00:00
This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

00:10
this podcast to look for keys, technologies and talented people. We aim to bring you information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers.

00:29
Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. My name is Aaron Wyler, also known as at Aaron Engineered on all your favorite social accounts out there. And with me I have AJ. Hey guys. I have Dan. Howdy. Got a little South Park swaying to you today. That was kind of interesting. And last and certainly not least, Andy Lapteff. Hey, hey.

00:58
Find us on the internet, folks. We're super cool to talk to. We'll give you all those social accounts afterwards as well so you don't have to go dig around for you. But if you felt like it, the art of netw is a great place to start where you can find all of the lovely things that not only you hear today, but all of the past episodes and lots of cool stuff about us and links to our blog and all of our social accounts and you can stalk us until you pass out. Because what else better do you have doing? Going on, absolutely nothing. That's what I thought.

01:27
So today we wanted to talk because we have all been in some capacity studying for these new Cisco tests after, we'll call it certpocalypse, which is very well named thing. I don't know who came up with that, but it's very appropriate because back in, I need a date check here, guys. When was that that it changed? February? February 24th, I think. February 24th, D-Day.

01:57
Cisco, not every vendor obviously, but Cisco who clearly is the industry leader in certifications, they changed just about every test onto something, they got rid of a bunch of tests. So they got rid of like the CSENT, they got rid of like every single associate level exam you could possibly get, except for the CCNA. And they took away your option of doing two tests to get the CCNA.

02:28
So a ton of stuff changed as well as like all the NP stuff, which if you listen to our previous episodes, I don't think any of us are still quite clear as to how that actually works. We're just sort of following the bouncing ball and hoping that we end up with a certification mailed to us at some point, but fingers and toes crossed, I guess. So just kind of going through the differences was what we wanted to touch on today is what we're leading into.

02:58
And differences being between like the CCNA, but I'm sure, you know, as per usual, we'll end up in some dark corner of the universe. So what we're going to start with is what's different about this old CCNA or the old CCNA, the one that, you know, all of us took, or everybody except for Dan, obviously, we know he skipped that because he was smart. Probably didn't like the fact that there was frame relay in there. And that's one of the things that's gone too, right? So we got some different

03:26
pieces moving in and out here. AJ, you do a lot of stuff with the Cisco Champions and you know, you've written the blogs about it and stuff. What is the single biggest, if you gotta nail it down to one thing, what is the single biggest difference between the old, and I'll say the old as in the one that, right before the change and then this new one.

03:53
So yeah, last year, just before Cisco Live, the Cisco Champions team got kind of a briefing from learning at Cisco on the forthcoming changes to the certification program. And you know- What did they tell you guys in the room? Hey, if you tell anybody, we're gonna have to kill you. Well, it's an NDA, right? Like everybody that's a Cisco Champion signs an NDA and you know, that NDA says- Which means what? You're gonna be pretty to certain information. What's that? What's NDA mean?

04:23
Non-disclosure agreement. Okay. And before any piece of information is released to us, when we go to have these kind of NDA, uh, you know, uh, discussions, bar discussions, they'll say, look, here, here's what we're going to talk about. Uh, and you can't post anything about this until a specific date and time, you know, we want to share this information with you in advance so you can prepare a blog post to a video, do a podcast, whatever it is that you guys do as content creators.

04:51
but you can't post about it until a specific date and time. And so we had this meeting with Learning at Cisco and they shared with us the forthcoming changes about the certifications and really quick and in summary, it's they got rid of the verticals. So at least for the associate level, there's no more CCDA, there's no more design associate, there's no more wireless associate, there's no more data center associate, cloud associate, so forth. So it's just the CCNA. And...

05:19
If you compare the 200-125 exam and Blueprint to the new 200-301, from a routing and switching perspective, it is shallower in depth just from routing and switching. However, it is much wider. What do you mean, though? How is it shallower? So on the 200-125 exam, you had topics like multi-area OSPF, and you had EIGRP. And I think there was a little bit of BGP on there.

05:49
But now on the new 200-301, it's single area OSPF and no EIGRP. And I think they just kind of sort of scratched the surface on BGP. But I don't know that it's actually a requirement. I don't know that you're actually going to see any BGP questions on there. I would say that the strangest thing in what you just said was that they took out EIGRP. Yeah. I mean, this is OK. I work at Cisco.

06:18
Just pretending, La La Land. I'm rich too, clearly, because it's also La La Land. So I'm rich and I work at Cisco. I'm having a great time. I'm a Cisco sales engineer. So I'm going about my daily business and I'm thinking, all right, as a marketing technique here, we gotta take some stuff out of this test. Now, we did come up with a routing protocol, but we'll leave it off of our own vendor branded test. Does that make any sense?

06:48
I think it doesn't, it doesn't. I think to your point on the surface, it doesn't make sense that Cisco takes out their own protocol, which is now an open standard since 2014, by the way. Yes, that's true. Any vendor could put it on their equipment. They just choose not to or they don't. So I think that from a usability perspective and to have a more well-trained engineer, well-prepared engineer having an open standard on the exam probably makes more sense. And

07:16
And that was one of the things that Learning at Cisco did was they went out and they polled hiring managers. You know, what do you want to see from your certified individuals? And the general consensus they said was we don't want just a routing and switching person, we don't want just a wireless person, we want somebody who's prepared to kind of tackle anything. And that's, that's the end result. That's what you see in the new CCNA that it, it is preparing somebody to do a little bit of any one of those. So.

