have a good knowloedge of basic networking,..but....

[dgdlw]

....i want to go for the cisco cert,..i am currently a telecom technician,..with bisci and a few other telecom certs.
but i would like to earn more and a change of job style to network and unix engineer...my question is,...would it be better taken a coarse at a college or i would have a chance studying with some of the recomended books?..plz advice would be great....thkz

 

[qz01gs]

I was in similar situation to yourself, I basically work with Avaya Telephony equipment but want to learn more on the networks side of things. So I decided to go for CCNA which I recently passed. I used the following:

The Sybex Book by Todd Lammle, its a good book if you want an easy to read book that is geared to passing the exam. It has good labs to practice but some of the areas are not covered in much detail.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl/026-4064849-8354828

I also used the cisco press book which goes into more detail on certain areas like NAT and Frame-relay

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-4064849-8354828

If you cant afford real routers you could look at getting a simulator from a company like Boson

http://www.boson.com/netsim

Hope this is of some use and good luck in your quest

Let me know if you want more info