# Networking certification recomendations?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/networking-certification-recomendations/614638>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 3, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/networking-certification-recomendations/614638 "2012-03-03T13:27:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/networking-certification-recomendations/614638/1 "2012-03-03T13:27:36Z")

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I want to acquire a basic certification in small to medium size networking.

What reading material should I get and what certification programs are available, preferably onlibe because I don’t think there are many certification centers available in my country (Greece)?

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**Author:** ![StephenG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@StephenG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StephenG)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/networking-certification-recomendations/614638/2 "2012-03-03T15:09:34Z")

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I’ve always understood the Cisco certifications to be the gold standard of networking certifications, and they’re the ones I considered taking myself.

The [CCNA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ccna) may be the most common one, but it looks like there’s a lower-level [CCENT](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Certified_Entry_Networking_Technician). (Those are wikipedia links, but they suffice for a brief overview – and they link to the relevant Cisco pages.)