07:46
looking at the current blueprint under i p connectivity yet the only right protocol that even mentioned is those p f so no bgp no uh... rep v two yeah i don't i don't have to have you i don't see rep i don't see bgp uh... i i see properties of you know routing tables and i can't stop but nothing going the only protocol that is mentioned is those p f

08:14
I think I know what you're talking about too. So it's like, be able to identify based off the letter code, right? Like what routing protocol it is, even though we're not using any of them. We're not going to tell you what it is, but if you see the letter, run like hell because you don't know what it means yet. Wait, there's more. You can still become a CCNP, which we all know is very, very easy, AJ. Right. We'll see you after Thursday.

08:45
Yeah, OK. So, yeah, what other kind of glaring differences pop out? Dan, you what anything popping out at you right now other than what you said? For sure. So at the very end, automation and programmability, there's several things about like JSON, API, Puppet, Chef, Ansible. Let's see. DNA Center. They're really pushing that, I think. Yeah, they are pretty much everywhere. Like

09:13
Exam why they're pushing DNA Center, but one thing else in here is there they're wanting you to describe Controller based in software defined architectures like overlays underlays and fabric technologies. So Yeah, I don't think that was on the old one at all. Any now It was um, I believe it was basic WAN connectivity And that's where the BGP part came up. Yeah Yeah, it wasn't so much, you know, how do you configure BGP? But how would you peer with?

09:44
other ISPs with single home, multi-homed. Yeah. Yep. Very simple stuff. The programmability thing, I mean, is that a surprise at all, though? No, definitely not. Yeah. I mean, I think they're actually ahead of things right now. So at least we got rid of, I think it was like 2015 or something, we got rid of frame relay. Thank god. Kind of, rest in peace.

10:11
And you know what, when I was studying for the route and the CCMP route switch last year, that to me was some of the most frustrating stuff, was looking at ATM frame relay and everything that was on that old NP route exam because I wanted to do the new exciting fun stuff. I wanted to look at the automation and the programmability pieces, but I was really going after my CCMP and so I was kind of stuck, if you will.

10:40
researching and reading about these older technologies that I will likely not encounter. Yeah, seriously. I mean, I think that's the biggest thing is I have a very low tolerance when it comes to studying anyway. I mean, I feel like everybody does. If it's just not interesting, like, gosh dang, it just feels like you're plucking your eyeballs out with a spoon, right? Like, honestly, it's like, okay, frame really cool. And here's the thing, I work at an ISP, right? So I have yet.

11:09
to run into people and I'm gonna get freaking hated on. I know for a fact when people hear me say, oh I never see Frame Relay and all I do is look at network and they're gonna be like, well I have a Frame Relay. There's always that one guy, he's on r slash networking right now. He's just dying to troll me. I could see him right now, he's freaking salivating. He's like somebody said Frame Relay and there's like a little beam going off and he said, how dare they, let me put my cape on and go freaking save packets or whatever Captain Frame Relay does. But.

11:39
The thing is, if I already have a low tolerance for it, for something that's like an actual thing now, so let me give you an example, and this is just my personal experience, so by all means, share yours as well. There are things in those books that we all just despised doing, right? Either we don't feel necessary to do our jobs currently, or we just don't see the reason to know it, right? Because we've been around for a bit, or that's just a part of the business that just straight up doesn't interest me, and even if I had to do it in my day-to-day job, I don't want that.

12:08
I don't care, right? I mean, that's okay. You can not care about a part of it. You don't have to fall passionately in love, you know, with radius servers. You just don't. So, for me, it was always security. I actually don't like security, and I'm like probably gonna die on the vine in the next five years, because I hate security, and like that's where everything's going anyway, but I just, it doesn't interest me whatsoever. So when I see things like frame relay that also don't interest me, and are also not applicable whatsoever,

12:38
I mean, can you find a worse thing to try to make somebody study? VTP. Did you say VGP? No, VTP. Oh, VTP. Yeah, I mean, that's... Dan, is that still on there too, VTP? Let's see here. Isn't their best practice not to use VTP? If it's still in the blueprint, that's a problem.

13:02
Yeah, that's what killed me about some of that stuff. So, so you would go all the way through like VTP training. And at the end of the chapter or video, whatever you're doing, the recommended best practice is to not implement this. And it's like, well, why did I just spend all that time looking at it? Or there's like a whole bunch of questions. It was the same thing with OSP at virtual links. It says, oh yeah, virtual links that you should know about, but this is not the way you, you set up the network. You shouldn't use it, you know, but if you have to, if you come across a situation,

13:32
Speaking of virtual links, this is too good, man. Because, okay, so there's OSP of sham links too, right? Are you aware of those? I'm not actually. Okay. That sounds like a sham though. It's 100% a sham, right? And it's kind of the same thing as a virtual link, right? But anyway, I digress. We can talk about that some other time. That'll be on the CCNP test. I'm not seeing VTP, but.

