Getting Started with Cisco IOS Devices

This chapter is where you start your journey learning about Cisco technologies, in particular, learning how to implement and administer Cisco solutions in an enterprise organization. One of the key components to ensure your success is gaining a lot of hands-on experience with Cisco devices. This hands-on experience helps you understand essential Cisco concepts (those that are covered in this book) easily and demonstrates the effect configurations have during the implementation phases.

However, a major challenge for most beginners is gaining hands-on experience during their learning and examination preparation phases. Another concern is getting access to Cisco equipment after classroom training hours or even when a training session has ended. To solve these challenges, this is a dedicated chapter to demonstrate how to build a Cisco lab environment that allows you to get the hands-on experience you need to get started with Cisco IOS devices.

In this chapter, you will learn how to get started with a Cisco IOS device by setting up a personal lab environment for honing your skills, accessing a Cisco IOS device, and building a small Cisco network.

In this chapter, you will read about the following topics:

• Getting started with Cisco IOS
• Accessing a Cisco IOS device
• Setting up a Cisco lab environment
• Configuring your first Cisco network
• Performing troubleshooting procedures

Time to dive in!