Cisco Training

[nguyen.brandon]

I was wondering if anyone had some recommendations on free training materials (docs/emulators/etc.) that would prepare you for working with and understanding Cisco Hardware/Architecture.  My goal is not to get a Cisco "paper cert" but to actually understand networking from the ground up (Assuming 0 experience with networking). Any recomendations would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[matt koht]

http://www.gns3.net/

This is a great open source emulator and may be a good place to start to get some exposure.

Good luck.

[nguyen.brandon]

Thanks Matt! I took a quick look and this looks very promising.  Thanks so much!  I'll give it a try and report back my experiences.

[Matthew Okuma]

I agree on gns3. Also from a UCS perspective we have a emulator you can download and learn on here: http://developer.cisco.com/web/unifiedcomputing/ucsemulatordownload

it is a .OVA you can from vmware workstation.

[nguyen.brandon]

Thanks!  We had the UCS training labs in the gold river office, are there going to be any free training labs focused on iOS/networking?

BTW The UCSM labs were very good, thanks Bill L.!

[blulofs]

Thank you Brandon, always nice to get feedback from one of the dedicated attendees.  Most of our Data Center customers have moved from IOS/Catalyst product to NEXUS OS/Nexus 7/6/5/2/1K products.  Those are our data center focused products as we move forward.  There are labs online and we could see about doing an instructor lead session if there is interest and available PODs.  I will let Matt Okuma assess the interest level.  regards,  Bill