Free Training
Juniper has long offered free training in various guises. The current incarnation of this is available via Juniper’s learning portal.
Here you can get access to free JNCIA and JNCIS level training, and discount vouchers to sit the certification test. There is a slight catch in that the voucher(s) can only be used for online-proctored delivery tests, but it is still a good deal. The training material does NOT include labs but does show walkthroughs of labs in the course material.
I’ve known about this for quite a while, but there are a couple of things that seem to be relatively new.
They are now offering free training at both the JNCIP and JNCIE levels!
Access to the JNCIP level requires approval, and there are some criteria that you need to meet in terms of having a certain number of A and S level certs, including those in the track for the JNCIP you are applying for. In addition, you can’t hold a JNCIE in ANY track, which is slightly disappointing. Also, you can only do one JNCIP in this way, you can’t apply for several of them.
Access to the JNCIE level free training also requires approval. Currently, you receive a registration voucher for the JNCIE Exam, valid for 12 months, and access to the relevant JNCIE certification self-study bundle. Also provided is access to private exam prep sessions. I believe the exam voucher is for a remote proctored test only, but I can’t seem to find a reference saying so.
According to the page above, you can access more than one of the JNCIE-level training options.
If you are interested in any of the above I recommend you read through the information at the learning portal and make sure you read all the Terms and Conditions.
Something I find interesting about the free training is that the JNCIA level provides access to quite a range of tracks, but the JNCIS and above are limited to what I consider the core three – the -SP, -ENT, and -SEC tracks. There is no offering to the -DC beyond the JNCIA.
I suspect this is Juniper trying to up the number of people attempting certs in the -SP, -ENT, and -SEC tracks, and that the -DC track is doing just fine as it is, based on my estimates of JNCIE numbers.
Is This Really Free?
The training material is certainly free at the JNCIA, S, and P levels, but you still need to pay for the discounted exam. At the JNCIE level, you could argue the costs of the lower level certs make it not free, but that is probably a bit harsh.
Overall I think this is a great deal for people wanting to get Juniper certified.
Trial Sofware
Juniper offers several trial software products. You can find a list at https://www.juniper.net/us/en/try.html. Scroll down, and near the bottom is a list of trials including vMX, vSRX, vQFX, and cRPD.
It would appear that Juniper now offers a vJunos-switch, you can find documentation here. I haven’t worked with this yet, but it appears to be a free download with no login required and a qcow2 image which I suspect will work quite nicely on EVE-NG.
Another option is to sign up and use Juniper’s vLabs. These make use of pre-built topologies, and allow you to try out a range of Juniper products.
Overall, the ability to get access to Junos for study purposes continues to improve, with Juniper making multiple options available.