NinjaNick Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Open good doors? I'm curious. Please discuss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusion Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Yes...if you have experience to back them up. Most places I've been have seen those certs flooded. It can't hurt to have them but they won't help as much as they once did. The tests for those aren't that difficult since they are pretty basic compared to some others. One of those if you have the time and means go ahead and take them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaNick Posted March 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 pretty basic compared to some others.Share the others you speak of please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpone605 Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Please do share the others. I think the cisco exams are much more difficult than any of the comptia/microsoft exams I have taken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusion Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 CCNA and CCNP are both pretty cake if you've been around networking at all especially on Cisco equipment. It's been a long while since I've taken any of the exams though. They have slew of advanced exams and for things like security that tend to be harder. The MCSE and similar are harder only because there are more exams (7).CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ are all easier than the previously mentioned and you can study for and take the tests under 2 weeks for all three combined.CISSP is harder than all of those, I think...I haven't had the time to finish studying or take the exam due to work. My coworkers that have it and others seem to think it's harder compared to those others.And there's more. There's 1000's of IT certs it seems. CCNA and CCNP are pretty much basic level Cisco certs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JStump Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I'm about done with my ccna and from the people I know who have them you start out at around 50-60k a year, ccnp gets you about 70-80k and ccie, which is known to be one of the hardest certs to get will get you about 100k+ a year so they are great to have if you ask me, you just have to have experience to back it up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmh_sprint Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Open good doors? I'm curious. Please discuss. I manage people with Cisco Certs. The NA and NP are good entry level, if you have time in job to back them up. The issue that has happened with the base NA and NP is there there are HS vocational programs that have these as part of thier offerings, there are a large amount of sites and tools that allow people who are book smart to pass them without have any real world experience. These people are very easy to uncover when going through the interview process. My word of advice is to pick a area of specialization (wireless, VoIP, router/switch or security) and focus on getting the Cisco certs in that area. Most of my team is router/switch and VoIP certified. The Cisco tests are hard and change every year or so. This is for a reason as the certifcations are a huge cash cow for Cisco. If you want and help or other infromation let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblosser Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 ...The issue that has happened with the base NA and NP is there there are HS vocational programs that have these as part of thier offerings, there are a large amount of sites and tools that allow people who are book smart to pass them without have any real world experience. These people are very easy to uncover when going through the interview process....Beware the paper tiger.Having a cert is better than not having a cert, but I'll take actual job experience over a cert any day of the week.CISSP is not difficult, based upon people I know that have it. (Haven't actually looked into it myself; not interested, and next of much use in my part of IT). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I'm about done with my ccna and from the people I know who have them you start out at around 50-60k a year, ccnp gets you about 70-80k and ccie, which is known to be one of the hardest certs to get will get you about 100k+ a year so they are great to have if you ask me, you just have to have experience to back it up.It always makes me laugh when I see people like you parroting the commercials on the radio for certs and the salary ranges that come with them.Disclaimer: I have no certs in anything at all. You can call it laziness, apathy, but I prefer to get experience above all else.CCNA's are given out like candy it seems. When they're churning them out at the high school level, I'm already thinking the credential is watered down. In their defense however, there are some hiring managers who want to see that piece of paper, and in my experience those managers (with exceptions) usually aren't the best to work with.CCNP's are better, but at this point you'd better be picking a speciality.CCIE's are pretty much baller. When I looked last (a few months ago), there wasn't a single person on the PLANET who was CCIE-W(ireless) certified. I think the heady days of getting your CCIE and having a job offer from Cisco before you leave the building are done, but 100K is about right for a salary range when you are done. If you're financing it yourself though, you can expect to drop about 15K when it's all done for just the CCIE. You will not pass the lab on the first try, and most likely not the second either.Either way, the common thread to all these responses is EXPERIENCE. Go on ebay and buy some old Cisco gear like a old PIX firewall, a 2600 router, 3500 switch, and build your own network with VPN. Play around, try some stuff, break some stuff, then you'll be in a LOT better position to start taking exams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblosser Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 ...Either way, the common thread to all these responses is EXPERIENCE. Go on ebay and buy some old Cisco gear like a old PIX firewall, a 2600 router, 3500 switch, and build your own network with VPN. Play around, try some stuff, break some stuff, then you'll be in a LOT better position to start taking exams.If anyone wants, I can provide some old Cisco gear to play with. Just checked the 'stack-o-stuff' and there's a 2900 and 3500 on it now. Usually there's a pile of gear, but only 2 today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaNick Posted March 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 If anyone wants, I can provide some old Cisco gear to play with. Just checked the 'stack-o-stuff' and there's a 2900 and 3500 on it now. Usually there's a pile of gear, but only 2 today.I'd like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin0469 Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 CCNP, CCNA, CCIE are in a different category than CISSP. CISSP is an IT security cert that has more to do with policy and standards than administering anything. I know people that have taken all of them and said that CISSP was the most difficult, but there's also people I know that have CISSP and I wouldn't have guessed them to be all that intelligent. What's difficult for some, may not be for others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblosser Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I know two that have the CISSP:One, very intelligent (and has every other cert ever offered by anyone).The other, umm, well let's just say that he's lucky breathing's automatic.I was judging the difficulty by the (automatic) mouth breather's attainment of said cert..."sh vlan"sh cdp neigh"I is a router monkey