Welcome to my complete CCNA, Cisco Certified
Network Associate course. This is Jeremy’s IT Lab. Since this is the first video, allow
me to introduce the course. This course aims to be a complete course for the CCNA, including
everything you need to pass the exam, all 100% free.
There will be lecture videos covering every topic on Cisco’s official exam topics list,
practice quizzes covering the material in each lecture, flashcards to help you review
and remember what you learned, practice labs using Cisco’s network simulation software
Packet Tracer, and at the end multiple practice exams to get you ready for the real thing.
Although this course will be based on Cisco’s official exam topics list, I also want to
give you extra information to improve your understanding of networks in general. That
additional context should also help you understand the exam topics. Because this is the first video in the series,
I want to talk about who this course is for. This course is for anyone who wants to pass
the CCNA 200-301 exam. At the time of recording this video, this is a new exam that isn’t
released yet, but will be coming on February 24th, 2020. Although a lot of the information
will overlap with the old CCNA, the course will be based on the exam topics for the 200-301
exam This course is for anyone who wants to learn
about computer networking. You don’t necessarily have to take the CCNA 200-301 exam, this course
will cover lots of valuable information regarding computer networking even if you’re not aiming
for the CCNA. The only requirement for this course is that
you have a basic familiarity with computers. I will cover all of the foundational networking
knowledge at the beginning of the course, so you don’t need any prior knowledge of
networking, and you also don’t need to know programming or anything like that to start
this course. With no further ado, let’s get started!
Our first lesson will cover network devices. This knowledge will be the foundation which
we will build upon during the rest of this course. Take a look at this sample network
here. Do you know what each of these symbols represents, and their function in a network?
At the end of this lesson, you’ll know these and more, and how they work together to make
a network. We won’t go into too many details in this lesson. There’s plenty of time to
dig deeper in future lessons, but these first few videos are meant to give you the foundational
knowledge which we will build upon in future lessons. So, what is a network? Let’s ask our friends
at Wikipedia. ‘a computer network is a digital communications network which allows nodes
to share resources’. Well, if you didn’t understand before, you probably still don’t
after reading just that. Let’s look further. The definition states that a network allows
nodes to share resources. What is a node? I’ll introduce some types of network nodes
here, some of which appeared in the sample network on the previous slide. This is a router. You’ve probably heard
the word before and have a general idea of what a router is. But I’ll explain a router’s
function in this lesson. Next, this is a switch. Maybe you’re familiar
with what a switch is, maybe not. It serves a different function than a router, but is
also similar in many ways. This next one is a firewall. You’re probably
familiar with firewalls, and you most likely have a firewall installed on your computer.
That’s a software firewall, but large networks usually have a hardware firewall, a separate
network appliance, which helps protect the network. This next symbol represents a server. If you
know computers, you surely have heard of servers before. What exactly do they do? Well, if
you’re watching this video, you’re getting it from a server on the Internet. The last symbol in this slide is a client.
You’re using a client to watch this video, whether it’s a smart phone, a laptop, a
desktop PC, or whatever. What exactly is a client? Let’s get into it. Over the next
few slides let’s build a sample network and look at the functions of each of these
network nodes in the network. You might also hear clients, as well as the
previous node type, servers, referred to as end hosts or endpoints Okay, so we looked at some types of network
nodes, but we didn’t really examine exactly what each type of node does in a network.
Let’s build a network and examine each node’s role. So, here we have two PCs. PC1 on the left,
and PC2 on the right. As is, this isn’t a network. However, if I connect them together
with a cable… We now have a network. That’s right, two
PCs connected together actually makes a network! Now, it’s a very simple network, but if
we take a look at that Wikipedia definition once more… ‘A computer network is a digital telecommunications
network which allows nodes to share resources’ Now that these two nodes are connected, they
can share resources... And essentially have a conversation with each
other. Now, I’m representing clients with this
symbol. But there are all kinds of devices which can be network clients. For example, a laptop or Desktop PC running Microsoft Windows. Or how
about an iMAC running macOS. Or even an apple iphone running iOS. These are just a few examples
of devices which can be network clients. So, let’s give a simple definition of a
client. A client is a device that accesses a service
made available by a server. Okay, since server is part of the definition
of a client, to understand one, you have to understand the other. So, what’s a server? Let’s take a look. I used this symbol to represent a server.
When you think of the word server, you may thing of something like this IBM server, or
this DELL server. And indeed, these are powerful servers, and you’ll see rows and rows of
servers like these in data centers. However, not all servers look like this. In fact, any
of the clients we looked at in the previous slide can be servers too! How is that possible?
Well, let’s look at the definition of a client again, and then compare it to the definition
of a server. The definition we used for a client was ‘a
client is a device that accesses a service made available by a server.’ So, we can
basically reverse that definition to know what a server is. ‘A server is a device that provides functions
or services for clients.’ So, let’s look at the simple network of two PCs connected
with a cable that we saw before. Remember this network? Watch this little exchange
between the two PCs and think which of them is the server and which is the client. PC1 asks PC2 for the file ‘image.jpg’ PC2 responds and sends the requested image
file. So, which is the client and which is the server? Well, PC1 is the one requesting
the service, requesting for the image to be sent. And PC2 is the one providing the service,
the one sending the image. So that makes PC1 the client, and PC2 the server. Let’s look at another example of a client-server
relationship. On the left is your computer, or perhaps your smartphone, whatever you’re
using to watch this video. On the right is a YouTube server which contains this video.
What do you think the blue cloud in the middle represents? The answer is, The Internet. In network diagrams,
a cloud is often used to represent the Internet, or in any situation where the details of that
part of the network aren’t necessary. The Internet is a very complex network, and for
the sake of this diagram all we need to know is that data from your computer passes through
the Internet to reach the YouTube server. The exact details of the Internet aren’t
important for this diagram, so we can simply use this cloud to represent the Internet. So, your computer sends a request to the YouTube
server for this youtube page, including the video. And youtube’s server sends the data, passing
through the Internet, back to your PC. However, YouTube doesn’t send the data all
at once. It sends you a stream of data until you’ve
watched the whole video. For one more example, let’s say your want
to get a video from your friend. You both have iphones, so you ask him to send you the
video by airdrop. Your phone requests the video. And his phone responds, sending the video.
You probably know it by know, but which phone is the client and which is the server? As you probably guessed, your phone on the
left is the client. And your friend’s phone on the right is
the server. To review once more. A client is a device
that accesses a service made available by a server.
And, a server is a device that provide functions or services for clients.
Also, keep in mind the same device can be a client in some situations, and a server is other situations. Okay, hopefully you have a better idea of
what a client is and what a server is. Now let’s build out the network further, and
show the next part of the connection between end hosts and the Internet.
Let’s say this is a network for an Enterprise, and this Enterprise has a branch in New York,
and a branch in Tokyo. Of course, a real Enterprise branch will have more than just a couple PCs
or a couple servers, but I also couldn’t fit an entire network on this one slide!
Typically you don’t connect end hosts like PCs or servers directly to each other. You
aggregate the connections to a device called