Any Network Admins here?

[omg_jk]

I'm a network analyst at hospital and I'm working on my ccna and plan on moving on from my current job. There aren't very many network jobs in my area and wonder if any of you have experience with remote jobs?

 

[UCFBS]

I'm a network analyst at hospital and I'm working on my ccna and plan on moving on from my current job. There aren't very many network jobs in my area and wonder if any of you have experience with remote jobs?

Most of the positions I get calls about require either Professional-level

Spoiler

(e.g., I have a long expired CCDP/CCNP, and I still get calls about CCSP sometimes), or a CCIE (too much hands-on for my experience - keeping my hands-on, RHCE+5 more exams RHCA keeps me busy this decade).

But if I see anything that only requires a CCNA, I'll let you know. Head hunters should look for experience, but too many look for letters in their cold calls. Just how the industry works too much, it seems.

I'm actually going back to Northern Virginia next month (long story, my co-workers don't know yet, just my bosses), so if you're willing to come to DC, I might have something for you in the near future.

Spoiler

I'm brushing up on my Infiniband (hasn't changed much) and Open vSwitch (has changed a lot) as I'm a couple of years out-of-date.

The convergence of network, software, security, etc... is happening, and everyone has to be an iOS, Linux and software build-release expert for the DevOps generation. At least that's where the money is. I'll leave the Microsoft Azure v. EMC VMware/Pivitol v. Red Hat KVM/OpenShift and related debate to others, but even serious Microsoft Azure infrastructure requires Linux knowledge.

That's why Red Hat has picked up a good dozen-plus of my former Red Hat colleagues now, including several I trained years ago.

 

[omg_jk]

Most of the positions I get calls about require either Professional-level

Spoiler

(e.g., I have a long expired CCDP/CCNP, and I still get calls about CCSP sometimes), or a CCIE (too much hands-on for my experience - keeping my hands-on, RHCE+5 more exams RHCA keeps me busy this decade).

But if I see anything that only requires a CCNA, I'll let you know. Head hunters should look for experience, but too many look for letters in their cold calls. Just how the industry works too much, it seems.

I'm actually going back to Northern Virginia next month (long story, my co-workers don't know yet, just my bosses), so if you're willing to come to DC, I might have something for you in the near future.

Spoiler

I'm brushing up on my Infiniband (hasn't changed much) and Open vSwitch (has changed a lot) as I'm a couple of years out-of-date.

The convergence of network, software, security, etc... is happening, and everyone has to be an iOS, Linux and software build-release expert for the DevOps generation. At least that's where the money is. I'll leave the Microsoft Azure v. EMC VMware/Pivitol v. Red Hat KVM/OpenShift and related debate to others, but even serious Microsoft Azure infrastructure requires Linux knowledge.

That's why Red Hat has picked up a good dozen-plus of my former Red Hat colleagues now, including several I trained years ago.

Well that's much appreciated.

I know the certs are holding me back. But I do work in an Enterprise network. I'm getting the experience but that piece of paper with the cert is turning out to be more valuable than my degree.

My plan is to get the ccna and then work towards a CCNA Security or security + certification. Or would it be better to go straight to ccnp? My CCNA is r&s so I don't think I want to go that route again for ccnp. Kinda want to diversify a little.

 

[UCFBS]

Well that's much appreciated.
I know the certs are holding me back. But I do work in an Enterprise network. I'm getting the experience but that piece of paper with the cert is turning out to be more valuable than my degree.

At least among head hunters and first-line HR filters, sadly enough.

I didn't have any certs before 2002, and that was the death trying to find work. Then I went out

Spoiler

and passed 30 exams over two (2) 3 month periods by 2003, including the six (6) exam (at the time) Cisco CCDP/CCNP track, along with the Microsoft MCSA/MCSE with Security specialties, LPIC-1/2 and 100% hands-on lab-based RHCE for Linux and all three (3) Solaris exams at the time. At that point, it was more about people still not believing me.

Since then I've actually been in the 're-certification rat race' on just Red Hat, because the specialties are only good for 3 years, and that means one has to pass an exam every nine (9) months, as five (5) "active" are required to keep one's Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) "active."

I've long talked to Randy Russel out at Red Hat about this, especially hands-on testing runs over $1K/day. It's much, much more expensive than Computer Based Testing (CBT), and prohibitive. We've long talked about doing similar at the Linux Professional Institute (LPI), but despite having more candidates and certified individuals than all but maybe CompTIA (and CompTIA uses our LPIC-1 as their Linux+), most people wouldn't accept the costs involved.

