IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[tofuspeedstar]

Powershell rocks.

How y'all brehs doing on certs?

I think after May, gonna get my CCNA Security certification..but I'll keep the current gig I have and maybe get a lil bump in pay.

Lawl school is still in the pipeline for me though, LSAT retake in June.

Best of luck to ya brehs tryna eat in the IT field. It may look bleak at times, but keep hustlin, you'll eventually get your foot in the door!

 

[WeDemBoyz]

Like I said breh, it depends on the path you decide to take and what you enjoy. More importantly it depends on your experience working in different environments. This is the path I took:

A+, 1st MCSE exam (Windows XP), CCNA, Rest of MCSE exams, CCNA, CISSP, CCNA Security, CCNP Security. Only thing left for me is to take the CCIE Security and maybe reup the MCSE for 2012.

This was over an 8 year span. The certs are important because you learn a lot and prove to an extent you can do the job, but the more critical part is the experience. Having your MCSE is irrelevant if you're asking to an AD migration and you have no clue where to begin.

I'd recommend spending a couple dollars and building a computer to be used for VMs. Quad core i5 or i7, 32gb of RAM (ram's cheap) and an SSD hard drive. That'd give you enough processing power to run a very intricate lab to install and practice anything Windows Server related, and emulate Cisco routers and ASA. If you can do it in the lab, there's a good chance you can do it in prod.

I just spent the last couple hours of my life reading through this thread. First half was redundant like but after that The Architect turned on the lights and fed us with the gems. My n*gga if you're ever in the south let me know .

I'm a dude who got into several top schools in the nation, but circumstances weren't right at the time in the Fam. So school has been an on n off kinda situation (I got 50 hours) and $$$ has been EVERYTHING. I have a friend who is a Jr. System Administrator dealing with active directory and exchange servers right now all experience developed from work and self-taught sans certs. He said come summer he's finally gonna take the CCNA and I was like sh*t you're about to . He's 21 and been in the game since he was 16.

This is his job duties

- Administered, managed and maintained Active Directory and Exchange servers.
- Managed complete Installation and maintenance of Wi-Fi Technology in 12 diverse locations (25,000Sqft).
- Actively supported over 50 Employees with remote desktop on a host of technical issues.
-Installed and maintained VPN tunnels using PfSense, ZyXEL, and Barracuda firewalls.
-Managed configuration on Cisco, Dell, and HP Switches and Routers.
-Provided technical knowledge as part of linking multiple locations from 2-15 miles apart using ubiquiti dish running at 100Mbps.
-Provided support administration (users and groups, configure file permissions, check event logs, configure and restore from backup).

He said he's getting $17/hr and is about to get a raise. Based on your experience do those duties match with the pay?

Tryna get your opinion, because he know his sh*t and I've seen how much work and effort he's put into it over the years but it seems like he should be getting paid more. idk..

But sh*t he's been telling me for the past yr to get on with him, but I've been focused on this shyt i got going on. I'm gonna holla at him and see what he suggests, but right NOW i'm about to get everything lined up in order to knock out the A+ within the next month and a half. I'd say I'm above average as far as computer literacy goes and my customer service is from the job positions I've stacked on my resume.

But say breh what is the significance of all of the MSCE certs?

 

[↓R↑LYB]

Powershell rocks.

How y'all brehs doing on certs?

I think after May, gonna get my CCNA Security certification..but I'll keep the current gig I have and maybe get a lil bump in pay.

Lawl school is still in the pipeline for me though, LSAT retake in June.

Best of luck to ya brehs tryna eat in the IT field. It may look bleak at times, but keep hustlin, you'll eventually get your foot in the door!

You trying to be a lawyer/IT tech? That's a weird combo but do you thing doggy.

I just spent the last couple hours of my life reading through this thread. First half was redundant like but after that The Architect turned on the lights and fed us with the gems. My n*gga if you're ever in the south let me know .

