CCNA guide

What Is CCNA and How to Prepare for the Exam (2026 Guide)

If you want to work in networking, CCNA is usually the first certification you hear about. It's recognized worldwide, requires no previous experience and covers exactly what you use every day as a network technician or administrator.

In this guide you'll learn what CCNA is, what the 200-301 exam looks like (with details checked against Cisco's official pages), how much it costs, what changes in 2027 and how to prepare in practice, with a 12-week study plan.

What CCNA is and who it's for

CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate. It's Cisco's associate-level (entry to intermediate) networking certification, and it proves you can build, configure and troubleshoot a small or medium-sized network.

It isn't just about Cisco gear. Most of the concepts (IPv4 and IPv6 addressing, subnetting, VLANs, routing, OSPF, NAT, ACLs, Wi-Fi, security) are the same whatever the vendor. The configuration commands are Cisco IOS commands, but the logic carries over anywhere.

CCNA is a good fit for:

• students in IT, telecommunications or engineering programs;
• career changers moving into IT who want a solid foundation;
• helpdesk and support technicians who want to move up into networking;
• system administrators who work with the network a lot and want to understand what's going on "under the hood";
• future security or cloud engineers, because both fields are built on networking.

The CCNA 200-301 exam at a glance

To earn the certification you take a single exam: Implementing and Administering Cisco Solutions (200-301 CCNA). Here are the details from the official pages (checked on November 5, 2026):

Cisco doesn't publish a fixed number of questions or a passing score on its official pages, so don't rely on the figures floating around online. What matters is mastering all the domains.

What changes in 2027: version 2.0

This is very important if you're starting to study now. Cisco has announced a new version of the exam:

• last day for the current version (v1.1): February 2, 2027;
• version 2.0 starts on February 3, 2027;
• the code stays 200-301, and the duration stays 120 minutes.

What it means for you: if you start preparing in November 2026 and need 3 months, you'll most likely sit version 2.0. The good news is that the core (addressing, subnetting, switching, routing, OSPF, security) stays the same. The differences are in the structure (five domains instead of six) and a new domain on artificial intelligence and network operations.

Exam domains and their weighting

Version 1.1 (valid until February 2, 2027):

Version 2.0 (from February 3, 2027):

In short, in v2.0: the first domain brings together cabling, virtualization, IPv4/IPv6 addressing (including subnetting), wireless and DHCP; the second covers links between switches and routers, VLANs, trunks, EtherChannel and Rapid PVST+; the third covers the routing table, static routing, OSPF and first hop redundancy protocols (HSRP, VRRP); the fourth covers management access (local users, AAA with TACACS+ and RADIUS), secure file transfer (SFTP/SCP), NAT/PAT, DNS, IPsec VPNs, IPv4 ACLs and Layer 2 security features (DHCP snooping, DAI, port security and more). The last domain is the new one: besides network management (SNMP, Syslog, Ansible, controller-based and cloud-based approaches), it expects you to understand the role of "agentic" AI in network operations and to choose a suitable prompt for a generative AI assistant. Cisco notes that in the exam you may have to evaluate troubleshooting recommendations made by such assistants.

The full list of objectives is in Cisco's official documents (links at the end, under "Sources"). It's worth reading it once at the start and once before the exam.

The three parts of the Networking Academy CCNA course

Many people prepare through Cisco Networking Academy (at university, in school or at a training center). There, the CCNA material is split into three courses taken in order. Below is the breakdown from the v8 version of the courses, which Routerel also follows, summarized in our own words. In the previous version (v7), the courses were called Introduction to Networks (ITN), Switching, Routing and Wireless Essentials (SRWE) and Enterprise Networking, Security and Automation (ENSA).

CCNA 1 · ITN: Introduction to Networks

The foundation. You learn how data moves through a network: layered models, the physical layer and cabling, number systems (binary, hexadecimal), Ethernet and how a switch works, basic router and switch configuration, ARP and Neighbor Discovery, the network layer, IPv4 addressing with subnetting, IPv6 addressing, routing basics, ICMP and connectivity testing, TCP and UDP, application services, basic security and troubleshooting a small network. If this part is solid, everything else comes much more easily. For subnetting there's a separate step-by-step guide.

CCNA 2 · IEN: Implementing Enterprise Networks

You move from "one switch and one router" to a campus network. Switch and router management, neighbor discovery with CDP and LLDP, VLANs and trunks, inter-VLAN routing, wireless networks, Spanning Tree, EtherChannel, DHCPv4, SLAAC and DHCPv6, first hop redundancy, access and Layer 2 security, enterprise network design, network automation, AI in network operations and troubleshooting networks built with redundancy.

CCNA 3 · CEN: Connecting Enterprise Networks

Routing and the company network. Routing concepts, static routing, OSPF (fundamentals and optimization), security and cryptography concepts, ACLs (concepts and IPv4 configuration), NAT for IPv4, WAN, SD-WAN and the Internet, VPNs and IPsec, network management, virtualization and cloud, "agentic" AI in networking and a structured method for troubleshooting enterprise networks.

