were asking questions in this whole section about IP connectivity I felt and a lot of its configured to he'll configure here and oh this is just interpret but there's more configure down below when when they're asking questions about this it wouldn't just be a direct question like what is the administrative distance for OSPF I don't think we're we're not gonna see that kind of a level one question because if we were writing a better question would be this here's your routing table and maybe it's the output of show IP route and maybe they don't even tell you they don't even tell you what it is they just give you this display which is the like the bottom half of show IP route and maybe a question like this is okay it's fantastic I mean there's all these things they could ask us about maybe maybe a question is hey what is the metric okay so this is not from the exam but this is just an example of the the level of type of understanding a person would need to want to have to answer it so we have Bob oh I'm off I'm off camera let me let me clear that up boom there we go all fixed so imagine me a bob who is a pc in fact oh let me just use a whiteboard our chalkboard give me a moment let me bring it up this will be better there we go that'll work so let's imagine that this is Bob right here and Bob is trying to reach Bob does a ping to this IP address and I just made these up by the way these are not from the exam so Bob does a ping to 10.28 43 what does switch 1 let's see here I want to I want to layer this back like two levels deep okay what's the metric that's even too obvious what's the cost there we go a great question could be and the network gets it and they mean that be specific when the network gets it what is the cost associated associated with the route unless you switch one what is the cost associated with the route that switch one would use that's it that's the whole question I mean just paraphrasing and making up the scenario so here in my mind what that does this is so great because what that does it says well well what would we have to do to solve this we'd first of all say well if we're getting a packet destined to this IP address and we're focusing on switch 1 that means switch 1 is a multi-layer switch first of all right it's it's doing routing if they're saying it's what is switch or we can look at switch 1 right take a look at the output shows which one with the rip if this is if they show us the routing people on switch one is doing routing so that mystery is solved and if there is multiple possible routes like 0 0 0 0 and then for other routes that all match this maybe we had 1 for 10 1 for 10.20 maybe one for 10.20 dot 40 so let's be a 16-bit this would be an 8-bit and this would be a 0 bit oh this week I'm sorry it's too excited 6 24 and 16 and this would be an 8-bit again these are just out of my head right now so if just solve this question what is the cost of the route they'll switch one would use we'd have to first identify ok well a packet goes in which route from the routing table would match and in our subnet Saturdays and the IP routing videos we cover that in detail including inside the CBT Nuggets content and whoever's content you're learning and studying hopefully they're gonna cover that as well too and extra exercises where you get a packet because they're already they're already in my CBT Nuggets content that's also in the playlist of white routes have to win twice and others in this YouTube channel I was just smiling like oh you know somebody's been through that content and they've practiced with this and they've gone through the exercise that I've assigned them to do they're gonna be in really great shape when they get something like this because I personally have to understand how it works so the packet goes here which one a multi-layer switch it makes a routing decision it's gonna be based on the longest match every time did I say every time yeah once those routes from the routing table administrative distance is out the window it's just the longest match and then by picking out the winner from the routing table and then looking at the cost or the metric if it's EIGRP of that route we could then go ahead and answer that question but it wasn't just saying what's the you know what's the Buffalo blots it's its interpretive all right I loved it I loved it because I saw this I thought somebody somebody really clever who not trying to trick anybody but wanted to understand does the candidate know how this works can they you know can they demonstrate that with this and the answer is if you practice and study and do the labbing and are diligent you will you will be able to do exactly this answer those questions get a big smile on your face say wow I have some knowledge here which is you know a great thing okay going back to the blueprint so IP connectivity all these concepts about I you know interpret a routing table determine how the router makes the forwarding decision and again the question isn't going to be I wouldn't think that my experience has been they want they're not gonna ask the question like let's use to make the forwarding decision along this match clique they're gonna ask you based on interpreting your knowledge of how it works with some traffic to make a decision after you determine which route it is and then from the routing table you can answer the question on the cost or the metric or the next hop or whatever it is they're