I'm a dude who got into several top schools in the nation, but circumstances weren't right at the time in the Fam. So school has been an on n off kinda situation (I got 50 hours) and $$$ has been EVERYTHING. I'm 22 and have a hustle on the side (legal), but I know I can make it my main side hustle for life and want to find myself a career to lead the way. I have a friend who is a Jr. System Administrator dealing with active directory and exchange servers right now all experience developed from work and self-taught sans certs. He said come summer he's finally gonna take the CCNA and I was like sh*t you're about to . He's 21 and been in the game since he was 16.

This is his job duties

- Administered, managed and maintained Active Directory and Exchange servers.
- Managed complete Installation and maintenance of Wi-Fi Technology in 12 diverse locations (25,000Sqft).
- Actively supported over 50 Employees with remote desktop on a host of technical issues.
-Installed and maintained VPN tunnels using PfSense, ZyXEL, and Barracuda firewalls.
-Managed configuration on Cisco, Dell, and HP Switches and Routers.
-Provided technical knowledge as part of linking multiple locations from 2-15 miles apart using ubiquiti dish running at 100Mbps.
-Provided support administration (users and groups, configure file permissions, check event logs, configure and restore from backup).

He said he's getting $17/hr and is about to get a raise. Based on your experience do those duties match with the pay?

Tryna get your opinion, because he know his sh*t and I've seen how much work and effort he's put into it over the years but it seems like he should be getting paid more. idk..

But sh*t he's been telling me for the past yr to get on with him, but I've been focused on this shyt i got going on. I'm gonna holla at him and see what he suggests, but right NOW i'm about to get everything lined up in order to knock out the A+ within the next month and a half. I'd say I'm above average as far as computer literacy goes and my customer service is from the job positions I've stacked on my resume.

But say breh what is the significance of all of the MSCE certs?

Looking at the job description, he's doing basic admin work so yeah $17/hr seems about right. Like I've said a couple times in this thread, you wanna get some paper, you gotta do consulting type work that the typical AD guy may not be able to handle. Here's the job description for the gig I'm at now:

AD administration
Object creation (User, computer, group)
AD migration experience (2003 to 2008R2)
AD structure change experience
AD extension experience (new schema attributes)
AD site/subnet experience
Group Policy administration/migration experience
ADFS experience
Login script experience
PowerShell
OU hierarchy and inheritance
MIIS knowledge
FIM knowledge
Experience with multiple AD tools
Debugging/troubleshooting of AD issues

Essentially they want to redesign the site/OU structure, adapt a naming convention, lock down the environment, and make AD a repository for all LDAP aware applications.

You got two choices breh:

1) Take the blue pill and be a normal system admin, doing normal AD tasks (creating users, groups, troubleshooting issues, etc) thinking you doing it big as an IT worker and sleep comfortable in your bed knowing you gotta job

2) Take the red pill and get on your grind and learn the skill set most admins don't know (Federation, scripting, Identity and Access Management tools, schema extensions, etc). Pull up to the strip club in a drop Maseratti and see if bandz really will make her dance

So here's the blueprint:
1) Learn powershell ASAP. Scripting is powerful, and you're gonna need to learn it if you're doing AD or security work.

2) Build a lab in your crib. Spend a good g on that bytch (keep your receipts and write it off as an education/job expense on your taxes). Learn the core networking services like AD, DNS, DHCP, VPN, etc.

3) Then start to learn AD like the back of your hand. Installation, deployment, GPOs, site/subnet structure, schema and schema extension.

4) Learn some of the core Microsoft products. Exchange, System Center, WSUS, FIM, Hyper-V/App-V, and SharePoint/SQL administration.

5) Learn how to secure all that shyt. with each product Microsoft releases security guides. Read em and learn the concepts and try to implement them in a lab.