now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblosser Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I'd like it.They're on a shelf in my office now.Let me know next time you're in/around C-Bus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disclaimer Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 (edited) I've always been interested in learning all this stuff too, just to know it. I think I'm done chasing paper unless I decide to get a law degree.But, and forgive me true IT nerds with skillz, what would all this knowledge give me as a rather savvy casual user? I'm not heavy on command line like I used to be as a kid playing with DOS, but I don't think it's something that would be difficult for me to pickup... Edited March 8, 2011 by JRMMiii Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaNick Posted March 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 They're on a shelf in my office now.Let me know next time you're in/around C-Bus.Deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusion Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I've always been interested in learning all this stuff too, just to know it. I think I'm done chasing paper unless I decide to get a law degree.But, and forgive me true IT nerds with skillz, what would all this knowledge give me as a rather savvy casual user? I'm not heavy on command line like I used to be as a kid playing with DOS, but I don't think it's something that would be difficult for me to pickup...I think you'd be better off pursuing something more generally networking related instead of Cisco specific if you're not in IT. Even just reading through the material for CompTIA Network+, which is pretty basic stuff, would put you ahead of a huge majority of the ordinary little people.If you are interested in command line type stuff, go with Linux and download a copy of something like Ubuntu or Knoppix and start learning it. Bonus is you can boot from a thumb drive or CD to run it until you are sure you want to go through the effort of installing it somewhere. You could always run it in a VM also if you didn't want to mess with disks, dual boot or dedicate a box to it. If you're feeling really froggy, learn it using something like Slackware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I've always been interested in learning all this stuff too, just to know it. I think I'm done chasing paper unless I decide to get a law degree.But, and forgive me true IT nerds with skillz, what would all this knowledge give me as a rather savvy casual user? I'm not heavy on command line like I used to be as a kid playing with DOS, but I don't think it's something that would be difficult for me to pickup...Any IT guy worth anything knows where the CLI is, and knows exactly what to say to it to make it do what he wants. Honestly for a casual user who happens to be smarter than the average bear, knowing Cisco CLI commands isn't going to do a whole lot for you. What will is knowing the underlying fundamentals, like the OSI model, IP routing and CIDR, stuff like that.If you're feeling really froggy, learn it using something like Slackware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I know two that have the CISSP:One, very intelligent (and has every other cert ever offered by anyone).The other, umm, well let's just say that he's lucky breathing's automatic.I was judging the difficulty by the (automatic) mouth breather's attainment of said cert..."sh vlan"sh cdp neigh"I is a router monkey now?"sh cdp neigh det"King me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusion Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disclaimer Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I've messed around with Linux (used Knoppix to recover a bad drive once), plus I loaded Kemu on my windows box to mess around with Ubuntu, but nothing serious. I'm one of those guys that learns a lot when I need to fix something or have a personal problem that needs solving -- so I've been exposed to a lot, but it's one of those things I don't get to work with everyday so I don't consider myself very IT savvy in that respect.Regarding the OSI and IP stacks... I learned all about that in my MIS coursework, but I've never really had to do any nitty-gritty programing - all high level "here's what the diagram of the layer model looks like". It's the nitty gritty that I have respect for, those are the real nuts and bolts of the system. The last time I programmed anything (besides XML or PLC) was writing assembly in my micros class for my undergrad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vw151 Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 (edited) I've been a network engineer for about 6 years. I actually worked for CMH Sprint for a little bit until I was hired on full time at OSUMC. I am an expired CCNA. I support most of what has been said on here about experience being much more valuable but I will say this. The CCNA is a good start to teach you a wide variety of networks that you may otherwise never even hear of. Further, it's a vendor cert but Cisco network gear is analogous to Microsoft OSes. It's just the most prevalent brand of network equipment you'll see so you might as well certify on that brand if you're going to get a vendor based cert. Beyond that. The cert will get your resume to show up in monster.com searches and get the recruiters to look at you and potentially get you an interview. After that it's more about you and your experience than the cert. If you want my 2 cents. Get the cert, it does nothing but help and shows your willingness or want to get into the networking field and will put you ahead of all of the other field services type techs that also want to get into the networking field. It won't get you the job all by itself but I think it's a great tool for getting your foot in the door. It has certainly treated me well. I still get calls semi regularly from recruiting places and to be honest, the calls started when my resume listed the CCNA on it. I also have the COMPTIA A+ and Network+ certs. I didn't find that they got much intrest from the recruiters like the CCNA did. Also, to those who say the CCNA and CCNP is a breeze, I hope you have taken it and say that. I scored well on the CCNA but there is no way I'd say it was a walk in the park. It's a lot of information to digest even if you have been networking for awhile. It covers technologies you likely haven't touched. The multiple CCNP tests are at least more specialized and focused which makes them a little more palatable. Last bit of advice. I read the book, used the self study material and took the test. It's not easy but it's not so hard that you necessarily need to drop $3000 and 1 year of classes at a community college to get it. The self tests will let you know if you are ready to go take the real test and if I recall it's only about $180 to sit for the test. Not bad IMO. Edited March 8, 2011 by vw151 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vw151 Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 "sh cdp neigh det"King me. wr erasereload...... you lose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 wr erasereload...... you lose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JStump Posted March 9, 2011 Report Share Posted March 9, 2011 What I'm using to prep for the ccna is called cbtnuggets and it is a bunch of videos where a guy explains and shows how to do everything you need for the test, I usually have the video open in the corner and use packet tracer or gnu to do what he is doing in the video so it gets you used to using the cisco ios. Even though it is not as good as using physical hardware(I use the schools equipment for that) it is still a great practice tool.And all of that can be found free either on the venders websites or via torrents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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