Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant (CCIE #12933) has extensive experience in both the practical and theoretical sides of Cisco and Networking technologies. You will benefit greatly from his detailed instruction and passion for helping others, especially since Chris has recently been “down the Cisco road”, passing his CCNA, CCNP and his CCIE! Take advantage of Chris's vast experience, wealth of knowledge and all-around good advice that will help you pass your certification exams and develop the hands-on skills that the market demands.
Chris Bryant has written 56 posts for TrainSignal Training
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Virtual LANs (VLANs)
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
VLANs, or virtual LANs, help us accomplish the important task of limiting broadcasts. Switches on any network are by default set on broadcast mode. For example with 80 switches, if one broadcasts all the 79 others receive it. They in turn might generate their own broadcasts in response to it and the process cascades hereon. [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Portfast
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
Portfast is a feature that allows switches to place ports in the forwarding state immediately, avoiding the standard near-minute delay on Spanning Tree Protocol Timers (specifically, the listening and learning states.) In this Cisco CCNA training video, I’ll show you how to enable portfast, and more importantly, I’ll explain when portfast should and should not [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: So What Happens if I Turn STP Off?
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
So what happens if you turn off the Spanning Tree Protocol? Well, a lot of bad things. As I’ll explain in the brief Cisco CCNA training video above, there is no good reason to ever turn off STP. Without STP, switching loops will begin to occur very quickly, which will in turn lead to broadcasting [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: STP Interface States
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
In this Cisco CCNA training video, I’ll go into more detail about the STP Interface States that were briefly explained in my last video on STP Timers. As we went over before, specifically in our video on Port Modes, ports don’t go directly from the blocking state to the forwarding state. If they did, loops [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: STP Timers
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
Once the best path on a network is chosen, a “Hello BPDU (Bridge Protocol Data Unit)” is sent out from each port on the root bridge every two seconds. This Hello BPDU is essentially the heartbeat of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), letting non-root bridges know that the root (chosen) path is stable and unchanged. [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Port Speeds
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
Port speeds (or port costs) are an important thing to factor-in when attempting to assess where a switch will be sending and receiving data. The chosen data path is not always the shortest path available. As mentioned in a previous video, the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) considers the path with the lowest cost-to-reach to be [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Root Ports and Designated Ports
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
As a follow-up to our last Cisco CCNA training video, I’ll go into a second example showing the Spanning Tree Protocol in action. In this example, we’ll have a total of three switches within a network, fully meshed. When Virtual LAN 10 comes online, all three switches will at first believe they are the root [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: STP in Action – STP Examples
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
In this Cisco CCNA training video, I’ll show you one example of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) in action. I’ll show you an example of two switches connected by two separate crossover cables. It’s important to note that all ports on the root switch will always be in forwarding mode. In this particular case, that [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Port Modes
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
As I’ve mentioned before, once the Spanning Tree Protocol has taken effect and all switches agree on the root bridge for each Virtual LAN, all ports on that switch network are going to be put in blocking or forwarding mode. However, there are intermediate states that you must know for your Cisco CCNA exam. In [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Cost to Reach Root from this Bridge
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ One comment
In this Cisco CCNA Training video, we’ll be talking about the “cost to reach root from this bridge” value. The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) considers the path which has the lowest cost-to-reach to be the best path. Every port is assigned a specific “cost” which is directly relative to its speed; the higher the speed, [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: The Root Bridge’s Bridge ID (BID)
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
When a switch is first connected, it will automatically assume it is the root bridge or root switch on the network. To ensure correct priority is given to switches, switches send out Bridge IDs (or BIDs). The switch with the lowest Bridge ID will become the root bridge. In this Cisco CCNA training video, you’ll [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: The Root Bridge Election
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ One comment
The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) needs to determine the root bridge (or root switch) for every Virtual LAN (VLAN) on the network. The problem is, every switch on your network will automatically assume it is the root bridge for every Virtual LAN on your network. Because of this, there needs to be an election process [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
A switching loop is something that occurs when there is more than one path or multiple connections between two switches, or when two ports on the same switch are connected to each other. In this Cisco CCNA training video, you’ll learn about the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and how it prevents this kind of loop [...]
Free Cisco CCNA Training: Introduction to Advanced Switching
By Chris Bryant ⋅ May 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
This free video series covers important details of Cisco switches that every network professional needs to be familiar with. Switching is a huge topic on the CCNA exam and a very important part of your Cisco training. This video will give you an overview of what what we’ll cover.
CCNA Alert: Big Changes Ahead!
By Chris Bryant ⋅ July 5, 2007 ⋅ 3 comments
If you’re working on your CCNA right now, or even thinking about it, there are changes coming to the CCNA program in November that you need to know. These changes are all good news for CCNAs and CCNA candidates. And the first bit of good news is that you have plenty of time to take [...]
Three Myths About Cisco Exams
By Chris Bryant ⋅ October 26, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment
One of the drawbacks to the Internet is that it allows myths and “friend of a friend” stories to spread quickly, and usually the story becomes more exaggerated as it’s passed along. Cisco exams are no exception. Here are three often-repeated myths and exaggerations regarding the CCNA and CCNP exams. 1. The survey you fill [...]