Cisco Routing For The CCNA And CCNP: Administrative Distance

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

The textbook definition of "administrative distance" is simple enough: "the measurement of a protocol's believability". It's not enough to know the definition, however you've got to know when AD comes into the picture and when it does not.
When a packet needs to be routed, the router looks in its routing table for the next-hop IP [...]

Cisco Certification: The “Secret” Key To Getting Your CCNA And CCNP

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Whether you're working on your CCNA or CCNP, Cisco certification exams are the most demanding computer certification exams in the IT field. Cisco exams are not a test of memorization, they're a test of your analytical skills. You'll need to look at configurations and console output and analyze them to identify problems and [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Tutorial: Route Summarization With RIP And EIGRP

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

To pass your BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, you've got to master route summarization. When you get to the BSCI level, actually breaking the routes down into binary strings and performing summarization is second nature to you. (If it isn't, get some more practice!) What makes CCNP / BSCI route summarization more difficult [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Exam Tutorial: Five Debugs You Must Know

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

To pass the BSCI exam and move one step closer to CCNP certification success, you've got to know how and when to use debug commands to troubleshoot and verify network operations. While you should never practice debug commands on a production network, it's important to get some hands-on experience with them and not rely on [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: The Passive Interface Command And OSPF

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

To pass the BSCI exam and become a CCNP, you have to be aware of the proper use of passive interfaces. You learned about passive interfaces in your CCNA studies, but here we'll review the basic concept and clear up one misconception regarding passive interfaces and OSPF.
Configuring an interface as passive will still allow [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: RIP Update Packet Authentication

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

When you earned your CCNA, you thought you learned everything there is to know about RIP. Close, but not quite! There are some additional details you need to know to pass the BSCI exam and get one step closer to the CCNP exam, and one of those involves RIP update packet authentication.
You're familiar with some [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Route Summarization

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Preparing to pass the BSCI exam and earn your Cisco CCNP? Route summarization is just one of the many skills you'll have to master in order to earn your CCNP. Whether it's RIP version 2, OSPF, or EIGRP, the BSCI exam will demand that you can flawlessly configure route summarization.
Route summarization isn't just important for [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam Review: Protocol Basics

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

To earn your Cisco CCNA certification and pass the BSCI CCNP exam, you have to know your protocol basics like the back of your hand! To help you review these important concepts, here's a quick look at the basics of RIPv1, RIPv2, IGRP, and EIGRP.
RIPv1: Broadcasts updates every 30 seconds to the address [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam Lab: Frame Relay Subinterfaces And Split Horizon

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Earning your Cisco CCNA and CCNP is a tough proposition, and part of that is the fact that you quickly learn that there's usually more than one way to do things with Cisco routers - and while that's generally a good thing, you better know the ins and outs of all options when it comes [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: Troubleshooting Route Redistribution, Part I

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

If there's one CCNP / BSCI topic that looks so easy but can lead to a real headache, it's route redistribution. I'm not even talking about the routing loops and suboptimal routing that can result when route redistribution is done without proper planning - I'm talking about the basic commands themselves. Leaving [...]