6) Get your certs. MCSA 2012 is only 3 exams, stop bullshytting

All of that and a good 7-8 years of experience, you should be able to hit 7k/mo after taxes easy. 10k/mo after taxes of you being greedy

Now don't say I ain't teach you little fukk nikkas nothing

 

[Chris.B]

All of you who need help in beasting Cisco get at me.

GNS3.net the site you want to go to emulate Cisco ios

I have every professional Cisco cert you can think off....I'm almost done with CCNP voice. Knowledge is power folks. It's amazing how many times I have run circles around interviewers during a technical job interview.

learn Learn Learn.

There are "free" tutorials on the internet. You can define free however you want it.

My entire home lab is virtualized on one HP server running ESX 4.1

The days of having 20 equipments for home labs are long gone.

6 figure salary is right around the corner if you really want it.....If I were to post of the screenshot of the network/voice infrastructure I manage, someone of you will have a heart attack!

 

[WeDemBoyz]

You trying to be a lawyer/IT tech? That's a weird combo but do you thing doggy.



Looking at the job description, he's doing basic admin work so yeah $17/hr seems about right. Like I've said a couple times in this thread, you wanna get some paper, you gotta do consulting type work that the typical AD guy may not be able to handle. Here's the job description for the gig I'm at now:



Essentially they want to redesign the site/OU structure, adapt a naming convention, lock down the environment, and make AD a repository for all LDAP aware applications.

You got two choices breh:

1) Take the blue pill and be a normal system admin, doing normal AD tasks (creating users, groups, troubleshooting issues, etc) thinking you doing it big as an IT worker and sleep comfortable in your bed knowing you gotta job

2) Take the red pill and get on your grind and learn the skill set most admins don't know (Federation, scripting, Identity and Access Management tools, schema extensions, etc). Pull up to the strip club in a drop Maseratti and see if bandz really will make her dance

So here's the blueprint:
1) Learn powershell ASAP. Scripting is powerful, and you're gonna need to learn it if you're doing AD or security work.

2) Build a lab in your crib. Spend a good g on that bytch (keep your receipts and write it off as an education/job expense on your taxes). Learn the core networking services like AD, DNS, DHCP, VPN, etc.

3) Then start to learn AD like the back of your hand. Installation, deployment, GPOs, site/subnet structure, schema and schema extension.

4) Learn some of the core Microsoft products. Exchange, System Center, WSUS, FIM, Hyper-V/App-V, and SharePoint/SQL administration.

5) Learn how to secure all that shyt. with each product Microsoft releases security guides. Read em and learn the concepts and try to implement them in a lab.

6) Get your certs. MCSA 2012 is only 3 exams, stop bullshytting

All of that and a good 7-8 years of experience, you should be able to hit 7k/mo after taxes easy. 10k/mo after taxes of you being greedy

Now don't say I ain't teach you little fukk nikkas nothing

I'm about to review this post when I get home. I got into Harvard my Jr year of HS. Just a n*gga tryna eat good now since it didn't pan out. Definitely gonna grind it out for the years to come. I see consulting in my future. Hustle is in my blood

 

[patscorpio]

Masters in Comp Sci, I dunno. Depends on what you trying to do. Software Development careers are more about experience. Now if you research some super awesome algorithm in your program, I'm sure you'll get a thanks or something, but I dont see it being very useful in many fields. I would do undergrad in it, and then get a business degree. The best thing for a technical person is to get a business mindset. The more people's jobs you can replace, the more valuable you become. At least in the business space.

The exact reason why i decided to do my MBA concentration in Management Information Systems

 

[↓R↑LYB]

All of you who need help in beasting Cisco get at me.

GNS3.net the site you want to go to emulate Cisco ios

I have every professional Cisco cert you can think off....I'm almost done with CCNP voice. Knowledge is power folks. It's amazing how many times I have run circles around interviewers during a technical job interview.

learn Learn Learn.

There are "free" tutorials on the internet. You can define free however you want it.