13:56
I am seeing STP and I think that's kind of the same what you guys are talking about. Like, you know, STP is still a big thing, but everybody tries to get away from it. Like, you know. Right, right. Here's STP. Here's how you use it, design a good layer to network. But you know, you really should be doing Routed Access Layer. Yeah, route between those links. Yeah. Every time. Did I took the CCDA just like you did, AJ?

14:24
The one thing I found the most funny was going through CCNA. And for those of you who don't know, the CCDA is a now defunct design associate. So we're like, we're old school now. So the CCNA and the CCDA, two completely different things. The CCDA just dives into the topologies a little bit more and best practices and even just like collecting documentation and things like that. It's a basic project management type stuff. But...

14:55
Clear as day.

14:58
How should you set up your VLANs, right? Everything up until this point in the CCNA, it's like, we've all seen the diagram, and you don't even have to see me right now to know what diagram I'm drawing right in front of your face right now. And it's a single aggregator switch, a link going from that to access switch, and then another access switch. And both of those access switches have a VLAN.

15:28
Two different VLANs, 10 and 20. One is sales, the other one's marketing. And so they're on two different switches, two different access switches, but 10 and 20 are on both switches. I get the idea that they're just trying to show you that hey, if you had to segment these people everywhere, this is how you would do it. You would use VLANs, here you go, new concept. The only issue is,

15:57
even from an associate level, best practice is end to end VLANs.

16:06
Isolating them to closets. Right? So MDF isolation, not, oh, I have sales marketing and the warehouse on this floor. Let me just put them all in different feelings on the switch. No, their best practice was put them on their own switch. Am I like, am I crazy there? Nope, no. I thought that was the plan all along. So.

16:34
I always thought it was weird when I got my CCNA, because I was like a layer one dude, right? I was like cables everywhere. You know, I was the one actually like putting stuff in closets like, hey, everybody on this floor gets fed by this switch. It's pretty obvious, you know, you can only go 300 feet, right? And so I was like, who would use a VLAN here? All these people are on the same floor. Why wouldn't you wanna isolate issues to a floor as opposed to floor and VLAN? I get it. There's times when you would use that, right? But no.

17:05
I'll get off my soapbox there. I got to tell you, I'm looking at the blueprint for the first time here. Which one? The new one? Yeah, the new one. So I passed my CCNA in 2012. I can't even tell you what exam number it was. It could have been two versions ago. I don't remember, but I'm looking at the current blueprint, 203.01, and there is so much in here that would help me in my job today, you know, I'm like eight years into my career working on my MP and-

17:35
Like what? What don't you know, Andy? Well, don't try to don't try to front like you don't know all that stuff. Well, like, for instance, there's next gen firewalls in here, right? You know, I'm bumping into the firewall guys all the time, and it's just a point of contention. Like, I don't know what you do. I can't see what you do. It's magic. But my stuff isn't getting through. Can you check? So I mean, I know it's, you know, it's not brain surgery, but I'm just you know, there's firewalls in here. There's servers in here. There's Spine Leaf. There's cloud. There's automation. There's so much spine leaf. There's another thing.

18:05
That was Spineleaf mentioned on the CCDA at all, AJ? I do believe it was. In the data center probably, right? Section? Yeah. That's the only place I ever saw it. And then I took the CC- It wasn't on the CCNP or the Encore. No, no, no. And it was on the CCDP because I took that like the day that Sir Apocalypse happened. I remember it being there. And we can talk about that now.

18:35
There's those tests are decommissioned, right? We're allowed to talk about that. Right. Like what questions we heard. I'm looking for you to say, yes, Aaron, it's OK to talk about that. Well, I don't want to say that because I don't know. I don't know what's made it over to the new design exam, you know? Oh, I'll be careful. Oh, that's true. You have Cisco coming after you. Yeah, you're going to have Cisco 9. It's like watching the Twitch feed right now and like.

19:03
The ATF is like kicking AJ's door down behind him. It's Chuck Robbins. He's like, we got you. Got you in a headlock. That's why we don't do this live. One thing I see that's new on here is a wireless in several of the different categories. Oh dude. Yeah. We got to talk about that. Wow. Good or bad? I, I don't know if it's good or bad. I think it belongs in there.

19:29
Yeah, I mean, if they're going to take out the CCNA wireless, then yeah, I think it's good to put it in here. Well, there's wireless everywhere. Like you were saying, AJ, they talk to the people who are hiring, and they want a generalist, right? They want a guy who can do maybe a little bit of everything. Why would you hire a network engineer, even entry level, with a CCNA who doesn't know anything about wireless when you got a controller and access points all over your prem? So I think it makes a lot of sense to have wireless in there.

19:57
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I mean, as prevalent as wireless is, and in just about every single job I've had as a network engineer or a systems administrator that had network responsibilities, I touched a wireless controller. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Do you find though that like, there's two parts to that, because do you find that like, an entry level person, and maybe this is just me being ignorant about like the demographic.

20:24
people that are getting into IT, but I always just felt like we always kind of knew stuff. You know what I mean? So it's like, that sounds pompous, but it's cool. Everybody listening to this is probably in the same boat. Like we know stuff about tech, like we care about stuff like that. I'm just giving you an example. Like you have a home router, it's got wireless, right? You're probably the dude that fixes it for everybody that you know, right? Just by default. So then I guess...