asking about that type of question it's great because it really tests your knowledge great configure and verify ipv4 and ipv6 static routing all of that super and it's configure so super valid and OSPF version two which means no IP ospf for version 4 ipv6 which is OSPF version 3 it says configure and verify and based on the outputs and and if you just sell some show commands what could you induce or what is it call infer from the output how is it configured what are the you know network types neighbor adjacencies full adjacencies who becomes full of Jason sees what's required for all it all those details about configuring verifying no SPF these videos in the master playlist or spot-on I know our content at CBT Nuggets is really is spot-on very elaborate as far as making sure you understand those pieces and so whatever using the study is great but certainly don't ignore any sections of the blueprint that say configure because you're going to be asked to apply most of the time you're gonna apply that knowledge in a fairly creative way that demonstrates you really do understand it okay describe the purpose of first top redundancy protocols which you know H SRP is one of them Gateway load balancing protocol is one of them vrrp is one of them and I think there was one other in that documentation so even though it says here describe it what might not be a bad idea to lab it up I think oh yeah I have a packet tracer lab on HS RP so you can lab it up practice use the show commands and have some fun with that and that might be a little overkill because just says to describe so if you had a situation where he only had four days left and you only had a certain number of topics you could focus on I would focus on the ones that say configure as opposed to ones they described so if you've touched everything you've studied it and you wanna get a little bit better on certain topics focus on the configure elements like IP services here and it'd be good for the time all right let me get a pen out and I'm gonna be brief on IP V services because it says configure muscle so IP services configure and verify inside source nap please do that please practice it configure and verify NTP and the list goes on you take off my pin there I explain the role of DHCP and DNS SNMP syslog DHCP client relay explaining the forwarding per hop behavior for QoS classification marking yep yep yep yep so for QoS it's asking to explain it not configure it so I would take that if you know if it doesn't say to configure I would make sure I understood it how those options work but I probably wouldn't spend hours and hours and hours on allowing something if it took hours if take 10 minutes great but if it took hours focus on those things that say configure for your lab work configure network access for remote access via SSH and describe the capabilities and functions of FTP and TFTP in the network this be a great time when they could ask us about our knowledge of tcp and UDP because that's what they use respectively or they could use protocols like ntp or protocols like DNS requests which are UDP and ask you out the characteristics not only of what they do but also the characteristics of their underlying transport protocol all right security fundamentals I mean I thought they knocked this out of the park so all these defines so they have a whole bunch of defines password elements security awareness training local passwords on the devices configure so that's important to understand how to do that and multi-factor authentication describing VPNs configure and verify configure and verify access control lists that would mean standard and extended the layer two security features have a separate playlist just for security features and DHCP is to being dynamic ARP inspection and port security I think all three of those are in that playlist which is great and let's see here yeah triple a so we talked about triple a a moment ago when I was explaining about Kelvin and Trevor and myself so we using TAC acts as administrators they would authenticate us authorize us what we can do and then accounting what did we do and the same thing is for users going through our network with radius usually instead of tax so with radius we'd authenticate them who are you authorize them what can you do where can you go and then the accounting what did you do where did you go what did you do and then describe wireless security protocols wpa2 three and WPA which nobody uses that anymore but that's describes there and then configure Wireless local area networks using wpa2 PSK is pre-shared keys with the GUI so I'm just thinking Wireless has been listed here I'm thinking now six times in some fashion or another and so I would take note of that and just do some basic study and practice with wireless LAN controllers and you can do that in packet tracer so you don't have to go out and buy a whole wireless LAN controller and access points you can do some practice in packet tracer taking up to speed all right last but not least is automation and programmability and this is I'm not gonna open I'll open the kimono this is probably my my at going into all these topics like from 6 months ago this is the one that I had been procrastinating on the most and so now that I've studied it I did spend some time in studying this content I used a couple of different resources including Cisco's online documentation I also watched shot Keith's Arden assuming shot