View Single Post
Old 05-02-10, 11:30 AM   #5
Sudoxe
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Questions for the IT bods - plans for career change

A network engineer is quite specialised, it's not just a case of learning the network kit and off you go.

Cutting the BS, learning networking properly isn’t a 3 week, or even a 6month job.

You have to have a good grounding in the theory side of networking, which is a lot of information.

Then you have to learn the specific implementations of products, for example, Cisco, Foundry, Extreme all different vendors who supply kit but they are all configured differently, and have their intricacies.

Then to be a good network engineer you need a good grounding in systems work (probably linux), as you will have to write tools, scripts, etc and know how the systems use the network to communicate, this makes troubleshooting a lot easier.
Then you have to get an idea of systems security so you know how firewalls work, how to use them, where to use them, etc.

The best way is to get some experience, a CCNA may let you in the door as an assistant/apprentice/junior and then you can learn your way around from there.

I’m not trying to deter you, but they are the facts.
Dan
  Reply With Quote