20:54
You're right, everybody needs to be a generalist, but like, as a hiring guy, I don't know, I'd be like, yeah, I want them to know wireless, but I would assume them to know the basic stuff, you know, just based off of like having wireless at home even. I don't know, is that too presumptuous? Well, so I'm... Yeah, go ahead, Adrian. Go ahead, Dan. No, you got it. I mean, I've heard people starting with the CCNA who know absolutely nothing about IT. No, I know. I know. I can see some of that.

21:24
But also, I will say, wireless is a whole other beast, man. I tried to dabble in it a little bit, and it's like, you gotta be a daggum scientist to understand some of the stuff. Did we just get a daggum? A daggum. Yeah, a dag. The first daggum. Daggum. Well, I'm waiting for a yawn in here, or a jawn in here. Wee, I'll give you a soft J and everything. Yeah. Yawn. So.

21:54
I think wireless guys are just they're kind of weird to be honest with you like they're on a they're on a different level than I am so I agree I agree that's intense no I don't agree about the weird part yeah exactly I mean like you're talking about radio waves and it's it's pretty intense Hey so this would be easy for you Andy because you were a cable guy I was and when I read wireless stuff

22:19
I've always found it very easy to figure out because I understand RF propagation. Right? Well, installing, you know, one wireless router in a house. Well, wireless routers too, right? To me, it's a lot different. Well, but a wire, one wireless device in a place I think is different than, you know, an enterprise with 15 access points and overlapping channels and interference. I, I don't know, I'm intimidated a little bit by enterprise wireless, partly because I've never done it. But yeah, like as a cable guy, sure. I can.

22:48
I could rock wireless and get you wifi in your house, but No, but I don't mean it like that though. I mean like understanding the principles of RF, right? So like when we talk about like Oh right, I gotcha. You know, QPSK, you know, and like frequency division. Yep. Multiplexing, you know, things like that. So

23:07
Yeah, that's what I mean. I didn't mean like you could go to somebody's house and I said, right, I'm with you. Wireless genius. And I mean, we're technical people, right? It's part of our personality. It's part of our makeup. So if I did get a job and I had the new wireless and I didn't, you know, I'll figure it out. I'll ask for help. I'll know what's the running joke. We're just really good at Google, right? Like network people, you know, if there's an even Google, I, I will Google wireless. While I'm on my wireless phone.

23:37
Yeah. Watch me create a black hole. The world's going to implode in my Google search. They're like, what? Wireless on a wireless? Dude, what? You don't even know what you're talking about right now. How dare you get on tour. So they're always going to update these exams, right? I mean, that's, that's the high level conversation is they, they want it to hold value, they have to update it. Why have frame relay or VTP in there? And, and I think Cisco, at least in the decade I've been.

24:03
dealing with them and their certifications. They're pretty, you know, they're respected in the industry and the exams aren't in the industry, sorry. But, you know, they hold value. So you can't be surprised at these updates. And I am totally surprised the IGRP is gone, but I'm glad that they threw a lot of this new stuff in here because if I was hiring a person, it would be really helpful for them to know a lot of these new topics that they've put in there. I...

24:32
I don't know. I don't want to say I felt kind of lost in my first job after my CCNA, but I did. I don't know if the guy passing this new exam will be in any better shape than I am, than I was, but the blueprint looks pretty cool. I mean, the automation stuff. Are you ever really in a shape though?

24:53
I don't know, I have this imagined end state in my mind where I know everything, and I guess that's ridiculous. No, I mean, but you know, so you're fresh off the CCNA. I mean, even, all right, better example. You've had 25 jobs like AJ. I'm going to need a fact check on that, Dan. In a span of three years. So you've had a bazillion jobs.

25:22
Is it easier, like, moving to a new job? Because no matter what cert you have or whatever, like, it's the same as coming in fresh, no matter what, because you're still coming in fresh. Yeah, you have experience from other stuff, but like, you know dang well, just like I do, that they're gonna ask you to do stuff that you've never done before, right? Yeah, you're right. And I'm just, I guess I'm pulling from my own experience. I mean, I got my CCNA, I got a job at the NOC. The first thing they asked me to do was log into a production router and I couldn't figure out how.

25:51
You know what I mean? So, you know, I was trying to put in my active directory credentials and I was nervous and the guy was looking over my shoulder and instead of hitting enter after my username, I was hitting tab. I thought I was in a webpage trying to get to the next field or something, but, you know, so, so yeah, like every job is going to offer their unique circumstances. But I, I spent a ton of time, you know, studying and passing this exam. And when I got out, I couldn't log into a router. So I'm not downplaying the value of the cert.

26:21
but I don't know, just- But- The CCNA is awesome, but when you take it to get that first network job, I don't know if it matters what they put in the blueprint because it's kind of intense. Yeah, but you're getting like, that's kind of how you got in though, right? Oh yeah, it opened the door. Yeah, so maybe that's really, it's just like the key. That's what it was for me. I mean, I know Dan doesn't have one and didn't need one and that's awesome too, but-

26:48
without getting my CCNA, we wouldn't be talking right now. I'd be doing something else. So I know it's not the topic, but it changed my life. And I'll always have a special place in my heart for the CCNA certification and those who are fighting the good fight to get it. Yeah, I mean, it's changed how many times total. Like I have no idea. So like, cause I even know the one that I actually passed didn't have frame relay in it either.

