Wednesday, 12 November 2014

Role of a network engineer

I've worked with network switches and routers before in my IT Support role, I passed my CCNA a few weeks ago now I need to get my teeth into some meaty networking. I've been passed a project to re-address all the switches and networking equipment on my site plus I suspect all the IOS will need to be upgraded as well. I'm quite tempted to do an in-depth network diagram of spanning-tree for all the switches but may not have the time to do it, we'll see.

I'm trying to get into a network engineer role at my workplace but there may not be an opening for that position as they are really looking for a senior network engineer. For now, I need to keep on developing my skill and knowledge, most of all I'm enjoying the journey.

Hmmm...CCNP, shall I go for it?   :-)

I've passed my CCNA!

I passed my CCNA exam on Fri31st of October (about 2 weeks ago). I'm still in shock, I still can't believe it. I gave myself 2 hours to get to Manchester but due to the traffic and finding the place I got there about 10:45am and my exam started at 11am! so it was a close call. I had to empty all the contents in my pockets and it felt like I was going through airport security. Fortunately they did not strip search me. The invigilator logged onto a PC for me and I read the instructions before starting the exam.

The scary bit was I could not go back if I thought I had answered a question wrongly. During one of the lab fix I did not know how to get back to the network diagram, called the invigilator he had no clue either. I eventually worked it out, you had to click on a button on the bottom left hand corner (can't remember what it's called now to get back).

Once I finished I went next door where the invigilator was and he printed out my result: 100%..woohoo! It feels surreal, I felt like crying with all the hard work and effort I had put in studying and labbing. I'll need to get a nice bottle of red wine to celebrate.

Saturday, 4 October 2014

Cisco CCNA exam...here I come!

My Cisco CCNA exam is now booked at the end of the month. Currently brushing up on various subjects and labbing as much as I can. Topics I'm still getting my head around:
1) Frame Relay (remembering the commands)
2) IPv6, remembering the various different types of addressing

One of the difficulty I find with preparing for the exam is that there is so much information, by the time I start a new topic I'm forgetting some of the things I've previously learned (as if they're being dumped into null0!). I think this is why labbing is the key to remembering as well as reviewing one's notes.