Passed ICND2 884/1000

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I started the year with no formal on-the-job experience in Networking, but wanted to improve my skills as an Infrastructure Engineer by learning about Routing and Switching and add that to my Windows Server MCSA. I passed the ICND1 in June, and spent the last 6 months studying for the ICND2. These are the resources I used to achieve my CCNA certification:

CBT Nuggets course (https://www.cbtnuggets.com/it-training/icnd2-200-105): Great to build up foundational knowledge on the subject matter, and I felt Jeremy's passion and enthusiasm in delivering the material inspired me to pick it up quickly.
Todd Lammle's book (https://www.amazon.co.uk/CCNA-ICND2-Study-Guide-200-105-ebook/dp/B01M0UMZTK): A good read, but having taken the exam I feel that it was a bit light on some topics and would recommend Wendell Odom's OCG book (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Routing-Switching-ICND2-200-105-Official-ebook/dp/B01HF7BE6O) after skimming through it in the last two weeks of my studying.

Cisco Packet Tracer (https://www.netacad.com/courses/packet-tracer): Free when you create a Cisco NetAcad account. Used this exclusively when labbing routing protocol configuration and other general commands. One thing to remember is that Packet Tracer can't run "ppp multilink" commands, but I think GNS3 can.
Boson ExSim-Max (https://www.boson.com/practice-exam/200-105-cisco-icnd2-ccna-practice-exam): An incredible tool just like the 100-105 version; the explanations of answers contain detailed insights into the subject matter, and provided me with extra confidence going into the exam. Best $99 I spent this year.

Networklessons.com: An excellent resource with hundreds of pages of detailed explanations of every CCNA topic I could think of. Only $1 for a 7-day trial, followed by $29 a month if you want to continue with full access. Even if you can't afford this, I'd say it's worth taking the $1 trial in the final week before your exam.

The first purchase I made after passing the exam was the Wendell Odom 200-301 cert guide for the 2020 version of the CCNA (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07XF6PLB5). Might seem strange, but I'm interested in what's changing in the new cert, and despite my Windows Server background the Cisco CCENT and CCNA material has been some of the most fascinating stuff I've studied in my entire life.

Good luck to anyone who's going for the 200-105 or the 200-125 before the February cut-off, and thanks again for the advice over the past year.

 

Congrats on passing!