27:19
because the original one that I failed did, and I remember it to this day. I remember the exact question. Dude, I could draw you the topology on a napkin right now. I remember it. I even remember what the sites were called. Left a sting there, didn't it? And the frame relay stuff? Yes, like yellow, green, blue, whatever. No, they're all Olympic cities. You know how you were referencing the R networking guy that's going to beat you up for frame relay? Yes.

27:49
The first thing I was tasked with in my first network engineer job was working on frame relay connected clients. I mean, I know it's a one in a million and whatever, but yeah. I was like, hey, here's a hundred sites, convert them from frame to MPLS. So as ridiculous as it seems studying at the time, because our instructor even told us at Cisco Networking Academy, frame relay isn't used anymore, it's legacy, but it's in the blueprint.

28:18
First thing they gave me was like, here's a bunch of frame relay clients, convert them to PLS. So, you know, I mean, you never know what you're going to run into. You're like, bro, they took that out of the blueprint. Don't make me do it. My teacher told me that doesn't exist. What are you guys doing? And, you know. Yeah. You say to the boss, my teacher, Francisco, excuse me, training academy, said that that ain't going to happen, buddy. Yeah. I mean, there's people out there. Is this some sort of on the job test? There's.

28:45
There's big companies out there using legacy technology that was decommissioned decades ago, I guess. There's a trend with you getting jobs and then them asking you to do stuff they know you can't do. Yes, it's the story of my career. It makes for good stories, I guess. A little stressful. Andy walks out of there like, man, that was a big waste of time. And they're like, he nailed that interview. Nailed it, fell into space. What if he was like, hey?

29:14
Look, I want you to log into all 100 of these frame relay clients and you just turned around your chair and shut the monitor off and you're like, nice try. We know frame relays in existence anymore. He's like, wow, he passed the test. You're hired. I think the moral of the story is if you ever walk out of an interview and you're feeling great about yourself, you probably didn't do too hot. Yeah, that would be my experience for sure.

29:43
They like, for some reason, they look at my face and they say, we're going to just destroy this guy. And if he doesn't run away, we'll hire him. I don't know why, but they like to torture me. You have a very embarrassable, embarrassable face. So it is. I don't know. That sounds like it. I just make that up. He doesn't have a good poker face. So wait, I thought you said this was like day one of the job. Like you'd already got the job, right? Yeah.

30:10
See, that wasn't an interview, Dan. This is day one. He already somehow weaseled in there. I fell on my face in the interview. They gave me the job and then the first day I couldn't log into a router. I couldn't figure out how to put in my AD credentials correctly. Nice. Serious question. My manager was not happy about it. I can't imagine. Who have I hired? We told them we've never hired a cable guy. This is why. Son, are you on the wrong floor?

30:39
Exactly. Going through the trash can. It's like the broom closet's over there, bud. Hey, my trash can's full. Yeah, take that out for me. If that's not encouragement, okay, if you're listening and you're going through the CCNA, first of all, I hope we haven't deterred you from taking it at this point. But conversely, you're taking it anyway.

31:06
You felt like there's so many hurdles, like I gotta go through the interview process, I gotta find somebody who's gonna give me a job. Having the CCNA is clearly a benefit on your resume and for recruiters and people looking at like whatever posting you have somewhere or anytime you're setting your resume, they're gonna wanna see stuff like that. So then it's your job once you get to the interview portion, you gotta do the rest. You can't put this on autopilot and be like, well, I got a CCNA, cause you guys see this all the time, I guarantee you, right? Like either it's on.

31:35
our CCNA or it's on our networking. I know we would beat up on our networking here. This is gonna turn real bad for us at some point, but they're like, you don't need a CCNA or like why get a CCNA? Well, first of all, it just proves something. So it's not a bad thing. No matter how you try to spin it, like it can only do good, right? So if that gets you in the door to the interview process, then so be it, right?

32:02
And the questions they ask you, like I had a dozen phone interviews before I got my interview with the NOC, all the questions seem to be off the CCNA exam. So it was, it almost felt like interview prep sitting in there like, wow, they're asking me exactly what was on that exam. So yeah, it was, it gets you through the- It's almost like they were retesting. Yeah. It gets you through the screening process with HR, but then you get in front of them and they're asking you exam questions. So it's, I love me some.

32:31
I love me some CCNA. I'm looking at one topic in the blueprint. It says compare TCP to UDP. One of the senior guys I work with, that was one of his like four interview questions he asks guys who come in. Like that's a straight up interview question and there it is, you know, in network fundamentals, number 1.5. That's one of their topics. Have you ever gotten an interview question, Andy, that was CCNA related that you couldn't answer on the spot? Um, and what did you say?

33:02
No, I don't think so. Cause I find that if you don't know the answer, my experience has been, they just want to see how you reason through something. Do you have a logical flow that, you know, that you follow? Can you relate it to other things? Like, okay, you might not be the virtual link genius and OSPF, but I just start talking, if you ask me something about OSPF, I don't know, I just start talking about OSPF and, you know, I hope that I prove to you that, you know, I know.

