Need a networking professional.

[OoteR02]

I know there has to be atleast one or two of you guys on here, i'm in a networking class at school and have to do a report and would love it if someone could answer a few of these questions for a report i have to do. I'm supposed to find a pro whose been in the industry for a couple of years and have them answer a few questions.

questions..

1. What do you currently do on a regular (day to day) basis?
2. What kind of training and certification do you have?
3. What are the major changes in technology and tresnt that have impacted you over the last 2 years on the job?
4. What trends and technologies and certifications you think will impact your job over the next 3 years?

Thanks to anyone who has the time to post a reply to me!

 

[randal]

1. mid-level Network Admin / Sysadmin Guy at a datacenter
2. CCNA (CCNP en route), MCSE NT4 track, 4 of 7 on 2k3 track, Red Hat Certified Engineer, Alvarion Certified Engineer (wireless) ... numerous random certs from 1-3 day training camps
3. Converting to MPLS at my previous job was a lot of work and changes a LOT of things. Also the rise of 5.7GHz wireless gear over 2.4GHz was a headache. Last, but definitely not least, the trend for companies to outsource everything has made life hell several times (support wise, in particular).
4. For the wireless side, I'm afraid that WiMax will be a big deal. I think Cisco certs are gaining ground again, as are security certifications - on that note, I think security on the corporate desktop, mid-level application servers and on the backend will all become really really integrated with network security at large. I think this will result in a very large push for IT security folks who actually know what they're doing when it comes to providing centrally controlled, company-wide protection & policy enforcement.

HTH,
randal

 

[Garion]

I've been doing this for about 11 years. What I give you is a very enterprise-centric (huge company) point of view. I'm not as focused on hands-on engineering any more, except in a very few specific areas. Depending on what you're looking for, this might or might not be a good thing.

1: Infrastructure Architect for a major bank. Infrastructure is, in our company, all the moving parts. Networks, servers, applications, databases, client software, load balancers, proxies, firewalls, etc. To sum my job up - People have technology ideas and I help make them a reality by desinging what they need and guiding the implementation teams. I've worked on little $20,000 projects ("This application needs a network fax server to make it work. You should use Castelle FaxPress, and here's how to do it") to major ones. ("Interent access for 65,000 users is at about the speed of a 14.4 modem. Let's spend ~$4M on a new infrastructure and make it faster, more secure and more expandable")

2: Most of my training has been self-taught and on the job. I have a CCNA in Netware 3.11 (Woo hoo!) and that's it. That's mostly a personal decision - Certs are great, but I'd hire someone with the hands-on experience any time over someone who just has certs.

3: I have been most affected by the recent sudden push in security and audit/compliance brought upon by 9/11 and WorldCom / Enron. We've had to lock things down tighter than ever before and spend more and more of our time on documentation, procedures, and audit/compliance docs. In terms of a single thing, I'd have to say the continued web-ification of enterprise applications. Two years ago we had ~10 shared web traffic load balancers for applications within our infrastructure. Now we've got 150+ and it just keeps growing. The browser has become the primary business tool, replacing the mainframe which replaced the typewriter and calculator.

4: Next three years: Continued outsourcing to overseas will be a challenge, web caching, traffic management, and security will become more important and new Internet-based encryption technologies will start to play a larger role. Another big push will be network access control - Intelligence at the switch port level to deterine who can and cannot get access to the network. All very cool stuff. You'll see GigE to the desktop become common (It's getting there now), and 10Gig trunks become more common. This will be tempered by the lack of cost-effective WAN bandwidth - Why gig to the desktop when you only have 4.5Mb/s to the home office where all the servers are? Lastly, more sophisticated management tools. We've got data centers where there are almost no admins - Everything is done remotely. IP KVM's, remote management cards, etc. are all good things.

- G

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: OoteR02
I know there has to be atleast one or two of you guys on here, i'm in a networking class at school and have to do a report and would love it if someone could answer a few of these questions for a report i have to do. I'm supposed to find a pro whose been in the industry for a couple of years and have them answer a few questions.

questions..

1. What do you currently do on a regular (day to day) basis?
2. What kind of training and certification do you have?
3. What are the major changes in technology and tresnt that have impacted you over the last 2 years on the job?
4. What trends and technologies and certifications you think will impact your job over the next 3 years?

