IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[acri1]

This.. People don't understand its a process.. I started out at $12/hr. I was making more at warehouse jobs, but one path has a future and the other one doesn't. People are going to low ball you when they see you have zero experience, unless you have a family you should be happy to be gainng the experience.

Pretty much.

My first job was a part-time tech support rep for an ISP where most of the calls were just password resets and telling people to reboot their modems. I was still in college at the time and I think I first landed that job when I was 20 or 21. Wasn't balling by any means (I think it started at $10/hr) but it was ok for a college kid and without having some sort of experience on my resume it would've been mad hard to get a job after I graduated (especially since it was during the recession).

is PC technical support a good starting point to start at because that's what i'm getting ready to get into?

Unless you happen to know a CIO willing to give you a hookup or something, you pretty much HAVE to start out doing tech support/helpdesk/pc tech stuff. No company is gonna let somebody with no experience run their network.

 

[Saint1]

For those of yall that dont have a ton of experience, yall need to be building a home lab. You can build a cheap home server to host VMware ESXi(its free) which you can then use to setup an entire domain/network to play with. Even if you dont have the on the job experience, for you to be able to say yes i can and have setup/managed a domain is nice to be able to say.

You can get a dreamspark subscription https://www.dreamspark.com/Student/Software-Catalog.aspx
which will give you all the different Microsoft server products and OS for free too.

so for ~500 you can get experience building a server(will help with your A+) and also get experience with VMware, Microsoft and Networking experience on your own. Plus you will have a server to store all your movies and shyt on.

So slap together a little computer and put Windows Server 2012 on it as the OS?

 

[EnzoG]

Pretty much.

My first job was a part-time tech support rep for an ISP where most of the calls were just password resets and telling people to reboot their modems. I was still in college at the time and I think I first landed that job when I was 20 or 21. Wasn't balling by any means (I think it started at $10/hr) but it was ok for a college kid and without having some sort of experience on my resume it would've been mad hard to get a job after I graduated (especially since it was during the recession).





Unless you happen to know a CIO willing to give you a hookup or something, you pretty much HAVE to start out doing tech support/helpdesk/pc tech stuff. No company is gonna let somebody with no experience run their network.

Never said I was trying to start out right at the top I have some experience with computers I feel taking the classes in that area will help enhance what I know

 

[Illmagic]

Has anyone ever messed with http://www.testout.com/? If so how is it? Is it worth the dough?

 

[Mook]

So what would my career path be for a IT security job?

 

[semtex]

Has anyone ever messed with http://www.testout.com/? If so how is it? Is it worth the dough?

that's the shyt we used back in highschool. Seemed solid

 

[Ice_MF_Mike]

So slap together a little computer and put Windows Server 2012 on it as the OS?

Id slap together a computer and put VMware ESXi on it then run multiple servers(windows, linux, etc) on that. Now you got server experience, linux experience and VMware experience.

Here you go. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mfWxrH

 

[Data-Hawk]

Anyone know anything about outsourcing to Indian programmers to develop apps for you? Like you write up the functional docs of what you need and they do the programming.

I deal with a ton of Indians onsite and offshore. You'll be better off learning to do it yourself.

 

[JT-Money]

So what would my career path be for a IT security job?

IT Security jobs are still pretty new as a discipline since most companies only pay lip service to it. You won't make that much more money than a Network Engineer or Systems Administrator. But you'll be expected to know everything security related about their jobs even if they don't. And you'll get blamed every time some piece of technology fails to work until proven otherwise. I don't care if it's the Microwave in the break room someone will blame it on a security device or firewall.

 

[Saint1]

Id slap together a computer and put VMware ESXi on it then run multiple servers(windows, linux, etc) on that. Now you got server experience, linux experience and VMware experience.

Here you go. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mfWxrH

I'm pretty new to all this. So ESXi runs multiple vitrual servers on a physical server? As in it's running Linux, Windows simultaneously on the same machine?

 

[Saint1]

Has anyone ever messed with http://www.testout.com/? If so how is it? Is it worth the dough?

I've used it for a Network+ class. If I remember it's cheaper to do an online class at a school that requires this than actually buying it for yourself.

It's okay, it has simulations where they put you in a virtual office and you drag and click to hook up switches, routers, monitors etc.
It also simulates you troubleshooting connectivity problems between offices.

The only problem I had with the program is that it doesn't explain anything. So if something is new you gotta figure it out. I guess that's where a course or a textbook would come in handy.

It does include a voucher to take the test though, however. So again taking this through a course through a community college if you can.

 

[Ice_MF_Mike]

I'm pretty new to all this. So ESXi runs multiple vitrual servers on a physical server? As in it's running Linux, Windows simultaneously on the same machine?

Correct. You can run whatever you want. ESXi is the hypervisor that runs VMware. So yes, you can host many different servers(VMs) on one ESXi host. You use vSphere in order to setup and access your VMs as you would in a typical enterprise. Its great for a home lab because you can setup many different servers with different OSs and play with shyt. If you break something, you just roll back to a snapshot. I prolly got like 20 different servers on it. Though i only run 5-10 at any given time.

In my lab in addition to my domain and exchange servers, i have a few NAS sims (Netapp, EMC, Isilon), some security softwares, as well as my private cloud and media server(Plex) to stream movies and shyt.

 

[Saint1]

Correct. You can run whatever you want. ESXi is the hypervisor that runs VMware. So yes, you can host many different servers(VMs) on one ESXi host. You use vSphere in order to setup and access your VMs as you would in a typical enterprise. Its great for a home lab because you can setup many different servers with different OSs and play with shyt. If you break something, you just roll back to a snapshot. I prolly got like 20 different servers on it. Though i only run 5-10 at any given time.

In my lab in addition to my domain and exchange servers, i have a few NAS sims (Netapp, EMC, Isilon), some security softwares, as well as my private cloud and media server(Plex) to stream movies and shyt.

dope man. I'm kind of on a budget though. I just got an entry level job so I'm taking a pay cut right now and can't really front the money for a whole new system. you think I can get away with building a small personal server with an AMD FX 4200?

 

[Ice_MF_Mike]

dope man. I'm kind of on a budget though. I just got an entry level job so I'm taking a pay cut right now and can't really front the money for a whole new system. you think I can get away with building a small personal server with an AMD FX 4200?

no doubt. you can build one for like $200 probably. maybe even less. the one above was like 450. if you take out the SSD and lower the ram its down to around $340. Play around until you get a config in your price range. If you go with a lower quality motherboard and processor for example that will probably get you close to $200.

 

[BobbyBooshay]

Dont know if any of you lot know about MVA, has tons of MS courses for FREE !!

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com