33:30
You know, a lot about OSPF, just not that one little, you know, nerd knob that you asked me. That, that's kind of how I've dealt with it is just tell them what I do know. And I'll tell them upfront, like I don't, I don't have experience with that. I didn't study that, but you know, I can talk to you about what I know about the protocol and you know, at least the conversation happens and I was going to say, have you, have you ever just said straight up, like, I don't know. Yeah. Um, yeah, for the most part, at least the phone screen's huge. Well, I think it's a, you don't want to lie.

34:00
You know, they know the, I mean, they know the answer. It's like the government, you know, questioning you. You know, they already know the answer if they're asking. So don't lie or like a cop, you know, like just, he knows what you're up to. Don't, you know, you're gonna piss them off if you lie to them. So yeah, any authority figure, I guess. In one of my interviews, yeah, they started pounding me about BGP. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. From my experience, what they'll do is if they smell blood in the water.

34:28
they dive in head first and they're like, then explain to me how that works. Right when you like just barely got something out, you're like, oh, whew, nailed it. They're like, okay, now explain to me why you have to use this command. You're like, ah, you. How dare you, sir. How dare you expose me for who I really am. I would think at the CCNA level interviews, it would be much more general in nature. They're not gonna ask you for like.

34:54
syntax and a particular chassis or iOS. Like what's the command to enable BFD and an iOS Denali or something? You know, like it's nice in general. So, but yeah, most of the questions I was asking right from the CCNA exam, which really made me feel like I was on the right path at that time. Like, okay, good. You did the right thing. Yeah. You did the right thing. You feel prepared. Yeah. You know? Here's a question that I don't know though, is, I never took the A+. Is wireless on the A+.

35:24
I've never even looked at the A plus. Yeah, me neither. Me neither. Dan, I'll take a look for us here. We'll figure out here in a second. But I've never taken the, that's actually pretty strange that all of us have not taken A plus. That seems a little odd. There's always somebody, and I'm not saying it's a bad cert. I think it's awesome. Like, can get you probably almost as many places as a CCNA, but I've just never, I've never really even given it the time of day. Is that weird?

35:53
And I don't think it's a bad cert. I just never. So here's a question there. Like, why do you, I don't even know why Cisco certs hold so much weight. I mean, yeah, you could get an A plus or a network plus or whatever. Like, you know, why is Cisco the, I meant, I meant network plus, sorry. Yeah, right. You know, whatever vendor plus, you know, whatever their network thing is. I mean, sure, you could go get network plus and, and be good, but, you know.

36:21
Is it because Cisco is the leader and everybody's using them and they're, you know, and they're, and they're so wonderful or is it because the exams are so difficult and they, they refresh them enough to keep, you know, the valuable. I don't know the answer, but. Well, I definitely think it's a mix of that. Like, I mean, I think I'm, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm pretty sure Cisco owns most of the market. Right. Oh yeah. Still legacy, especially that's the, that's, that's the, that's the, the, the full story is like.

36:50
you know, who cares about today? You know, the CCIE exists because of that, right? That's like, A, we have the apex predator of routing and switching out here. And they have a certification where they prove that you're a professional. You're an expert. You're an associate. You know, and you're like, oh, what's it like to be that expert? Oh, it's hard, you can't do it, man.

37:18
You know, many will try, many more will fail, right? So it probably had mostly to do with, you know, who was there first. And I think some of that other part that you said too, that Andy is right, that they keep it relevant and they refresh it too. The network plus and a plus do as well, I know that for a fact, but you know, I would say that the Cisco has just kind of carried its weight throughout time, regardless of how many refreshes of what they add and take out.

37:47
I mean, it's frustrating when you're in the middle of studying for it, and then they're like, you're going to refresh it soon. You're like, oh no, God, please no, which is kind of my CCMP feeling now. Like, oh great. All right. Yeah, so it definitely looks like there's mention of wireless, but it doesn't look like it goes into anything too detailed. Just basically like your wireless options on your laptops, trying to find an SSID, that kind of stuff. I don't think it's a...

38:16
Talking about like wireless LAN controllers or anything like that. That's interesting that you brought that up because Cisco doesn't ever do that. You notice that like. Andy's a great example of this, right? He sat down and didn't know what credentials to put into it, to tell that or SSH, whatever they were trying to get you to do. Right. And you put the wrong stuff in. But like, God forbid somebody be like, a dude, can you open this PC and change it to a static IP address?

38:46
Yeah. You know, Cisco has never touched any like end user stuff like that. That's, that's a glaring difference, right? Like, and I think it's because CompTIA has like the A plus and all that stuff. That probably has a lot to do with it, but they're very like end user focus too. Right. Like, like, like for real troubleshoot, right? Like if you're running a small LAN, you're probably going to be in those PC settings more than any network setting. So who's got, I mean, I don't run.

