CCNA Certification/Introduction

=Introduction=

CCNA certification is a cornerstone of many IT careers. This book is a comprehensive study guide for the CCNA Intro, CCNA ICND and CCNA Certification exams. Its target audience is a high school student, a first year community college or any adult wanting to understand networking better.

About This Book
This book is a free, living book on CCNA Certification that keeps up with the changes in the technology and certification. As a result, it's written as an in-progress WikiBooks collaboration. Anyone is free to add material or fix mistakes. To edit a page simply click the "edit this page" tab at the top. If you find that any of the material is unclear, please click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page and leave a note on that page indicating what is unclear.

You should be aware that, while this book's contributors will attempt to ensure the accuracy of all facts, there may be mistakes present.

About the Material
The CCNA Routing and Switching certification test can be taken in one of two ways:
 * You can take the Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 1 exam (100-105 ICND1) and the Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 2 exam (200-105 ICND2).
 * You can take the combined Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices: Accelerated (200-125 CCNA).

These exams replaced the former CCNA exams (640-822, 640-816, and 640-801) in 2013.

The ICND1 exam tests for the ability to manage a small branch office network. The ICND2 exam tests for the ability to manage a small or middle-sized enterprise branch network. The combined CCNA tests all the material covered in the ICND1 and ICND2 exams. (For information about the exam and your options, see Appendix A.)

The contents of this book are split into two sections (ICND1 and ICND2) so those who are taking the individual tests can study for them separately. For those who are taking the combined CCNA exam, study both sections fully.

=CCNA Exam Topics=

The posted exam topics for all of CCNA certification exams are guidelines. Cisco makes the effort to keep the exam questions within the confines of the stated exam objectives.

ICND1 Exam Topics

Listed below is the exam topics for the ICND1 exam, Although Cisco’s posted exam topics are not numbered, Cisco Press numbers the exam topics for easier reference. The exam topics are as listed on the Cisco website (www.cisco.com/go/ccna). If Cisco does happen to add exam topics at a later date, go to www.ciscopress.com and download additional information about those newly added topics.

ICND1 Exam Topics

ICND2 Exam Topics

Perspectives on Networking
Ethernet networks use cards inside each computer. These cards have unique numeric addresses. Ethernet cables connect PCs to ethernet hubs; Hubs on the other hand repeat every signal received out on all their available ports. Cabling is typically run in a star configuration.

The following are basic terminology in the networking world:


 * Client/Server Networking: The term client/server refers to a model utilizing networked client and server computers and application software. Web, FTP, email, DNS and many other database applications are client-server systems.


 * Peer-to-Peer Networking: Peer to peer networks share responsibility for processing data among all of the connected devices. Peer-to-peer networking (also known simply as peer networking) differs from client-server networking in several respects.


 * Network Name: A network name is a string that computing devices use to identify a specific computer network. Network names are typically different from names of individual computers or the addresses computers use to identify each other.


 * Network Performance Measured: The performance or "speed" of a computer network is normally measured in units of bits per second (bps). This quantity can represent either an actual data rate or a theoretical limit to available network bandwidth. The related units of Kbps, Mbps, Gbps represent increasingly larger multiples of bps.


 * WWW: The term "WWW" (World Wide Web) refers to the open development phase of the Internet in the 1990s. The WWW comprises a global network of Web sites accessible on the Internet.


 * URL: URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) identify by name Web servers and individual Web pages stored on those servers, anywhere on the Internet.


 * URI: A URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) names both local and remote Internet resources similar to URLs.