Red Hat has really gotten into the "partner race" with the certifications, and it's difficult to "keep up." Even their own employees outside of training itself have issues. That's the same problem Cisco has always had, and Red Hat has now adopted ... worse than Microsoft.

I don't want to minimize hands-on, performance-based, in-lab testing. It's outstanding. But it's costly and hard to "keep up with."

My plan is to get the ccna and then work towards a CCNA Security or security + certification. Or would it be better to go straight to ccnp? My CCNA is r&s so I don't think I want to go that route again for ccnp. Kinda want to diversify a little.

I'm not one to ask about Cisco. I left Cisco tracks mid last decade -- a long, long time ago.

Spoiler

I spent some time at Red Hat training WWT (Cisco's largest reseller) on software defined networking (SDN) and storage, and I usually do a lot of packet inspection for various network admins. It helps that I wrote part of the 802.11 stack in the Linux kernel back in the early 2000s (old kernel 2.2), so I'm very familiar with framing and low-level media access concepts.

So it's difficult to "measure that."

 

[crambone]

I have no idea what is going on right now.

 

[UCFBS]

I have no idea what is going on right now.

It won't make any sense if you don't have any Informaton Technology (IT) certifications, or are a couple of decades out-of-date.

 

[omg_jk]

At least among head hunters and first-line HR filters, sadly enough.

I didn't have any certs before 2002, and that was the death trying to find work. Then I went out

Spoiler

and passed 30 exams over two (2) 3 month periods by 2003, including the six (6) exam (at the time) Cisco CCDP/CCNP track, along with the Microsoft MCSA/MCSE with Security specialties, LPIC-1/2 and 100% hands-on lab-based RHCE for Linux and all three (3) Solaris exams at the time. At that point, it was more about people still not believing me.

Since then I've actually been in the 're-certification rat race' on just Red Hat, because the specialties are only good for 3 years, and that means one has to pass an exam every nine (9) months, as five (5) "active" are required to keep one's Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) "active."

I've long talked to Randy Russel out at Red Hat about this, especially hands-on testing runs over $1K/day. It's much, much more expensive than Computer Based Testing (CBT), and prohibitive. We've long talked about doing similar at the Linux Professional Institute (LPI), but despite having more candidates and certified individuals than all but maybe CompTIA (and CompTIA uses our LPIC-1 as their Linux+), most people wouldn't accept the costs involved.

Red Hat has really gotten into the "partner race" with the certifications, and it's difficult to "keep up." Even their own employees outside of training itself have issues. That's the same problem Cisco has always had, and Red Hat has now adopted ... worse than Microsoft.

I don't want to minimize hands-on, performance-based, in-lab testing. It's outstanding. But it's costly and hard to "keep up with."

I'm not one to ask about Cisco. I left Cisco tracks mid last decade -- a long, long time ago.

Spoiler

I spent some time at Red Hat training WWT (Cisco's largest reseller) on software defined networking (SDN) and storage, and I usually do a lot of packet inspection for various network admins. It helps that I wrote part of the 802.11 stack in the Linux kernel back in the early 2000s (old kernel 2.2), so I'm very familiar with framing and low-level media access concepts.

So it's difficult to "measure that."

I'm so glad I posted here. It is a nightmare trying to get the right certifications. So much so I don't even know where to begin.

If you want to do network admin, employers still want Linux, aws, msce, security, itil, and several other certs to be considered. It's overwhelming.

 

[UCFBS]

I'm so glad I posted here. It is a nightmare trying to get the right certifications. So much so I don't even know where to begin.
If you want to do network admin, employers still want Linux, aws, msce, security, itil, and several other certs to be considered. It's overwhelming.

Indeed.

I did all my cert exams out-of-pocket, no training, sans my first few years at Red Hat.

Spoiler

This includes even later Red Hat, as getting training became 'impossible' for employees in re-orgs. It's part of the reason we even 'segmented' stuff in our on-boarding and other things (long story). I was training people internally, and not in Training.

And unlike Cisco, where only the CCIE is performance-based, and the Associate and Professional exams are CBT, 100% of Red Hat's exams are performance-based. Gets really expensive really very fast ($800-1,000/exam at times).

 

[UCFWayne]

try posting this in the dungeon, youll get a better response