Advice for newbie in networks

[damirich94]

Hello colleagues!
I am close to pass my first CCNA exam and want to get some advices:
How and where is better to practice in routing protocols after CCNA?
Because I made all labs from cisco learning portal and have no idea where to get more labs or technical tasks for practice.

I think about to learn upper levels of OSI after CCNA like windows\linux servers and everything related to it.
Am I right or better to study CCNP next and after that go to upper levels of OSI?

I will be glad to hear all ideas.

Thank you very much!

[Jaderson Pessoa]

Hello,

Congratulations for CCNA; There are many features to learning and practices for CCNP exam. For my process of CCNP i started with Oficial Cert Guide CCNP, Bought at Cisco`s Site curses about this and watched many videos to learning more about.

There are other community that i hope that will help you with more information about: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/welcome

There are a groups of study for CCNP, CCNA, CCENT, CCDP R&S, SECURITY, VOICE and others;

Good lucky,

Jaderson Pessoa.

[damirich94]

Hello,
Thank you!

[Jaderson Pessoa]

dont forget to mark as solved and helpful all post that were helped you. Will help other people with the same doubt.

Regards,

[Filip Knezevic]

Best place to practice is in production :D.

I love GNS3. You can do most of the routing stuff in GNS3 (OSPF-MPLS-BGP-PBR...) and it's completely free. You can use GNS3 to host Windows machines, Linux, ASA, different firewalls etc.

If you need any help setting it up don't hesitate to ask.

[damirich94]

Hello!

I use GNS a lot. And also virtual hosts too :)

Thank you!

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

typically, unless you want to work for a very small company, most medium and large sized enterprises will look for either a (Cisco) networking guy, or a Windows and/or Linux guy, not for both in one person. CCNA is a good start, but in my opinion, you are much better of getting your CCNP (and go even higher), than going the Windows/Linux (which are by themselves two very different things) way. That said, if you actually know Cisco and Windows and Linux, the general rule is: the more you know, the better. Everything is interrelated. But CCNA is probably not enough to sell yourself as an expert, and that is what most companies are looking for. 

So my advice would be: specialize in one area first, and when your really feel comfortable in that area, expand your skills to other areas.

[damirich94]

I agree, I think as you.
But I need to find labs to practice more and more :)