Cisco Certified Network Associate is abbreviated as CCNA. CCNA is basically a computer networking course which has a certain curriculum and requires CCNA training. This curriculum is used to prepare and help the networking students to clear the CCNA exam. There are also ICND 1 and ICND 2 exams for certification. In total, Cisco has four certification levels and they are CCENT – which is an entry level, CCNA, CCNP and CCIE – this routing and switching is the highest level. Besides this, CCDA is offered separately. CCDA is expanded as Cisco Certified Design Associate. Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician is the first level of certification. The pre requisite for Cisco Certified Network Professional is to have the second level of certification – Cisco Certified Network Associate. For CCNA certification, the exams required to clear are 640-802 CCNA or ICND 1 and ICND 2. CCNA Voice Training will help covering the curriculum required to clear these exams. ICND classes have the most important benefit of hand on work to get prepared to work in the field. This is besides the obvious exam preparation.
There is a term which is given to people by Cisco Networkers who are experienced. People who clear the exam without hands on are referred to "Paper CCNAs". For attending and attempting the CCNA exam, CCNA Security Training is always recommended for effective preparation but not required. To attend the certification exam, there are no particular requirements. There are some courses which are recommended and they are Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices (ICND), part one and two. Both the parts are version 1.0. There are about seven paths of career certification in Cisco and includes design, network security, switching and routing, storage networking, wireless and voice and service provider. There is an official website for CCNA and explains about the curriculum. It includes performance based skills, wireless terminology and networking concepts and basic mitigation of security threats. Cisco also provides modules online to help learning and preparing for various exams.