Thanks to anyone who has the time to post a reply to me!

1. Support. WIred, Wireless, Hardware, Software, Networking, Cabling, Telecom, etc....
2. Traing: 6 years experience. Certifications: Dell Certified but no A+, MCSE, etc...
3. Any time something new comes out we need to handle it. Mainly new OSs, new network hardware, upgraded wireless, etc
4. More OS upgrades, automated things for Wireless access using keyfobs from VPN. Not sure what else as we're always the last to know.

 

[TreyRandom]

Originally posted by: OoteR02
I know there has to be atleast one or two of you guys on here, i'm in a networking class at school and have to do a report and would love it if someone could answer a few of these questions for a report i have to do. I'm supposed to find a pro whose been in the industry for a couple of years and have them answer a few questions.

questions..

1. What do you currently do on a regular (day to day) basis?
2. What kind of training and certification do you have?
3. What are the major changes in technology and tresnt that have impacted you over the last 2 years on the job?
4. What trends and technologies and certifications you think will impact your job over the next 3 years?

Thanks to anyone who has the time to post a reply to me!

1. I'm in a slightly different niche - I used to do network administration and support, but now I write practice exams for the leader in computer-based certification practice exams. However, I still remember how it was to patch boxes, diagnose network problems, install firewalls, update virus definitions, etc.
2. I've worked with computers since 1980, when I was 10. Most of my training has been self-study. I have a Bachelors degree, but it is in Chemistry, not IT. My certifications are listed in my signature and are related to Microsoft, Novell, Check Point (firewalls), Cisco, Linux and Oracle.
3. Probably the largest change would be in how network security is handled. Security flaws have been out there for years, but only recently have they been exploited to the degree they are today. Gone are the days that one could install a virus scanner and a simple firewall and feel relatively confident that the network was secure. Nowadays, patch management has become a full-time job for many administrators. Wireless (and wireless security) has also been a new and interesting development over the last couple of years. With junk e-mail accounting for an overwhelming percentage of e-mail messages (flooding inboxes and bandwidth), there has also been a rise in interest in SPAM management tools. Outsourcing has been a cause for concern in the IT community for a couple of years.
4. Security, wireless and SPAM management will continue to maintain importance. Simplified patch management tools will improve. Remote management will continue to improve and become more secure. New hardware technologies and new protocol standards will emerge, as always. Power Line Internet may begin to become reality. Bandwidth management will become even more of a concern (and not just for backbone or Internet providers). Certifications will most likely move towards simulation-based exams. I am unsure as to whether Microsoft and/or CompTIA will increase steps to crack down on braindumping or not - I would hope so. Simulation-based exams should help to eliminate some of those who use braindumps to simply memorize and regurgitate questions and answers.

 

[spidey07]

1. What do you currently do on a regular (day to day) basis?
2. What kind of training and certification do you have?
3. What are the major changes in technology and tresnt that have impacted you over the last 2 years on the job?
4. What trends and technologies and certifications you think will impact your job over the next 3 years?

1. Proeject management/design/financial analysis. pretty much what I do all day.

2. CCNP, but loads of training on microsoft, checkpoint, cisco, network technologies (security, video, voice)

3. Security - others have pretty much already covered this. Especially Sarbanes-Oxley and the associated controls/audits in place are becoming a real pain.

4. Security is still a constant battle with the current push being not allowing unauthorized/non-compliant machines (virus up to date, patched, 2 factor authenticated) to even connect to a net and using technology in switches/routers to enforce that policy. Plus being able to make sense out of the ever increasing intelligence being imbedded into a net - all those messages from IDS, firewalls, routers, switches, etc can be a huge amount of information. Certifications? Still working on my CCIE lab exam but not so much. Also ASP models are taking of more and more - application service providers to take care of spam, expense reporting, just about anything.

Other areas that I've been doing for a while are high availablity computing - making sure that nothing goes down...highly redundant designs, front ending applications with load balancers, redundant storage area networks, etc.

If anything the network is getting increasing more complex - its not just about 'can they talk' any more. Its about the services it can provide (security, voice, video, uptime) - with those advanced services comes increasing complexity which hopefully makes my experience even more valuable.

 

[OoteR02]

Thanks a ton for the reply guys. If anyone else wants to post, please do!