Keith's name is Chuck keith but we all know and love him also as network chuck and so he created these 6 7 steps 6 6.1 36.7 at CBT Nuggets as part of the CCNA playlist again you can get a free trial if you want to check it out for 7 days I went through his content and I can tell you that Jessica I went through some other stuff too just to reinforce and I did some practice I got that post man and I used to feel their tools but his content was fun and his content was on topic and his content was useful and he just basically covered all these pieces just like I did in the routing section and Jeremy did in the switching section we did we all did very thorough and fun jobs of covering those pieces and so I did I think so in this exam it didn't give me at the end and it's like click too fast in the past they give you a summary like a printed summary at the testing center of the areas the domains and how well you did or didn't do I don't remember seeing that or maybe I didn't scroll down to see it I got my passing score at the very end which was fun and till I said the passing score is X and you got this is your score I say it's your score and then the passing score and congratulations and and then see ya so that was again so I did pass and I actually had watching Chuck Keith's content at CBT Nuggets I'm just looking at it real quick all the bullets yeah because they're all not one of them is configure right we don't have to go in and configure DNA Center we don't have to go and configure Python scripts we don't actually have to use puppet chef or ansible but watching those videos I learned what they did I got comfortable and I thought the exam which is only 10% for this whole section I thought it was super fair they were asking questions right in this ballpark and I didn't think like all that's so unfair well you know I think there's like three to five questions in the whole exam that I felt were a little bit unfair but not this section I thought not that I recall I thought it's great okay so that's the whole that's the whole blueprint I'm almost scared look at the time it's like oh hey time flies when you're having fun so let me go back to my notes of what I wanted to cover and number one the online experience check done that and then how to prepare get the blueprint and also be comfortable with going to Cisco's documentation directly and whatever you're using to study as your major study tool it might be a book or it might be a video series there's a lot of good options out there this channel is intended to supplement whatever that is because I don't see myself ever covering a few detailed topics which I don't find too extremely interesting like cable types talk about multi mode versus single mode it's important to understand you know the the connector types and the single mode multi mode and their distances and so forth but I doubt I'll ever make a video on those because I'm my focus is more of the configuration and how to make the network work and troubleshoot the network and you know doing packet tracer labs to put it all together that's more my style so a few of those will never make it into my playlist but my goal is for this channel to support whatever you're doing to study and enhance it and have a good time doing it and have you get that stepping stone of the CCNA done more importantly the knowledge of all these pieces done and then you can use that as you go forward to your CCNP or to other vendors or cloud services with Google or Amazon or Microsoft or whatever that take wherever that takes you that's all great so how to prepare the key is lab it up lab lab lab lab lab lab and packet tracer is free and if you're at the CCNA level packet tracer will let you practice in a great degree - most of the content that you would want to prepare for it's and it's free and I've got a lot of packet tracer labs that are now adding as additional labs inside of the master playlist so when those come out feel free to watch those download the labs and get the hands-on practice yourself and then the exam blueprint I wanted to go over which we did as well see if there's anything else I wanted to mention oh yeah yeah yeah there were a few surprises for me and I can't based on the NDA can't tell you what those were but what I will do as we go forward with this channel and I continue to make videos and we do streams and packet tracer labs and other things I promise to gently and without fanfare integrate what I feel might also be beneficial for you to know in your studies in general and I'll just leave it at that so if you get a video and if I put a video on the master playlist which if you haven't bookmark that now please take a moment bookmark the master playlist just go to Keith Barker go to my playlist Cisco CCNA - and 301 bookmark it and then schedule some time to go through that if if I as I add those new videos I will add them to that master playlist so you'll be able to see them and have them and go through them what you won't be seeing in that master playlist is any new videos on dmvpn dynamic multi-point VPNs they are so cool I love them but they're not CCNA so I've got videos on the YouTube channel about dmvpn from years ago they're still valid by the way and there won't be videos in the CCNA master playlist on mpls layer 3 VPN s which I also love they're so cool but they're not CCNA topics so I would encourage you if you're focusing on CCNA focus on CCNA that's my intent