39:15
Dan doesn't have a CCNA, but you, AJ and Aaron, you both got it, right? Right. Yeah. So I've gone on and on, I think multiple times about how it's changed my life and how wonderful it's, you know, it's really, it's why I'm where I'm at. I think it's what started the whole thing. I mean, do you feel like it helped either of you guys? Did you need it? You know, maybe we covered this, you know, lightly in other topics, but now that we're talking about this specifically, I mean, did the CCNA, you know,

39:44
Did it help you guys? Did it open any doors? Did it create opportunities? Yeah, yeah, it did for me. So a few years ago, I was a manager of an IT department and I was actually at Cisco Live and I had this epiphany where I don't do any of the technical stuff anymore and I miss it. And so I wanted to make a career change and I have always had a passion for networking. That's what got me into IT and it's, you know.

40:13
I've always done a little bit of it. You know, I was always a generalist, jack of all trades, master of nothing kind of thing. And so I wanted to go full on, I wanted to get a network engineer job and leave management. And so I went and got my CCNA and broke in to a systems engineer position with a small MSP up here in this area and work for them for a little bit. And I think that having my CCNA is what helped get me there. You know, it was having the certifications to prove I have the current knowledge of

40:43
networking today and then the chops to back up all my experience and knowledge of systems and design and all that stuff helped lay me that systems engineer job.

40:54
Yeah, that's probably a little unique too. Cause, and I don't know the stats on this cause they just don't exist. Just like, we will never know how many CCNAs are out there. You know, people always try to Google that, but also like how many people took this as an entry level test, like didn't have current experience because it's so hard to nail down what got you there. Like everybody wants the magic sauce.

41:24
All right, what is it you did? So, you know, like we all told our stories, like how did we get, how many different stories did we have? Right. Four. Right. Four very different stories. And so it's like, I think the thing that's like peeking through the clouds the hardest is like, it doesn't matter, do what you want. Right? Cause like, as long as you want it and you like work for it, like that's all you need. Those other things just help.

41:52
Right, they're like rocket fuel. I think the thing peeking through the hardest was the tenacity, the desire, the drive. Yep, yep. So you can have a CCNA. That's definitely something that we all shared in common. You don't have to have a CCNA, you can have a CCNA. The tenacity is a must, right? So I guess the better answer, when everybody always says CCNA or A plus, or you know, CCNA or college, which should I do? What's the big debate? I mean, how many times a week do you see this same post, right?

42:22
How many times a day? A day, right. I'm faced with a very important dilemma. I mean, gosh dang. Can I answer that? Because I have a college degree and my CCNA. You do? I can tell you that the CCNA was more difficult for me. Interesting. Yeah. College, I mean, again, I wasn't a pre-med. I mean, if you're doing some heavy. No, you weren't technically. English major communications, like, okay.

42:48
Everybody knows they're the easier majors, more of a generalist kind of thing. You're not heavy into a lot of science and math, but I still have a bachelor's and my CCNA was more difficult. Because I went through it and it was so hard, if I am interviewing somebody someday, at the very least, I know these people are tenacious. You know what I mean? I know the pain that they went through to get this thing, which...

43:15
knowing the pain I'm gonna put them through in the job, probably, it's good to know that they can get in there and get their hands dirty and then fight through some difficulties. Okay, so you got, you do, Andy, you have a great job. And you have a college degree, you have a CCNA. I don't wanna downplay what you have, but I just wanna say, and that's it. I mean, you have a couple other industry certs, I think, right?

43:44
JNCIA, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is expired. Okay, yeah, yeah. Hey, preach brother, JNCIA brothers. Yeah, getting back at him. That's us, I was fist bumping you, you didn't see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually got the CCNA because I wanted to prove it to myself, no other reason. It's never gotten me any more money. I do the exact same job and the exact same company that I did at the time I took it, and I have since gotten a CCDA, you know, all those Juniper certs, CCMP. So,

44:14
So certs don't change your life or get you more money, right? That's not why you do it. But or a college, right? So again, so basically to answer that generalist question, do I need college or certs or a specific cert like CCNA? So the answer is yes and no. Four different people, four different stories. You and I have a lot of similarities in the places that we've worked. We were both cable guys at one point at the same company. And we have very different stories.

44:43
Other than that, which is you have both, I have zero. The answer is yes, yes, yes. And yes, do all these things help? Absolutely. They're not going to hurt you. Right. You know what I mean? Knowledge education isn't going to hurt you. Every story is different, man. If you got the tenacity, is that the word you use, Deja? Yep. Tenacity, the drive, the tenacity that, that moxie, you got moxie. Also, let me tell you a quick story. All right. So a few years ago, we were.

45:11
I was hiring an internship position at the place that I worked at when I was an IT manager. We were going to hire a student and I hope to have the guy that we hired here on the show someday. Is he paid though? Clarify. So this position was going to be a paid internship for an international manufacturing company and we were going to bring you in, have you work on the help desk and then get you involved with some big projects that we had coming up.

45:38
And it was going to be a decently paid, you know, for a college student in the Burlington area, it was definitely a competitive wage. Well, paid, paid, paid internship. That's yeah. So we interviewed, I don't know, like five or six different kids, brought them in. And literally, the first four or five ones that we talked to, their response was, it would be kind of cool to have a job like this. It would be kind of cool to have an internship.

46:08
And then we bring in the guy that we hired. We bring him in for the interview and we're doing the tour. We're talking to him about all the different technologies that we use in our environment. And every time we say something, the look on his face is just this jaw dropping. You could just see in his head, what an opportunity this is for me. And the excitement that he got was infectious. For me and my sysadmin, this is stuff that we're in every single day and we're just telling him about what we do. To us, it almost feels...

