Introduction

Welcome to the exciting world of Cisco certification! If you’ve picked up this book because you want to improve yourself and your life with a better, more satisfying, and secure job, you’ve done the right thing. Whether your plan is to enter the thriving, dynamic IT sector or to enhance your skill set and advance your position within it, being Cisco certified can seriously stack the odds in your favor to help you attain your goals.

Cisco certifications are powerful instruments of success that also just happen to improve your grasp of all things internetworking. As you progress through this book, you’ll gain a complete understanding of networking that reaches far beyond Cisco devices. By the end of this book, you’ll comprehensively know how disparate network topologies and technologies work together to form the fully operational networks that are vital to today’s very way of life in the developed world. The knowledge and expertise you’ll gain here are essential for and relevant to every networking job. It’s why Cisco certifications are in such high demand—even at companies with few Cisco devices!

For up-to-the-minute updates covering additions or modifications to the Cisco certification exams, as well as additional study tools, review questions, videos, and bonus materials, be sure to visit the Todd Lammle website and forum at www.lammle.com/ccna.

Cisco’s Network Certifications

Way back in 1998, obtaining the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification was the first pitch in the Cisco certification climb. It was also the official prerequisite to each of the more advanced levels. But that changed in 2007, when Cisco announced the Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician (CCENT) certification. Then again, in May 2016, Cisco announced new updates to the CCENT and CCNA Routing and Switching (R/S) tests. Today, things have changed dramatically again.

In July 2019, Cisco switched up the certification process more than it has in the last 20 years! Cisco announced all new certifications that started in February 2020, and then again, an update and revision in the summer of 2024, which is probably why you’re reading this book!

So what’s changed? For starters, the CCENT course and exam (ICND1 and ICND2) no longer exist, nor do the terms Routing & Switching (rebranded to Enterprise). On top of that, the CCNA is no longer a prerequisite for any of the higher certifications at all, meaning that you’ll be able to jump straight to CCNP without having to take the new CCNA exam if you have already achieved the CCNA or have enough background to skip the CCNA.

The new Cisco certification process will look like Figure I.1.

FIGURE I.1 The Cisco certification path

First, the CCST entry-level certification was added, and you can find the Wiley study guide for the CCST Network book authored by Todd Lammle and Donald Robb as well as this study guide at https://www.lammle.com/order-our-books.

If you have an entry-level network background, you will want to head directly to CCNA, using this book and the abundant resources on www.lammle.com/ccna, of course!

The Todd Lammle CCNA program, starting with this book, is a powerful tool to get you started in your CCNA studies, and it’s vital to understand that material found in this book and at www.lammle.com/ccna before you go on to conquer any other certifications!

What Does This Book Cover?

This second book in the CCNA series covers everything you need to know to pass the new CCNA 200-301 v1.1 exam and starts right where the first book in the series left off.

But regardless of which Cisco Certification path you choose, as I’ve said, taking plenty of time to study and practice with routers or a router simulator is the real key to success.

You will learn the following information in this book:

• Chapter 1: Enhanced Switched Technologies  This chapter will start off with STP protocols and dive into the fundamentals, covering the modes as well as the various flavors of STP. VLANs, trunks, and troubleshooting are covered as well. Finally, PortFast will also be discussed.
• Chapter 2: Security with ACLs  This chapter covers security and access lists, which are created on routers to filter the network. IP standard, extended, and named access lists are covered in detail. Written and hands-on labs, along with review questions, will help you study for the security and access-list portion of the Cisco exams.
• Chapter 3: Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)  This is a fun chapter chock-full of some great information. IPv6 is not the big, bad scary creature that most people think it is, and it’s a really important objective on the latest exam, so study this chapter carefully—don’t just skim it.
• Chapter 4: Troubleshooting IP, IPv6, and VLANs  This chapter will cover detailed troubleshooting, and because this is such a major focus of the Cisco CCNA objectives I’d be letting you down if I didn’t make sure you’ve got this important topic down. So to ensure that your skills are solid, we’re going to begin by diving deep into troubleshooting with IP, IPv6, and now. You absolutely must also have the fundamentals of IP and IPv6 routing and knowledge of VLANs and trunking nailed down tight if you’re going to win at this.
• Chapter 5: Network Address Translation (NAT)  In this chapter, we’re going to dig into Network Address Translation (NAT), Dynamic NAT, and Port Address Translation (PAT), also known as NAT Overload. Of course, I’ll demonstrate all the NAT commands.
• Chapter 6: IP Services  This chapter covers how to find neighbor device information using the proprietary Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) and the industry-standard Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). I’ll also discuss how to make sure our times are synchronized with our devices using Network Time Protocol (NTP). After that, I’ll show you the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and the type of alerts sent to the network management station (NMS). You’ll learn about the oh-so-important syslog logging and configuration, and then, finally, I’ll cover how to configure Secure Shell (SSH).
• Chapter 7: Security Fundamentals  This chapter will help you to define key security concepts (threats, vulnerabilities, exploits, and mitigation techniques) as well as describe security program elements (user awareness, training, and physical access control). We’ll also cover authentication, authorization and accounting, and password policies.
• Chapter 8: First Hop Redundancy Protocol (HSRP)  This chapter will start off by telling you the reasons why we need a layer 3 redundancy protocol and then move into how to build redundancy and load-balancing features into your network elegantly with routers that you might even have already. You really don’t need to buy some overpriced load-balancing device when you know how to configure and use Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP).
• Chapter 9: Quality of Service (QoS)  Quality of service (QoS) refers to the way resources are controlled so that the quality of services is maintained. In this chapter I’m going to cover how QoS solves problems by using classification and marking tools, policing, shaping and re-marking, providing congestion management and scheduling tools, and finally, link-specific tools.
• Chapter 10: Wireless Technologies  Because I know you’ve crushed all of the previous chapters, you’re ready to dive into this one! If that’s not exactly you, just know that the two chapters on switching provide a really nice review on switching and VLANs. So, let’s start this chapter by defining a basic wireless network as well as basic wireless principles. We’ll talk about different types of wireless networks, the minimum devices required to create a simple wireless network, and some basic wireless topologies as well. After that, I’ll get into basic security by covering WPA, WPA2, and WPA3.
• Chapter 11: Configuring Legacy Wireless Controllers  After Chapter 10 you now know how wireless works, so now we’re going to guide you through configuring a wireless network from beginning to end. We’ll start by telling you all about how to get a Cisco Wireless LAN Controller up and running before showing you how to join access points to our new WLC. We’ll also dig deep into how to configure the WLC to support wireless networks. By the end of this chapter, you’ll triumph by having an actual endpoint join your wireless LAN!
• Chapter 12: Configuring Modern Wireless Controllers  This chapter walks you through setting up a virtual Cisco 9800 controller and using port channels. Then, we will create a simple WPA2 WLAN using PSK, just as we did with the WLC. Then, we will join our new wireless network with my test PC to confirm everything works as advertised! Finally, we will finish up the chapter by exploring how to work with cloud-managed access points.
• Chapter 13: Virtualization, Containers, and VRFs  In this chapter, we’ll begin to address modern challenges by introducing you to virtualization basics. We’ll then walk you through...