going forward with every video that I place in this channel and in the master playlist it'll be CCNA related and anything outside of CCNA I just won't put in the master playlist and I we won't create a whole bunch of additional content at the NP level or higher and that way you don't do well gosh I've been on YouTube since 2009 so there's a lot of content out there but stay it on the master playlist and what I'll do is I will only put content in that master playlist that is relevant in some way or another to you as a CCNA candidate so I'd like to thank everybody who's on the discord server you know who you are including the moderators who do a great job and the admins including Kelvin for the great job of helping keeping that running our goal there on the discord server with links in the description below the goal is to help individuals who are studying for sea that's the primary goal studying for their CCNA learning the technologies to help answer questions and guide them in the right direction and help them get those skills and get the leg up we also do have some moderator rooms and some of where we'll talk about other crazy stuff as well beyond that but we try to keep that separate so that if you're in CCNA discord server at Keith Barker Keith Barker's discord server it'll be primarily focused on CCNA that's the intent all right I have had a lot of fun I really really like this exam I just thought cisco has done a great job because like I mentioned 70% of this exam it felt like they were testing to see whether I really knew it and somebody who just was trying to memorize answers because you could take one scenario one topology and you could a person could create 40 different questions about that topology or change an IP address or an ipv6 address or change a route and it would be a totally different question and so with that ability to change everything and have so many questions available I really like the fact that I believe that somebody who is taking this exam if they pass they have a base level of knowledge which is what the CCNA is it's a stepping stone they have a base level of knowledge and they've demonstrated it with this exam which I think is is fantastic and so for that I say to Cisco and for everybody who is the exam writers and getting the online proctoring set up in everything else way to go way to go so if you haven't already please join the channel YouTube this is Keith Barker and Keith Barker channel click on the subscribe button if you haven't already if you want to get alerts when new live streams and other content comes forward click on the alert Bell if you got any value out of this video maybe you feel more comfortable with what to expect as you prepare for your CCNA exam or maybe you learn a tip or two about some good strategies including the online doc and packet tracer labs and laughing up or how to interpret the blueprint for debris however you felt value from this video let other people people know by just click on the what is that called oh yeah thumbs up button and let other people know there's some value in it for you hopefully that will let other people know that this is a good resource they can use to augment their studies and if you have the opportunity to take somebody who is also studying or once you get your CCNA and you want to help them along passive pay-it-forward help other people in their studies I found that whatever life is not fair never has been fair some people have to work a lot harder than others this toriel but in any respect if we are diligent our studies and we're willing to help other people and give other people a leg up and give them the benefit of the doubt and help our brothers and sisters on this planet I mean we're all human we have different backgrounds and so forth and different you know environments we came up with and different governmental restrictions and all the rest but we're all human if we can help each other out we will be better off that's a philosophy that over 156 now that over the last 20 years I have adopted and found out is it's served me and my fellow man over and over hence one of the reasons for this channel tell other people with their CC name alright I'll get off my soapbox it's been great talking with you about CCNA about my exam experience I have new videos that we premiere on either live streams or premieres Pacific time Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m. Saturdays at 11 a.m. again Pacific time and then Sundays at 11 a.m. Pacific time and there's still a lot of great topics including a few more that I just discovered that I'd like to include in the master playlist and they'll be there for your viewing so have a great day everybody and I'll catch you in the next live event bye for now [Music]

Channel: Keith Barker

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Rating: 4.9591837 out of 5

Keywords: ccna, cisco, 200-301, Cisco CCNA, Cisco Certification, ogit, Keith Barker, cisco ccna 200-301, 200-301 blueprint, cisco ccna, ccna 200-301, ccna training, new ccna, ccna study, cisco training, cisco certifications, how to study for ccna, ccna 2020, cisco certification, network engineer, networking, packet tracer, free ccna, certification, ccna exam, free ccna video, free cisco, best training, ccna fundamentals, free lab, ccna certification, best ccna, why ccna?, ine

Id: pqvhNrsl1Kc

Length: 89min 0sec (5340 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020