Information Technology Articles

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 2nd February 2006 @ 11:25 AM

More CCNA and CCNP candidates than ever before are putting together their own home practice labs. It's more affordable than it ever has been, and I receive emails daily from new CCNAs and CCNPs who say it's the best thing they could have done to improve their studies. There are some commands you can configure on your lab routers that won't necessarily be on your CCNA or CCNP exams, but they will make life a lot easier for you. Let's take a look at just a few of these... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Friday, 27th January 2006 @ 3:19 AM

When you're studying to pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, you're going to be introduced to ISIS. ISIS and OSPF are both link-state protocols, but ISIS works quite differently from OSPF. You must master these details in order to earn your CCNP. One of the major differences between OSPF and ISIS will be evident to you when you first begin your BSCI exam studies, and that is the terminology. ISIS uses terms that no other protocol you've studied to date ... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 26th January 2006 @ 6:20 PM

In preparation for your CCNA and CCNP exam success, you've got to learn to troubleshoot Cisco routers. And while ping is a great basic IP connectivity tool, it doesn't give you all the information you need to diagnose network connectivity issues. Let's say you have six routers between CityA and CityB. You send a ping from A to B, and get this return: R1#ping 172.1.1.1 Type escape sequence to abort. Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.1.1.1, ti... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 26th January 2006 @ 1:59 AM

While studying to pass the BSCI exam and preparing to earn your CCNP certification, you'll quickly notice that while OSPF and ISIS are both link-state protocols, there are a lot of differences between the two. One major difference is the way the two protocols handle hello packets. Hello packets are imperative to keeping OSPF and ISIS adjacencies alive. Since they are both link-state protocols, neither of them will send updates at any specified time. Hello packets are the only meth... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 8:40 PM

In baseball, a "utility player" is one who plays more than one position. These players are usually backups, but they have a job in the major leagues because of their value to the team; since they can play more than one position, they have that much more value to their employer. Too often in IT, workers become either LAN or WAN engineers, knowing little if anything about the other side. Many LAN administrators I worked with knew little about routing and switching, while many WAN ... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 3:00 AM

When you start preparing for your CCNP exam, particularly the BSCI exam, you're introduced to Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) configurations. BGP is unlike any protocol you learned during your CCNA studies, and even the similarities are a little bit different! BGP forms neighbor relationships, much like EIGRP and OSPF do. The interesting thing with BGP is that potential neighbors, or "peers", do not need to be directly connected and can use their loopback interfaces to form the... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By James Hunt @ Tuesday, 24th January 2006 @ 6:42 PM

When building large scale database driven web applications which require the development effort of numerous individuals and interoperating teams as well as networked access to a central repository of assets in the form of PHP code, HTML documents, images, source code, media files, and documentation it can help to organize the workflow by keeping track of data and intellectual property assets using specially designed asset management software applications that allow for a meta searchable database... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Tuesday, 24th January 2006 @ 9:22 AM

I've seen it happen time and again to programmers, network engineers and administrators, and other IT personnel. They get a solid IT position, a good-paying job, and they get comfortable. They stop keeping up with the latest technologies, they stop studying, they no longer keep their CCNA, MCSE, and other industry certifications up-to-date.... and then one day, their comfortable job is gone. Maybe they get laid off, maybe the company moves and they don't want to move with... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @ Tuesday, 24th January 2006 @ 8:55 AM

I've been active in the Cisco Certification track for four years, working my way from the CCNA to the coveted Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert title, and during that time I've conducted job interviews and casual conversations with hundreds of CCNAs and CCNA candidates. The CCNA is an exciting beginning to your Cisco career, but just having the certification simply isn't enough. A recruiter or interviewer isn't going to be impressed just with the cert you've got... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By James Hunt @

There is so much information that every business needs to have on hand so that they can run successfully. To accumulate and keep track of all this information it’s many times easier to use software and other tools to help with this information management. There are many types of software that you can choose from but probably one of the most popular information management tools is Microsoft Office. Office allows you to manage all of your information in one place using tools such as Access, Exce... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

When you begin your CCNA studies, you get hit with a lot of different networking terms right away that you might not be familiar with. What makes it a little more confusing is that a lot of these terms sound a lot alike. Here, we're going to discuss the differences between broadcasts, multicasts, and unicasts at both the Data Link (Layer 2) and Network (Layer 3) layers of the OSI model. A broadcast is simply a unit of information that every other device on the segment will receive. A... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

As you get ready to pass the CCNA or CCNP exams, you can feel quite a bit of stress as you enter your last week of study. Let's take a look at a few ways to reduce that stress. 1. Do not stay up late cramming. The CCNA and CCNP are not exams you're going to pass by cramming. "Cramming" is a study technique best left behind in junior high school. The CCNA can't be passed by memorization - you've got to know how Cisco technologies work. That leads us to the secon... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

Passing the CCNA, Intro, and ICND exam is all about knowing and noticing the details. (Which makes perfect sense, since becoming a master networking administrator or engineer is also about noticing the details!) One such detail knows the difference between error detection and error recovery. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Error detection is just that - error detection only. Two common error detection methods are found at the Data... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

When you start studying for your CCNA and CCNP exams, many books will present you with a huge list of keystroke shortcuts for use on Cisco routers. While the 640-801, 811, and 821 exams may ask you about one or two of these, you really have to get hands-on experience with these commands to master them. Even better, there are some key combinations that Cisco routers mention, but then don't tell you what they are! Let's take a look at a few of the more helpful key combinations, and co... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

One question I see often on the 'Net is "Is it worth my time to earn a CCNA / CCNP / CCIE certification?" My personal answer to that is a resounding yes. The power of Cisco certifications has allowed me to create a tremendous career, and they can do the same for you. There has never been a better time to accelerate your IT career, and earning a technical certification is a great way to do just that. I don't care if you're looking at earning an MCSE, a Cisco certific... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

When you're studying for the CCNP certification, especially the BSCI exam, you must gain a solid understanding of BGP. BGP isn't just one of the biggest topics on the BSCI exam, it's one of the largest. BGP has a great many details that must be mastered for BSCI success, and those of you with one eye on the CCIE must learn the fundamentals of BGP now in order to build on those fundamentals at a later time. Path attributes are a unique feature of BGP. With interior gatewa... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

BGP is one of the most complex topics you'll study when pursuing your CCNP, if not the most complex. I know from personal experience that when I was earning my CCNP, BGP is the topic that gave me the most trouble at first. One thing I keep reminding today's CCNP candidates about, though, is that no Cisco technology is impossible to understand if you just break it down and understand the basics before you start trying to understand the more complex configurations. BGP attributes ... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

When studying for your BSCI exam for the CCNP, you get your first taste of BGP. One of the major differences between BGP and the other protocols you've studied to date is that BGP uses attributes to describe paths, and to influence the selection of one path over the other. In this free tutorial, we're going to take a look at the Local Preference attribute and compare it to the Cisco-proprietary BGP attribute "weight". The Local Preference (LOCAL_PREF) attribute i... more...

Computers » Information Technology | By Chris Bryant @

Buying a CCNA / CCNP home lab is the best way to be totally prepared for your Cisco exams. Most home labs are put together one router or switch at a time, but many CCNA / CCNP candidates prefer to buy kits where you get multiple routers and switches, along with all the cables and other connection devices you'll need. While this is a good idea, keep a few things in mind when purchasing Cisco home lab kits. Don't buy anything you don't need. The problem is that when ... more...