Preparing for JNCIA-Junos

If you are new to networking or just new to Juniper Junos, these are the resources that can prepare you for the JNCIA-Junos certification exam. Most of these are free. I have arranged these in what I feel is the logical order to proceed in building the necessary knowledge to learn the JNCIA-Junos material and thus pass the test.

Getting ready:

Most of these free resources require you to create a Juniper account to access them. There are two accounts needed for the process.

Juniper Learning Portal

This login will become your permanent identifier for your personal certification access. When you register for exams and keep tabs of your progress in the certification portal, this will be the account that manages your certs. I recommend you set this up with a personal email account that you intend to keep for the long haul.

Registration

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_register.aspx

Juniper Forums (Single Sign on Account)

This account gives access to the JNET forums and downloads of the free Day One series books in PDF format. This account is also connected to the main Juniper.net SSO system. So if you have an existing Juniper account you can simply sign in using that account and create a JNET profile.

But again I recommend using a personal account that you intend to keep for the long haul. This will keep your access across multiple jobs and your history intact in the forums should you choose to participate.

Registration:

https://userregistration.juniper.net/entitlement/setupAccountInfo.do?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fforums.juniper.net%2F

Networking Fundamentals Course

An introduction to networking concepts is a logical place to begin for a networking certification path. If you are new to networking, this free five hour course is a great introduction to the basic concepts. This includes exercises along the way to reinforce the concepts learned. And has a final end to end networking test to evaluate how you are doing in grasping those concepts.

If you have been working in networking for a while, simply jump to the final exam. This will provide a quick review for you to see where you are. And the topics along the way are clearly bookmarked so you can review just those that are needed to refresh your memory or fill in the holes.

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_activity_info.aspx?id=769

Review Exam Outline:

This is the topic listing of all that is covered on the JNCIA-Junos exam. Review the listing and know where your knowledge needs to be supplemented for further study.

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/certification/resources/jncia-junos/

Study Materials

With the topics in mind, here are the main sources of information available for the exam topics.

Course:

Juniper education creates courses that parallel each certification exam. By taking the course you will get all the material needed to pass the exam covered. The live sessions can be either in person or via ILO (instructor lead on-line) classes. For these you only need internet access to attend the class and access the labs.

IJOS – Introduction to Junos Operating System
https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_activity_info.aspx?id=700

There is also the option to purchase the student books that come with taking a course from the online store. These are just the slides with speaker notes and not a full study guide or normal book. So these do require doing some google for the full documentation when you don’t fully understand the concepts presenting in brief.

They do include both the lab guide and diagrams with explanations of the exercises. But they do NOT include the physical lab topology or base configurations to setup your own lab.

https://www.onfulfillment.com/JuniperTraining/WelcomePublic.aspx?sid=323

Free Junos Online Courses

There are two free online courses Juniper provides for an introduction to Junos.

Junos Fundamentals: This is a 2.5 hours on demand webinar introduction to Junos. This is a great starting point for the introduction to how Junos works and navigating the CLI (command line interface).

Junos Jump Start

Junos as a Second Language: This course was originally created to show Cisco engineers how to use the Junos CLI. This provides hands on examples where you can interact with the course in a sample of the Junos CLI and practice various command setups and see the result.

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_activity_info.aspx?id=3310

Traditional Book:

Junos for Dummies Second Edition: Out of print for hard copy but available in various sources. Be sure to get the second edition if you source from used other other outlets.

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118173740.html

Juniper Day One Series: Free PDF books:

Juniper publishes a wide variety for books in the Day One Series that they distribute in PDF form for free. They can also be picked up for Kindle at Amazon for $1. These two provide basic introduction to the Junos command line.

Day One: Exploring the Junos CLI
http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/jnbooks/day-one/fundamentals-series/cli/

Day One: Configuring Junos Basics

https://forums.juniper.net/t5/Day-One-Books/Day-One-Book-Configuring-Junos-Basics-English-and-Japanese/ba-p/52386

Day One: Junos for IOS Engineers
If you are an experience Cisco engineer this book can assist in translating that knowledge to Junos.
https://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/jnbooks/day-one/fundamentals-series/junos-for-ios-engineers/

Exam Preparation

Juniper provides a couple of tools to give you a flavor of what the exam experience will be like and measure how prepared you are for the live exam.

BE CAREFUL with the use of these test exams. There is a very limited question pool so you could end up simply memorizing answers to the specific questions in these tools and not really understanding the concepts. This would cause you to do very well in the App or sample test but fail the live exam with different questions on the same topics.

Return to the study material or google documentation for the exam topics you have issues with on these sample tests. Make sure you fully understand the topic and not just the answer to the specific question.

Once you have the basic material down and your studies well underway, you can see where you stand for the exam. Take the pretest to get a feel for the questions. Note what you get wrong (screen grab) for further study against the outline from the final score presented.

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_activity_info.aspx?id=8406

Junos Genius

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/junos-genius/

If you have a smart phone or tablet you can download and practice wight the Junos Genius app. While studying use the instructor mode that explains each of the answers as you go. This can also provide the pre-test similar to an exam so you can see how you are doing.

Ready to Go

Now that you have a well rounded understanding of the exam topics. And a tested ability to apply that knowledge with the sample tests. Go ahead and book your exam.

Good luck and enjoy