Ran Chen, EA, CFP®

Tech Exam Prep

Education EN ↓ 110 episodes

Tech Exam Prep is a free, daily podcast by OpenExamPrep covering the most in-demand IT and technology certification exams — including CompTIA Security+, AWS Cloud Practitioner, CompTIA Network+, CCNA, CompTIA A+, and more. Each 5-minute episode breaks down one exam topic with concrete examples, common exam traps, and memory tricks to help you pass on your first attempt. No fluff, no filler — just the concepts you need to know, explained the way the exam tests them. This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP desig...

Author

Ran Chen, EA, CFP®

Episodes

CCNA Exam Prep 60, Network Automation — Why and Impact 11.07.2026 3:03

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - Why manual network configuration is inefficient and prone to e...

CCNA Exam Prep 59, ACL Placement and Numbered vs Named 10.07.2026 3:08

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - Standard ACLs should be placed as close to the destination as...

CCNA Exam Prep 58, ACL Standard vs Extended 09.07.2026 3:44

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The fundamental difference between Standard ACLs (source IP on...

CCNA Exam Prep 57, Wireless Security — WPA2, WPA3, OWE 08.07.2026 3:18

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - WPA2-Personal uses a single Pre-Shared Key (PSK), while WPA2-E...

CCNA Exam Prep 56, Remote Access VPN — SSL VPN and AnyConnect 07.07.2026 2:36

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The core difference between a per-user Remote Access VPN and a...

CCNA Exam Prep 55, Site-to-Site VPN and IPsec Overview 06.07.2026 3:20

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The three core security services IPsec provides: confidentiali...

CCNA Exam Prep 54, DHCP Snooping and Dynamic ARP Inspection 05.07.2026 3:11

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - DHCP snooping distinguishes between trusted uplink ports and u...

CCNA Exam Prep 53, Layer 2 Security — Port Security 04.07.2026 2:45

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How port security restricts port access by limiting the number...

CCNA Exam Prep 52, AAA — RADIUS vs TACACS+ 03.07.2026 3:36

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The difference between connection-oriented TCP for TACACS+ (po...

CCNA Exam Prep 51, Password Policies and Local Authentication 02.07.2026 2:32

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The `enable secret` command provides strong MD5-hashed protect...

CCNA Exam Prep 50, Security Concepts — Threat, Vulnerability, Exploit 01.07.2026 2:20

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The critical differences between a threat (the actor), a vulne...

CCNA Exam Prep 49, SSH vs Telnet, TFTP and FTP 30.06.2026 3:19

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - Telnet sends all data, including usernames and passwords, in c...

CCNA Exam Prep 48, SNMP and Syslog Severity Levels 29.06.2026 2:46

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The critical security differences between SNMPv2c's plaintext...

CCNA Exam Prep 47, NTP — Stratum Levels and Configuration 28.06.2026 3:39

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The meaning of NTP stratum levels, where a lower number signif...

CCNA Exam Prep 46, NAT — Static, Dynamic, PAT (Overload) 27.06.2026 3:17

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - Static NAT creates a permanent one-to-one mapping, ideal for h...

CCNA Exam Prep 45, DNS — Recursive vs Iterative, Records 26.06.2026 3:39

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The critical difference between a recursive DNS query (client...

CCNA Exam Prep 44, DHCP — Server, Client, Relay (IP Helper) 25.06.2026 2:44

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The four steps of the DHCP DORA process: Discover, Offer, Requ...

CCNA Exam Prep 43, IPv6 Routing — Static and OSPFv3 Basics 24.06.2026 2:47

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The `ipv6 unicast-routing` global command is mandatory for a r...

CCNA Exam Prep 42, Default Gateway and Routing Loop Prevention 23.06.2026 3:06

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - A host uses its default gateway only when the destination IP a...

CCNA Exam Prep 41, VRRP and GLBP vs HSRP 22.06.2026 4:00

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The core difference between redundancy (HSRP/VRRP) and true lo...

CCNA Exam Prep 40, HSRP Configuration and Verification 21.06.2026 3:19

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to configure essential HSRP commands like virtual IP, prio...

CCNA Exam Prep 39, First Hop Redundancy — HSRP States and Roles 20.06.2026 3:20

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - HSRP elects an Active router based on the highest priority val...

CCNA Exam Prep 38, OSPF Cost Calculation and Path Selection 19.06.2026 2:57

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The OSPF cost formula is Reference Bandwidth divided by Interf...

CCNA Exam Prep 37, OSPF Single-Area Configuration 18.06.2026 2:58

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - How to enable the OSPF routing process using the `router ospf`...

CCNA Exam Prep 36, OSPF Network Types — Broadcast, Point-to-Point 17.06.2026 3:35

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - The function of DR/BDR elections on OSPF broadcast networks (l...