How to get started on being a network engineer
- Thread starter Naer
- Start date
- Oct 25, 1999
- 29,510
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Start with IT essentials course.
http://www.cisco.com/E-Learning/prod/curriculum/cco_tdo_ldd/demos/newITE/flash/tour/index.html
Then proceed with Comp-TIA Net+.
http://certification.comptia.org/getCertified/certifications/network.aspx
Then MCSA (Microsoft certified systems administrator) and MCSE (Microsoft certified systems engineer),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Certified_Professional
The get a job in IT and proceed with education according to the functional track that you prefer in Networking.
http://www.cisco.com/E-Learning/prod/curriculum/cco_tdo_ldd/demos/newITE/flash/tour/index.html
Then proceed with Comp-TIA Net+.
http://certification.comptia.org/getCertified/certifications/network.aspx
Then MCSA (Microsoft certified systems administrator) and MCSE (Microsoft certified systems engineer),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Certified_Professional
The get a job in IT and proceed with education according to the functional track that you prefer in Networking.
Last edited:
- Oct 25, 1999
- 29,510
- 406
- 126
Yap, if someone aspiration is to start at minimum wage and get to $40,000 at the age of 50 it is a perfect approach. :thumbsup:
Well reality of the situation is that no company is going to have you getting into their core stuff without having a good amount of real world experience and you can only get that from lower level support type stuff.
It will take several years to work your way up before you're doing serious advanced work. Gotta crawl before you can walk and gotta walk before you can run.
But yes, read up and UNDERSTAND the fundamentals of Network + and if you can get into a trade school that also does apprentice ships or internships, that'd be the best way.
It will take several years to work your way up before you're doing serious advanced work. Gotta crawl before you can walk and gotta walk before you can run.
But yes, read up and UNDERSTAND the fundamentals of Network + and if you can get into a trade school that also does apprentice ships or internships, that'd be the best way.
I strongly think that in order to make it as a network engineer what you really need more than anything is luck. For example I am a network engineer but I can't say I enjoy my job one bit. Why do I do it? Because I have had good luck getting jobs that open new opportunities. Also certifications don't really tell you how much a person knows on the actual job.
I started out in the field because I joined the Army right after high school and my job was a network operations tech. The Army gave me a security clearance and 5 years later when I got out I went to college and majored in Information Systems which was a pretty easy degree at my school. Honestly didn't learn anything in school that I use at my job to this day.
After I graduated college I worked at as help desk/all center it was absolute trash. I was there with guys who had been there for a decade and were still stuck with no way to move up within the company. I did that for a year and started to dump my resume on government websites. I got a job with Harris as a DoD contractor and that was what really opened everything up for me. Sure I was only making $20/hour but they paid for my top secret clearance and I learned more in one year at that job than I did while 5 years in the Army and college.
Now I am back in the private sector with a job that I was recruited for basically because my resume says "TS security clearance" and "DoD". My new company even paid for my MCSE in Server 2012 and will pay for any cert I want at this point.
Anywho all that to say that working as help desk / call center is quite possibly the worst thing you could do and will suck the life out of you. My advice would actually be to go for some sort of government contractor gig which can be had if you live in the right area. 3 years working as any type of DoD contractor in networking will pretty much get you any job in the private sector. I know guys who got in almost straight out of college and now in their early 30's work for civilian companies making some serious dough.
Only pay for basic certs like Network+ and Security+ (which you need to work in any type of DoD environment). For the more expensive stuff (CCNA, MCSE, ect.) have a company pay for it. Also the beauty of government is that in order for a company to be a contractor they have to have a continuing education plan for their employees so they are required to pay for any certifications that you want to get as long as it benefits your current job.
I started out in the field because I joined the Army right after high school and my job was a network operations tech. The Army gave me a security clearance and 5 years later when I got out I went to college and majored in Information Systems which was a pretty easy degree at my school. Honestly didn't learn anything in school that I use at my job to this day.
After I graduated college I worked at as help desk/all center it was absolute trash. I was there with guys who had been there for a decade and were still stuck with no way to move up within the company. I did that for a year and started to dump my resume on government websites. I got a job with Harris as a DoD contractor and that was what really opened everything up for me. Sure I was only making $20/hour but they paid for my top secret clearance and I learned more in one year at that job than I did while 5 years in the Army and college.
Now I am back in the private sector with a job that I was recruited for basically because my resume says "TS security clearance" and "DoD". My new company even paid for my MCSE in Server 2012 and will pay for any cert I want at this point.
