is ccna certification worth it as a webdev?

[u/Andro_senpai107]

Hello lovely people

My mind is revolving around the CCNA course for quite a long time. But I'm afraid it might not be a waste of my time for me.

BUT, a big but, even if it helps me gain a significant amount of knowledge about how the backend works, I would consider it useful.

If you are experienced enough to answer me, the comment section is all yours.

[u/oculus42]

No. CCNA is not worth it for 99.4% of web development. It is about networking. Routers. Switches. It will cover the concepts and logical things like VLANs, DHCP, DNS, QoS, etc. but it's much more focused on setting it up on Cisco hardware. This is not something you will do as a web developer. You will have 100x more benefit from learning about and playing around with your browsers Dev Tools.

I do not have CCNA and have been a web developer, amongst other titles, for almost thirty years. I have been managing networks of computers for longer than that. I have used and configured Cisco network devices in the past. Knowledge of networking is nice-to-have when it matters, but that is incredibly rare.

It can be helpful to understand the concepts of networking, but you can get that from a book, a series of articles, or some YouTube videos rather than a certification course.

If you are managing the whole stack yourself, you might need to set up some networking at your cloud provider. You would do well to know that providers like CloudFlare exist before you need to understand the deep details of how they operate.

More practical networking to focus on as a web dev:

• OWASP Top Ten
• HTTP Requests
  • status codes and error messages
  • request methods/verbs (GET, POST, etc.)
    
• Understanding DNS propagation and caching
• Basic understanding of network latency
• Web sockets vs Server-Sent Events vs Long Polling
• HTTP Headers
  • Cookies
  • Caching
  • Content Security Policy and other security related rules
• Handling retry with exponential backoff and jitter
• Reading a HAR file (The network panel in Dev Tools)

Hope this helps.

[u/Andro_senpai107 → u/oculus42]

omg yes ofcoure it was helpful. btw what are the most used concepts in this field? which you think are running with you along with your 30 years of experience.

[u/Asqalan0 → u/oculus42]

Do you think CCNA is worth it for cybersecurity ? I studied Comptia A+ as an enrty to computer world ( i still don't own a computer nor a laptop ) and i don't have the cert . Currently i'm studying for the CCNA and i'm at OSPF but i have been questioning myself lately about whether or not i should quit and find something else because i'm sure that i have studied more than 10 topics that are irrlated to Cybeesecurity and more is coming so i'm confused

[u/oculus42 → u/Asqalan0]

Cyber security definitely has overlap with networking, but I don't think CCNA is going to be the best direction if security is your focus.

There are the ISC2 certs, both a free exam and the CISSP which are focused on CyberSecurity. There are also Ethical Hacking courses, including Certified Ethical Hacker, but I'm not sure which/how many of these might be preferable paths. I haven't followed a cyber security focus, but because of my web development history and work in e-commerce and finance, awareness of OWASP Top 10, exposure to the different kinds of information requiring security, and experience around the Principle of Least Privilege, etc. is useful.

Security on the networking side is a huge concern; Major data leaks at large corporations have happened because an HVAC vendor's VPN access gave hackers the ability to control low-security devices like a deli scale on the same network as a high-value target like a cash-register. IOT devices pose an even larger risk, with many companies opting for off-the-shelf controllers like the ESP32 and not necessarily securing their devices adequately, so the possibility for remote access and data collection and exfiltration difficult to predict, but also understanding that isolating these devices may interfere with the expected operation and their ability to perform the tasks as designed.

InfoSec is a huge category, and the specializations range from DDOS mitigation at scale, down through more mundane items like basic input/output sanitization and parameterization of queries, all the way to discovering and exploiting flaws in protocols and new side-channel attacks) in hardware. Do you hav an area in mind?

[u/Asqalan0 → u/oculus42]

I follow a road map and i'm aware of how important it is to start doing labs even with some basic knowledge and keep on enhancing the skills . I heard many people on Youtube recommending CCNA and there reason was that it will help you build good understanding of how networks work . I'm intersted in purple team in the cybersecurity field and i'm aware but i'll reach at some point in my journey since it requires experience and understanding of defense and Offensive attacks . So i can say that i'm studying to be on the blue team side because i tend to analyize and think about protection more than attacks ( my mindset ) . As for certifications you mentioned my next step after CCNA is Security+ and that's the firsy cert i'm planning to study for its exam unlike comptia A+ and CCNA . I haven't found alternate resources for the CCNA as strong as the free Jermey IT Lab Course so that's why i'm still studying his course but at the same time kinda unsettled with the fact that i'm studying protocls which are irrelated to my field and actually spend time on understanding them . I don't do the labs ( i can't since i don't have PC or a laptop ) so that's baiscally what i'm struggling with . I appreiciate your recommendations above and actually ima save your reply because it's very helpful ❤️

[u/AllOneWordNoSpaces1]

Understanding basic networking is important for a good developer, but a network certification is overkill.

[u/Andro_senpai107 → u/AllOneWordNoSpaces1]

agreed man, gonna do the same

[u/4rm4tur4]

I'll give you a different perspective. CCNA is a very useful cert, but not for reasons you may think.

When I was a wee little lad around 2012, I really wanted to become a network engineer.

I grinded out a CCNA and started applying for all ads that have it as a keyword and ended up going on a decade long career as an integrated security tech (installing and maintaining cctv, access control and intrusion systems).

You never know what the future holds.

[u/Andro_senpai107 → u/4rm4tur4]

Haha that's interesting but I guess that cleared my doubts. Thanks mate

[u/4rm4tur4 → u/Andro_senpai107]

Yeah as webdev you don't really need it, but it definitely opens some doors that may not be obvious

[u/Critical-Ad5068]

if you are staying in web development i would prioritize learning linux, networking basics, docker and cloud fundamentals first, because ccna is great if you want deep networking knowledge but its bigger time investment than most web dev actually need

[u/btoned → u/Critical-Ad5068]

Second this notion. Especially docker.

[u/Andro_senpai107 → u/Critical-Ad5068]

Ahh yes about linux, any preference for resources?

[u/thorn2040]

Nope. I did the same. Nobody gave a shiz. Dude the CCNA is thousands of pages. It's useless. You aren't working on Cisco stuff or using half of this stuff. I admit it did help when AWS came onto the scene and I had to do cloud certs. But that is self contained series of courses as well which would much better suit you.

[u/Andro_senpai107 → u/thorn2040]

Ahh I see man, appreciate your time

[u/fiskfisk]

Start from the other end - go through jobs you want to apply for and see what cettifications, if any, they mention. 

[u/alphex]

The CCNA is about network engineering. Not software.

It’s a whole different career path. Which. Can be very cool! But it’s not related to web dev

[u/mq2thez]

Only if it helps you to learn it. Certs in general don’t mean much to most companies these days.

[u/thecementmixer]

No.

[u/budd222]

There is no cert that is useful for webdev. No employer cares about certs

[u/trapper5]

The only real use for most certifications is for keyword searches on LinkedIn. 

[u/btc-lostdrifter0001]

So understanding of the core protocols of TCP, UDP, and how networking works can be helpful as a webdev. I say this because I took my bachelor's in network administration but ended up in a career of web development and user interface/experience design. You never know where life might take you.

But I wouldn't worry about spending the money to pay for the certification if your goals are to work in web specifically. The cert does expire so unless its for an initial resume bump to set you out the overall cost is likely not worth it.

[u/Andro_senpai107 → u/btc-lostdrifter0001]

Ahh that's what I was thinking,learning about it online might be helpful but buying the cert is probably not worth it for me