46:37
slightly mundane because we're used to it, but then to watch his reaction, to get excited, it's like, oh yeah, this is fun stuff. I forgot. New toy. That's the kid that we hired and it was definitely the right choice. Passion is infectious, right? If you had two candidates, one, I mean, they were both smart, but yeah, the one goes, and then you can see the other guys just- What did they really say though, Ajay? Maybe they did say, no.

47:07
No, that's literally what one kid said. He was like, he verbatim, dude, like he was like, eh, you know, it'd be cool to have this position. Okay, do you guys hear that? Does everybody out there listening right now hear this? This is your competition out there. This dude is walking in a place saying, eh, it'd be nice to have that. And maybe his resume was stacked. I don't even want AJ to tell us because I want to live in this fantasy.

47:37
Reality that I'm creating for myself right now This dude's got a stacter as a man He comes in ready to you know AJ stoked because he's like, oh man this guy looks great on paper He's got two degrees. He's got a CCNA and a JNC. I those are so hard to get. How do you do that? And he comes in and goes Finish the job man So I did I interviewed that guy too where I interviewed the stacked guy like the guy on paper that looked fabulous And then we got him in for an interview

48:06
And it turns out it was really funny. So it's like his, his dad ran some sort of web hosting company, like as a side job. And he listed on his resume that he had experience with Linux and he had experience with hyper V and like all this stuff and they were like, oh, okay, cool. So we just try to have conversations with him. He's like, oh, well, I don't, I don't really touch those servers. So it's a, well, you, you listed right here that you have experience with. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I worked in an environment that has those servers, but I don't touch them.

48:35
Be careful what you put on your resume. Why would you do that? If you can't back it up, don't list it. My resume when I got my CCNA was basically everything I studied in the CCNA. I just filled it with all the protocols that I learned. I had no experience. You put E-I-G-R-P. Perficient in every protocol in the CCNA. What else you got to say? Dynamics of the protocol.

49:02
Are you really proficient in dynamics? I cable real good and I'm a VTB guru. Come on hire me. No, no, no. I said DTP. I know. I'm just bringing it back. That's even worse. I'm just bringing it back to VTP, man. Come on, failure plaques and VTP hero. Come on, dude. VTP. No, no, DTP is great though. Like why? Why is that? Why does that exist?

49:29
Yeah, so anyway, that's kind of our thoughts on the new CCNA. Whether or not you need it, I guess, we'll kind of leave that in your corner. I think the resounding answer is yes, right? Get it. Absolutely. I'm excited for the new CCNA content. I think it covers a lot of great stuff. And there's a little part of me that wants to go back and get the new one just to have the new one. But I'm going to keep going for the CCNP enterprise. But definitely, I mean, to anybody who's looking to break into the field, I think having the new CCNA is going to be.

49:59
a really great thing to have with all the stuff that's going on in the network in the world today. Yeah, and hit us up. You can find us on the internet. We are at Art of Net Eng on Twitter and Instagram, but you can go to thea and find all that stuff there. It's very easily listed out for you. It's a cool resource. And where this is going is that if you are studying for your CCNA now, hit us up. Tell us, man.

50:29
Is it cool? Is it wild? What's your experience? But also if you're studying, or even if you're studying something completely different than that, you might be surprised, but in our Discord server, we have study groups for literally everything at this point. Like I'm talking VMware stuff, we got, there's some Azure and AWS stuff in there. I mean, like just a ton of stuff. So if you're Juniper, so for us Juniper folk,

50:58
So if you're studying for any of those, like please find the Discord channel, find us on the internet. Obviously all the links in the description down here and hit us up. Tell us your experience, man. We'd love to hear from you. And who knows, maybe we might get you on the podcast and pick your brain a little bit. If we could find somebody that's recently taken and passed the 200-301, I think we should get them on the show. Absolutely. Yeah, so there you go. You heard it directly from his mouth. Hit us up. Find us.

51:27
And also, you know, this is a podcast, so why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this podcast on all of your favorite mediums that you have? Let's see Spotify, iTunes, Pocket Casts, Stitcher. I think we're pending on like iHeart Radio and Pandora. Hopefully we'll be there soon. For some reason, we're still pending on Google Play. I'm not sure why. Hopefully by the time this comes out, we'll be in Google Play. And now as of this afternoon, we're on YouTube.

51:55
We've already got a bunch of subscribers and stuff. So, and if I find another place that we're not on, that we can be on, I'll put us on there. Don't worry about it, we'll figure it out. Yeah, and if you have that suggestion too, please let us know. Like if you guys are trying to listen somewhere, that's actually how we came up with the idea of putting stuff on YouTube, is because so many guys voiced your opinion on that's your primary source of listening to content. So AJ was doing the legwork behind the scenes and got us up and running in those avenues. Got some.

52:25
cool stickers and stuff coming down the pike too. So just keep on the lookout for that. But until then, we will see you guys in the next episode. See ya.

52:38
Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher. Smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. We are at art of net eng. That's art of NETENG. You can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.com where we post all of our show notes. You can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests.

53:04
and also a lot more news and info from the networking world. Thanks for listening.