Anywho all that to say that working as help desk / call center is quite possibly the worst thing you could do and will suck the life out of you. My advice would actually be to go for some sort of government contractor gig which can be had if you live in the right area. 3 years working as any type of DoD contractor in networking will pretty much get you any job in the private sector. I know guys who got in almost straight out of college and now in their early 30's work for civilian companies making some serious dough.
Only pay for basic certs like Network+ and Security+ (which you need to work in any type of DoD environment). For the more expensive stuff (CCNA, MCSE, ect.) have a company pay for it. Also the beauty of government is that in order for a company to be a contractor they have to have a continuing education plan for their employees so they are required to pay for any certifications that you want to get as long as it benefits your current job.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
Start with IT essentials course.
http://www.cisco.com/E-Learning/prod/curriculum/cco_tdo_ldd/demos/newITE/flash/tour/index.html
Then proceed with Comp-TIA Net+.
http://certification.comptia.org/getCertified/certifications/network.aspx
Then MCSA (Microsoft certified systems administrator) and MCSE (Microsoft certified systems engineer),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Certified_Professional
The get a job in IT and proceed with education according to the functional track that you prefer in Networking.
No, get your CCIE. Pick a passion and do it.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
You failed. CCNA is not expensive.
You went into other factor outside of Network Engineering above.
#handedto
#prettyeasy
#mad
Seriously, the military gig is a good thing. If you have to join it, not a good thing. They know.
I was selected for the Nuclear Engineering program like many in the late 1980's.
Those recruiters called me almost until the 90's. I sat with MIT and GT interviewers that flew down to meet me.
Education should not be easy if you want to really live.
Well, oftentimes if you want a career path down infrastructure, help desk is where to start. During that stint, spend as much time as possible outside of work learning more about network. Cozy up to network engineers at your employment. Hands on experience will beat any certifications. Certs are just to get an interview with HR.
If it doesn't look like there are promotion opportunities to a junior network position, then move on and change jobs. Unless your employer has some amazing pension you just can't resist, there's no need for loyalty. We're all replaceable. Like someone mentioned above, if you think you'll stay at one location and move up the ranks starting from help desk, it will likely take awhile. Changing jobs will bump you up faster, but you'll have to prove that you know what you're doing.
If it doesn't look like there are promotion opportunities to a junior network position, then move on and change jobs. Unless your employer has some amazing pension you just can't resist, there's no need for loyalty. We're all replaceable. Like someone mentioned above, if you think you'll stay at one location and move up the ranks starting from help desk, it will likely take awhile. Changing jobs will bump you up faster, but you'll have to prove that you know what you're doing.
Yeah I will agree with that - experience is the golden goose. School based education will only get you so far. If you can find a trade school that actually does IT internships and apprenticeships where you gain experience while in school, that's the best way. All of what I know, I learned myself. I know alot of folks fresh out of school and it has AMAZED me what they do not know about basic things.
Keep in mind that the position of what a network engineer does is about to change more than any time that I have seen in my 20 years in this industry. I work closely with Cisco and Brocade and if you are not following the changes that SDN and Openflow are bringing you are going to get marginalized. Digging in and knowing every aspect of virtualization is going to be a requirement for top tier engineers.
- Nov 28, 2013
- 3,358
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Vmware is more of a systems thing than network. At least at my job, the system admins administrate VMware's infrastructure.
- Nov 28, 2013
- 3,358
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VMware is good to setup servers and work with that. You could do some networking in there to learn stuff. I'm just saying that VMware is more of a systems thing than network.
- Nov 28, 2013
- 3,358
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Actually VMware(not just Vsphere) is a good thing to learn, at the corporate level the network admin and system admin roles are going to start to blend at some point. The start of data center network auto provisioning is already here for adding new servers. One of the goals of SDN in the data center is that when the sysadmin creates a new VM all the services that network engineers normally work on are done automatically such as load balancing and firewall rules.
On the network virtulization side there is a fight brewing on how it will be done. Openflow is the standard right now but Cisco is pushing its own standard OpFlex(ACI). Openflow is designed to have a central controller that makes all the decisions for the network while Opflex leaves most of the intelligence on the end point devices, obviously Cisco wants it this way to save their market share of routers and switches. If you want to take a peak at what a controller will look like the best place to start is OpenDaylight. Right now it is still pretty basic but that will change. It currently supports Openflow but since Cisco is a major contributor I am sure opflex will be added soon.
On the network virtulization side there is a fight brewing on how it will be done. Openflow is the standard right now but Cisco is pushing its own standard OpFlex(ACI). Openflow is designed to have a central controller that makes all the decisions for the network while Opflex leaves most of the intelligence on the end point devices, obviously Cisco wants it this way to save their market share of routers and switches. If you want to take a peak at what a controller will look like the best place to start is OpenDaylight. Right now it is still pretty basic but that will change. It currently supports Openflow but since Cisco is a major contributor I am sure opflex will be added soon.