My entire home lab is virtualized on one HP server running ESX 4.1

The days of having 20 equipments for home labs are long gone.

6 figure salary is right around the corner if you really want it.....If I were to post of the screenshot of the network/voice infrastructure I manage, someone of you will have a heart attack!

GNS3 is cool but you can't emulate a catalyst switch and you'll need security plus licenses to test A/A failover and other shyt (at least for the security track). Tried it during my CCNP Sec, but I had to throw in the bushes. Definitely couldn't do it while studying for my CCIE. Had to rent rack space for that one.

I'm about to review this post when I get home. I got into Harvard my Jr year of HS. Just a n*gga tryna eat good now since it didn't pan out. Definitely gonna grind it out for the years to come. I see consulting in my future. Hustle is in my blood

You fukked up a possible Harvard degree nikka

You need to go head and just throw your damn self in the bushes.

 

[Chris.B]

GNS3 is cool but you can't emulate a catalyst switch and you'll need security plus licenses to test A/A failover and other shyt (at least for the security track). Tried it during my CCNP Sec, but I had to throw in the bushes. Definitely couldn't do it while studying for my CCIE. Had to rent rack space for that one.



You fukked up a possible Harvard degree nikka

You need to go head and just throw your damn self in the bushes.

You can emulate catalyst switches somewhat with the routers which have ether modules and you can also bridge routed networks to physical switches in GNS3. You just have to know how to do it. Also there is a hack for getting the security licenses in the ASA. You gave up to quickly my friend....

I have a CCIE SP on my team who got it by using GNS3 and bridging it to real physical switches when he was practicing.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

You can emulate catalyst switches somewhat with the routers which have ether modules and you can also bridge routed networks to physical switches in GNS3.

You can't emulate a catalyst switch in GNS3, it's literally not possible.

Switching - GNS3

GNS3 is a excellent platform to emulate Cisco routers, however the emulation of Cisco Catalyst switches is not supported due to the impossibility to emulate ASIC processors used in those devices. You still have the possibility to configure common switching features using the NM-16ESW EtherSwitch card in a router, which is fine for people working on their CCNA or even CCNP certifications but this provides a too limited switching environment for CCIE candidates and networking personnel wanting to make more advanced switching labs.

Using a switch module in a router is not the same as using a catalyst switch. The command structure is different for one and you won't have experience configuring a catalyst when you sit behind the console during the lab. Like I said, using it for the CCIE is a waste of time.

You just have to know how to do it. Also there is a hack for getting the security licenses in the ASA. You gave up to quickly my friend....

There is no hack for getting security licenses on an ASA. There is one for the PIX, but the CCIE Security v3 and v4 blueprint only focuses on the ASA.

I have a CCIE SP on my team who got it by using GNS3 and bridging it to real physical switches when he was practicing.

Sure you can bridge it to a real network, but you'll still need to buy at least 2 switches with enough RAM and flash to run the Advanced IP Services image. So you can do VTP and STP for example. If you have the money cool, but when I was doing it, it added unnecessary complexity to an already complex lab. Having a breakout box and doing double tagging just so I can get basic layer 2 connectivity isn't worth the head ache.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

I just spent the last couple hours of my life reading through this thread. First half was redundant like but after that The Architect turned on the lights and fed us with the gems. My n*gga if you're ever in the south let me know .

I'm a dude who got into several top schools in the nation, but circumstances weren't right at the time in the Fam. So school has been an on n off kinda situation (I got 50 hours) and $$$ has been EVERYTHING. I'm 22 and have a hustle on the side (legal), but I know I can make it my main side hustle for life and want to find myself a career to lead the way. I have a friend who is a Jr. System Administrator dealing with active directory and exchange servers right now all experience developed from work and self-taught sans certs. He said come summer he's finally gonna take the CCNA and I was like sh*t you're about to . He's 21 and been in the game since he was 16.

