Can some one tell the best software to practice for the CCNA. I?m using the Boson software is this the only software that I need? Is the simulated boson software that comes with the Cisco press good?
Please advise
Thanks in advance
Joe,
I assume you speak about that simulator:
I've however some disappointment. I sent recently to Boson more than ten problem reports about some bugs and errata or misleading instructions in the text labs. I still wait for their feedback.
There are 5 series of proposed lab. The stand alone labs are very basic and will be reviewed those days by Boson as they told me. The sequential, scenario, INTRO and ICND lab series are more interresting and provide a good preparation. However my feeling about those labs is that solely practicing them won't get me prepared enough for the CCNA exam. There are for instance no troubleshooting exercices meeting the level of difficulties you possibly face at the exam. You have to build your own configuration (at least 5 routers + switches) and experiment yourself what trouble you might create.
By the way I suggest the users of the Cisco CCNA Netsim to submit via this forum configurations or their own to troubleshoot . Could be funny to challenge others that way!
As a conclusion and in spite of the gaps, consider that simulator as a very good product that still requires enhancement. For the price you coudn't afford real Cisco devices!
Regards,
Bernard Herickx
And I'want to ask You about simulated software for CCNP - yes I know that is difficult to simulate more advanced devices but I haven't access to real devices and want to do some labs. Is there any simulator for CCNP ? Thanks.
The Boson NetSim® for CCNP Beta 3 will be released in stages ...
You also may want to use a packet analyzer. With such a software you'll better understand what encapsulation and OSI layers mean. With Packetyser I recommend you even can vizualize the TCP flow with all the SYN, ACK and sequence number.
Packetyzer is a freeware based on Ethereal. Platform : Windows.
Bernard Herickx
Having beta2 and doing the update from it you get beta3 However it's far from being stable and complete yet
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