Red Squirrel
No Lifer
This. People sometimes laugh but it is indeed a good way to start. At helpdesk you'll be exposed to a lot of stuff and depending on how the company is structured you may even get to do level 2 stuff here and there. Then when an internal job opens up that you are interested in, apply.
Often, the higher end jobs like server/network tech open up internally and hire internally and never actually go public. So best bet is getting your foot in the door of a decent size company like an ISP.
In the meantime, learn as much as you can. Setup a lab at home, read a lot, etc...
Harrod
Golden Member
- Apr 3, 2010
- 1,900
- 21
- 81
Going with the help desk or entry level technical job isn't a bad idea, you will have to start somewhere. Thats how I got started. While I wouldn't call myself an engineer since I work in a NOC for an ISP, I certainly could easily move into one of those positions if I wanted to, where I work at the engineers are not allowed into the production equipment and just write work plans all day.
Getting a CCNA isn't really hard to do, you will need to get a book to study, also the ciscopress lab book is helpful even if you don't have access to lab equipment. Before passing the CCNA several years ago, I bought the cisco press, sybex book and the exam cram study guides and read though them a few times. I also purchased the boson netsim and with that I was able to pass on the second try. Buying gear isn't really necessary at that level. You could also just skip that and use cisco's packet tracer or GNS3(if you can get the ISO's), I've heard it does quite a bit now. **I failed the test on the first try, missed it by 2 points back when you needed a 849/1000 to pass, now I think it's something like a 790/1000 for passing.
Most people that I know seem to do the best by getting a few years of experience and moving on to a place that pays better once they know what they are doing.
Getting a CCNA isn't really hard to do, you will need to get a book to study, also the ciscopress lab book is helpful even if you don't have access to lab equipment. Before passing the CCNA several years ago, I bought the cisco press, sybex book and the exam cram study guides and read though them a few times. I also purchased the boson netsim and with that I was able to pass on the second try. Buying gear isn't really necessary at that level. You could also just skip that and use cisco's packet tracer or GNS3(if you can get the ISO's), I've heard it does quite a bit now. **I failed the test on the first try, missed it by 2 points back when you needed a 849/1000 to pass, now I think it's something like a 790/1000 for passing.
Most people that I know seem to do the best by getting a few years of experience and moving on to a place that pays better once they know what they are doing.
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MongGrel
Lifer
- Dec 3, 2013
- 38,466
- 3,067
- 121
I failed because I didn't pursue a similar path.
But won't cry about it myself I guess, everyone makes decisions.
You just keep going.
I used to do a lot of work for Draper Labs out of MIT even a few years back, had a company fuck me in that area.
Still trying to recover from the backlash over that one, even with 30 years experience in Toolmaking.
No one appreciates the ability to do that a lot these days.
Lot out there have no clue what they are doing that pretend to.
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Virtualization is a game changer. systems and network admins are blending quickly. The reasons being is that the concepts of servers virtualization flow into the concepts of SDN. Software virtualization is easier, cheaper and less time consuming than dealing with the physical. Systems virtualization just happened much quicker but I know in my day to day systems functions, I had to learn alot about networking as vsphere incorporates alot of networking into it's functions.
Once SDN really comes to market, the networking side is going to change. I haven't studied alot on cisco stuff in the last few years because I haven't had to use it but a more general approach would be better as the concepts are the same for networking but cisco does use a few of it's own terms but those are easily learned.
The one thing you need to be open to if you want to learn in IT related fields is be OPEN to continually learning new concepts. Always be reading or practicing with something new. It's definitely a good idea to have a small lab either at work or at home that you can practice on so when you break it, you can fix it without affecting anything else. Some of the best learning techniques comes from breaking something and learning what it takes to fix it.
Once SDN really comes to market, the networking side is going to change. I haven't studied alot on cisco stuff in the last few years because I haven't had to use it but a more general approach would be better as the concepts are the same for networking but cisco does use a few of it's own terms but those are easily learned.
The one thing you need to be open to if you want to learn in IT related fields is be OPEN to continually learning new concepts. Always be reading or practicing with something new. It's definitely a good idea to have a small lab either at work or at home that you can practice on so when you break it, you can fix it without affecting anything else. Some of the best learning techniques comes from breaking something and learning what it takes to fix it.
You've got some good info in this post. Cisco really needs to get going and update itself or it's going to be sitting on the sidelines watching every other vendor take the spotlight. Their prices are too high and don't offer near as much with it as some of the other vendor's are now. The only places that I see still using cisco gear is because they've always used cisco gear.
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