This is his job duties

- Administered, managed and maintained Active Directory and Exchange servers.
- Managed complete Installation and maintenance of Wi-Fi Technology in 12 diverse locations (25,000Sqft).
- Actively supported over 50 Employees with remote desktop on a host of technical issues.
-Installed and maintained VPN tunnels using PfSense, ZyXEL, and Barracuda firewalls.
-Managed configuration on Cisco, Dell, and HP Switches and Routers.
-Provided technical knowledge as part of linking multiple locations from 2-15 miles apart using ubiquiti dish running at 100Mbps.
-Provided support administration (users and groups, configure file permissions, check event logs, configure and restore from backup).

He said he's getting $17/hr and is about to get a raise. Based on your experience do those duties match with the pay?

Tryna get your opinion, because he know his sh*t and I've seen how much work and effort he's put into it over the years but it seems like he should be getting paid more. idk..

But sh*t he's been telling me for the past yr to get on with him, but I've been focused on this shyt i got going on. I'm gonna holla at him and see what he suggests, but right NOW i'm about to get everything lined up in order to knock out the A+ within the next month and a half. I'd say I'm above average as far as computer literacy goes and my customer service is from the job positions I've stacked on my resume.

But say breh what is the significance of all of the MSCE certs?

Forgot to answer the bolded. The MCSE is a set of exams that prove that you can work with various Microsoft products. It shows a certain proficiency level. All certs are somewhat deluded because mad people cheat on them, but I pretty much use it to learn new technologies and keep my game sharp. The MCSE 2012 track is on Microsoft's site

MCSE Certification | MCSE Training | Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert

Microsoft broke them up a lot, but the closest one to the "typical" MCSE exam is the MCSE: Server Infrastructure cert. You take these exams:

70-410: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012
70-411: Administering Windows Server 2012
70-412: Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services
70-413: Designing and Implementing a Server Infrastructure
70-414: Implementing an Advanced Server Infrastructure

410-412 will get you your MCSA 2012 cert. 413-414 will get you your MCSE 2012 cert. They're brand new so the books/resources on them may not be out yet or got mad errors. But you probably gotta couple years until you ready for em anyway.

 

[AquaCityBoy]

If you dont have any experience, hold off on the Masters.

A masters is great in appied and computational mathematics, if you plan on going into the science fields - Simulations/Models/Physics/AI

With that type of degree, you better be going to work for places like Valve, Nvidia, IBM etc.

For most programming jobs, that degree is over kill.

OK cool. Do you work with/know a lot of people with that degree?

 

[WeDemBoyz]

You fukked up a possible Harvard degree nikka

You need to go head and just throw your damn self in the bushes.

Sh*t too many hardships and there was no way I was about to afford that tuition. I pretty much have all of my basics out of the way and several upper maths/sciences out the way. Transcript is looking right now.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

Sh*t wasn't goin well at Home, too many hardships and there was no way I was about to afford that tuition. I pretty much have all of my basics out of the way and several upper maths/sciences out the way. By next Fall I hope to be back at the University lvl (at community college now). Transcript is looking right now.

From Harvard to community college

Not to laugh at your pain breh, but that's funny. I started off at CC, but I always I knew I wasn't gonna be shyt

 

[WeDemBoyz]

From Harvard to community college

Not to laugh at your pain breh, but that's funny. I started off at CC, but I always I knew I wasn't gonna be shyt

Yeh its funny I be up at school lookin at them like

But even if I had the 200,000 to pay to go there I wouldn't. Ain't my scene. IT is definitely a flexible and interesting field I see myself getting into. Thanks for the knowledge breh

 

[tofuspeedstar]

You trying to be a lawyer/IT tech? That's a weird combo but do you thing doggy.

Nah, IT tech is a job, when I was younger I liked to experiment with computers and electronics, broke alot, I think it's karma telling me to fix the souls of the computers I broke when I was younger now that I'm in the gig I have now.

End goal has always been lawyer, this is just a hobby I turned into a college job.