Networking Academy updates its courses periodically to match the exam objectives, so module order and some titles may differ from one version to another. Ask your instructor which version you're following. For the exam, the official list of objectives remains the source of truth.

A 12-week CCNA study plan

The plan below assumes about 1 hour a day, 5–6 days a week: theory (course, book or your own notes), a hands-on lab and 10–20 minutes of practice questions every day. For labs you can use Cisco Packet Tracer (a free simulator, with a Networking Academy account) or any other simulator or real equipment.

If you have less time each day, stretch the plan over 16–20 weeks. Not skipping days matters more than speed.

Study techniques that actually work

Spaced repetition

Your brain forgets along a predictable curve. If you review something just before you'd forget it, the next interval before forgetting gets longer. In practice: what you got wrong today, you review tomorrow, then in a few days, then in a week. What you already know, you review rarely. That's far more efficient than rereading whole chapters.

Active recall

Rereading gives you the feeling that you know something. Testing shows you whether you do. Close the book and ask yourself: "What does the DR do in OSPF? Why?" Answer in your own words, then check. Quiz questions are active recall in its purest form, especially if you also read the explanation for the answers you got right.

Practice exams

The exam is timed and doesn't let you go back to previous questions. So it doesn't catch you off guard, do a few practice exams under similar conditions: no breaks, no notes, clock running. Then analyze every mistake: was it a concept you didn't understand, a careless slip or running out of time?

Daily subnetting drills

Subnetting shows up everywhere: addressing, routing, ACLs, troubleshooting. A few minutes a day with mixed prefixes turns it from a "math problem" into a reflex. Target: network, broadcast and host range in under a minute.

Labs, not just theory

You only learn configuration by configuring. Type the commands, make mistakes, read the error messages, use show commands to verify. Then try to "break" something on purpose (a wrong mask, a missing VLAN) and find the problem yourself: that's exactly what the exam's troubleshooting questions ask of you.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Studying only from dumps. "Real exam" question sets copied from the internet are often wrong, violate Cisco's rules (they can get your certification revoked) and teach you to recognize answers, not to understand networks. The first time a scenario is worded differently, you fall.
2. Putting off subnetting. If it isn't automatic, you lose time on lots of questions.
3. Only reading, no labs. Commands and show output need to feel familiar.
4. Skipping the "small" domains. Automation, wireless and, in v2.0, AI carry less weight, but they can make the difference right at the pass mark.
5. Studying in your native language and taking the exam in English. If English isn't your first language, the terms (next hop, administrative distance, native VLAN) need to feel natural in English. Practice questions in English as early as possible.
6. Booking the exam "when I'm ready". Without a fixed date, preparation drags on forever. Pick a realistic date and work toward it.
7. Ignoring the official list of objectives. It's the map of the exam. Tick off each item once you've mastered it.

How to tell you're ready

There's no official signal, but here are some good indicators:

• you consistently score above 85% on practice exams with questions you have not seen before;
• you can solve subnetting (including /19, /22 and VLSM) without a calculator, in under a minute;
• you can configure VLANs, trunks, static routes, OSPF, ACLs and NAT from memory, and you know which show command verifies each one;
• you can explain why each wrong option is wrong, not just which one is right;
• you've gone through every item on the official objectives list and none of them scares you anymore.

If you can tick all of these, book the exam. If you're missing one or two, give yourself 1–2 more weeks focused on them.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

The exam details were checked on November 5, 2026 against the official pages below. Cisco can change the price, format or objectives at any time, so check them yourself before you book the exam.

• Cisco, 200-301 CCNA exam page (duration, price, languages): https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/learn/training-certifications/exams/ccna.html
• Cisco, CCNA certification page (prerequisites, validity, renewal): https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/learn/training-certifications/certifications/enterprise/ccna/index.html
• Cisco, 200-301 CCNA v1.1 exam topics (PDF): https://learningcontent.cisco.com/documents/marketing/exam-topics/200-301-CCNA-v1.1.pdf
• Cisco, 200-301 CCNA v2.0 exam topics (PDF): https://learningcontent.cisco.com/documents/marketing/exam-topics/200-301_CCNA_v2.0_Exam_Topics_PDF.pdf
• Cisco Blogs, "Stay on Track: Get Certified Before the CCNA Refresh" (July 1, 2026; v1.1 / v2.0 dates): https://blogs.cisco.com/learning/stay-on-track-get-certified-before-the-ccna-refresh
• Cisco, recertification policy (30 CE credits; 5 calendar days' wait after a failed associate exam): https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/training-certifications/recertification-policy.html
• Cisco, certification FAQ (5 calendar days before retaking the same exam, counted from the day after the exam): https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/learn/training-certifications/certifications/faq.html
• Pearson VUE, Cisco exams (test center and online via OnVUE): https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/cisco.html

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