Stephen et all,
>
> And as regards the original Q - CCENT seems to have been shoe horned
> in as a precursor exam for people with no real network experience at
> all.
>
> If you can cope with IP on PCs, SOHO routers / switches and wireless,
> Ethernet cables and broadband you probably should ignore it and try
> CCNA / CCDA.
>
> We all got by without CCENT for 10 years or more so you have to wonder
> if cisco invented it to let them get more income for entry level
> stuff.......
The CCENT exam is simply the ICND 1 exam. In recent years Cisco, and
networking technologies, has suffered 'scope creep'. When I took the
CCNA in '99 it covered only a few topics. Now the CCNA has gotten to
the point where there is just too many topics to include them all on one
exam.
Here is the Table of Contents from the ICND1 (CCENT) book with W. Odom:
C1: Intro to Computer Networking Concepts
C2: The TCP/IP and OSI Networking Models
C3: Fundamentals of LANs
C4: Fundamentals of WANs
C5: Fundamentals of IP Addressing and Routing
C6: Fundamentals of TCP/IP Trans****t, Applications and Security
C7: Ethernet LAN Switching
C8: Operating Cisco LAN Switches
C9: Ethernet Switch Configuration
C10: Ethernet Switch Troubleshooting
C11: Wireless LANs
C12: IP Addressing and Subnetting
C13: Operating Cisco Routers
C14: Routing Protocol Concepts and Configuration
C15: Troubleshooting IP Routing
C16: WAN Concepts
C17: WAN Configuration
To someone who's been around the block these seem simple but if you've
got no idea the above is a hell of a lot to grasp and learn to the point
of passing a Cisco certification exam.
The ICND 2 exam (with the ICND 1/CCENT exam make up the CCNA
certification) builds on the above 10 fold and includes VLANs, STP,
VLSM, ACLs, OSPF, EIGRP, Frame Relay, VPNs, NAT and IPv6.
If Cisco were to put all of these topics on one exam with the notion
that in order to pass the exam one must be able to define,
differentiate, configure and troubleshoot them the exam would be a 3
hour event that many novices would find too daunting to tackle.
The simple fact is, a CCENT now has more networking knowledge than a
CCNA did 5 years ago and a CCNA now would out perform any CCNP qualified
in the '90s. That is why there are multiple exams in my opinion.
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