Draft:Introduction (Cisco)

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Welcome to the Cisco Networking Challenges section in this guide. Whether you're doing Cisco voluntarily (or under duress), I hope this guide proves helpful.

So what is Cisco?

Put simply, Cisco is a major tech company that specializes in networking gear, software, and communication tools. They develop and supply a variety of products & services like routers, switches, cloud platforms, security solutions, and collaboration systems. Their main focus is helping organizations set up, operate, and protect their digital networks. Cisco is a sponsor of some major CyberSecurity competitions, which gives them the opportunity to present their software and systems as challenges in competition rounds.

What is the Cisco Networking Challenge?

The Cisco Networking Challenge includes two parts: an online quiz and a hands-on virtual networking activity based on specific training materials.

The virtual networking challenge takes place in the Cisco Packet Tracer software, which emulates an actual network with devices that can be configured via GUI or CLI. Competitors will typically use the CLI to input commands that change the settings of devices based on intructions provided in the README of the challenge. The quiz section takes place on the Netacad platform, which is the utility provided by Cisco to learn the content needed to participate in the Cisco Networking Challenge and where the challenge itself is held. The quiz usually consists of 10 multiple choice questions over networking concepts.

This part is very different from the Network Security Challenges or Images. Instead of searching for and fixing security issues on a computer system, you're actually building and configuring a network.