Going for CCNA Then CCNP/SP/VP IE Need suggestions for books/video

[tankman1989]

I've decided to go the route of networking as a line of study in IT.

I am going to start with the CCNA and have been told that the Cisco 851w router is a great router to learn on. I am wondering if I need to buy this or if I can create a virtual router in VMware, Virtual Box or Xen.

I also need to find the best study book. I have a CBT nuggets CCNA audio course but I would like to have the video with it as well as maybe some interactive study methods.

Can anyone help me figure out the best path here? I am not going to be taking classes anywhere as they were all pretty expensive.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Steve202]

Get yourself Jeremy Cioara's CBT Nugget's CCENT/CCNA video's.

I find his teaching style very easy to understand and you should have no problems learning the subjects.

As for kit, I've got the following:

2x 2610 routers
1x 2500 router
1x 2920 switch
1x 2960 switch

Hope that helps.

 

[tankman1989]

Get yourself Jeremy Cioara's CBT Nugget's CCENT/CCNA video's.

I find his teaching style very easy to understand and you should have no problems learning the subjects.

As for kit, I've got the following:

2x 2610 routers
1x 2500 router
1x 2920 switch
1x 2960 switch

Hope that helps.

I downloaded the CBT Nuggets CCNA Audio (no video though) part of the course via torrent. I wanted to see if I liked his teaching style prior to putting down a large chunck of $$ for a program that isn't going to work for me.

As for the hardware, where did you find that stuff? Is it possible to create virtual routers through VMware or virtual box or something?

 

[Steve202]

It all come from eBay. It's just a case of searching for the bargins.

You can emulate Cisco products using GNS3, but you need to IOS images. If you can get your hands on a copy, you can use Packet Tracer.

 

[TheITGuy]

Yea packet tracer is very good if you don't have the hardware to work with on hand. And the best part is that you can emulate even larger networks that you may not be able to do in a small lab environment. We used it back in high school, and i wish i saved a couple of the worksheets.