new job but they only have Brocade? wt heck?????

dustervoice

the vendor doesnt matter.. routing is routing.. who cares who the vendor is..

jibbajabba

dustervoice wrote: »

who cares who the vendor is..

He does

deth1k

You'd be surprised but Brocade's SP routers are much better than Cisco's a lot of IX's use them, ever heard of AMS-IX? When it comes to pure throughput nothing beats them price per port / watts etc. So shouting Brocade sucks, makes you look like a 5 year old (not trying to have a go at you). Take this opportunity to learn if you can and convert them to Cisco if you want, although not necessarily correct choice. I've had similar "hatred" towards Alcatel-Lucent however that has changed after I've started using them and understood their way of thinking.

it_consultant

You can look at the AMS-IX infrastructure here:

https://ams-ix.net/technical/ams-ix-infrastructure/the-ams-ix-mplsvpls-infrastructure

Everything that is labeled with "MLX..." is a Brocade MLX router. Then have a look at the performance graph:

https://ams-ix.net/technical/statistics

They are pushing a lot of terabits.

N2IT

ITDaddy

Just curious would the position change of been a promotion (salary and title)? Or a lateral or even worse a demotion? Just wondering.

Either way you have to follow your heart and not be controlled by the machine or the man.

I applaud you for your bravery.

itdaddy

N2IT
both a promotion in pay, and a demotion in title.
what sucks is the training material for its certs. IT has been around since 1995 where are the nice boot camps etc. and training videos? ??
it_consultant
you are brocade certified BCNE?????
where did you get your training an camps you attend??? and videos and books?
they are suppose to fly me out to look at the town and job. i will report back what i see and feel. just sucks studying for CCNP now and then work on Brocade switches and routers? weird

boobobobobob

Have you literally never touched anything except a cisco switch? Routing and switching is always the same the commands you need to execute are different, but that's what google is for.

N2IT

@ITDaddy

You are doing the smart thing. Going out there and checking out the lay of the land.

IMO You gotta look at the package. If the pay is nice, and title equal or higher and the area what you are looking for, not to mention you have like minded co workers and potentially to make a difference and move up I would consider it even with the inferior technology.

But you gotta feel it out and make a decision when you uncover more information.

Good luck!

bryguy

itdaddy wrote: »

N2IT
both a promotion in pay, and a demotion in title.
what sucks is the training material for its certs. IT has been around since 1995 where are the nice boot camps etc. and training videos? ??
it_consultant
you are brocade certified BCNE?????
where did you get your training an camps you attend??? and videos and books?
they are suppose to fly me out to look at the town and job. i will report back what i see and feel. just sucks studying for CCNP now and then work on Brocade switches and routers? weird

I was a in a similar position where our data center was 100% Cisco. 3 months or so after I became a CCNP, management decided to perform a tech refresh and replace almost all their Cisco gear with Foundry routers and switches. They also replaced their Cisco firewalls and application load balancers with Juniper Netscreens and F5 LTMs. I was at a loss... What it came down to was the price. We literally saved millions of dollars by going with non Cisco vendors.

In any event, Brocade later bought out Foundry and put their name on the chasis. I read through their publicily available documentation, and passed the FCNE which Brocade retroactively granted the BCNE. At the time, I hated the fact that management switched shops, but in truth, it made me a better network engineer and later cybersecurity consultant because I was no longer a "one trick" Cisco pony.

As an aside, Cisco has paved the way for a whole cottage certificate industry around their products.... videos, books, bootcamps, etc. When in truth, "RTFM" can serve you just as well.

itdaddy

what is RTFM ? but I do see your point just so hard to know everything and be a master of anything looks like a jack of all trades any more. I do enjoy learning just IT is getting so weird you have to be jack of all master of none...I don't see how you can remember how to config so many and be good...maybe I am an idiot haahhha

itdaddy

hahhahah I found what RTFM means hahahaha so true hahahhahaha thanks guys for your help. I will report back after if they fly me out to the job site and I will make my choice if they give me one after I see the server room and place of work.

it_consultant

itdaddy wrote: »

N2IT
both a promotion in pay, and a demotion in title.
what sucks is the training material for its certs. IT has been around since 1995 where are the nice boot camps etc. and training videos? ??
it_consultant
you are brocade certified BCNE?????
where did you get your training an camps you attend??? and videos and books?
they are suppose to fly me out to look at the town and job. i will report back what i see and feel. just sucks studying for CCNP now and then work on Brocade switches and routers? weird

I did my BCNE through self study and I actually went to HQ in San Jose and did the BCNP training. I haven't taken the BCNP yet because I am in the middle of CCNP (did CCNP switch) and THAT has gotten put on hold because almost all of my non-work time has been dedicated to ironman training.

it_consultant

itdaddy wrote: »

hahhahah I found what RTFM means hahahaha so true hahahhahaha thanks guys for your help. I will report back after if they fly me out to the job site and I will make my choice if they give me one after I see the server room and place of work.

Brocade is particularly **** about their documentation. I have seen very few issues/scenarios that I could not solve by looking that applicable documentation. They are really "engineery" about their documentation too, which is good if you need to know something obscure but kinda bad when your eyes start to bleed.

mistabrumley89

Brocade... I love working with Brocade. Coming from a mostly Brocade environment, I really enjoyed the support that the company provides to its customers. I always thought Brocade devices were rather easy to configure. Show commands can be done at any level. I think it's very much like Cisco, just less **** when it comes to the CLI. Just about anything you learn in the Cisco track can be migrated over and used to study for Brocade certifications. Like most networking exams, the majority of it is theory. Brocade certifications have a very low passing score requirement, and the entire exam is multiple choice. The study matierials they have are all theory based, or specifics to their hardware. Not much changes. It just might take a couple weeks to get used to the CLI syntax that they use. It is a relatively easy transition. If you passed CCNA, then you should be able to do a little bit of review and pass the BCNE. When you get your CCNP, then you should be about ready for your BCNP. How stuff works behind the scene doesn't change. Only the format of the CLI changes. You will figure it out.

mistabrumley89

Oh, and sign up for a myBrocade account. You can search around and find all sorts of free "training" (more like documentation) for the different certifications they have. They have "Nutshell" guides that you can use to get a gist on what topics will be on the exams.

datacomboss

Hopefully the IT Director doesn't read this thread.

aaron0011

Cisco's support is second to none. Hardware is next to bulletproof in reliability. If your budget supports it, for that reason alone it's worth the price of admission for most networking gear. Of course there are other vendors in areas where non Cisco may be the better choice. The infinite resources on their products doesn't hurt either. Just my two cents.

itdaddy

i love cisco and i have seen brocade command line yikes but if i have to take the job i will i have seen people do both and well time for me to grow ahaaahaha but cisco has solid stuff ...funny our credit union could afford cisco and it was only 125 mil asset? huh thanks guys for all your help i will let you know how it turns out. i just got another interview with another bank and they have cisco equip yeh so let the job go to the best person and the highest price yeah haahahah i want the bank here so i dont have to move that far hahaha and i get to stay with cisco hahahahh thanks men for all your advice great !

tprice5

itdaddy wrote: »

an yeah I might convince them to go cisco cause how much net gear would they have really for a 1 building with 90 people in it and another branch. Not much gear and I am sure they afford cisco. Well Iwil give it a shot the pay is awesome.

Oh yeah? Good luck with that one, bub.

itdaddy

news they said they would call Thursday but now it is end of Friday. I even had a headhunter in this whole thing working with me. ..I must of shoved cisco down their throats too much. I am learning not everything is cisco in fact, the last 2 jobs only had hp switches and brocade switches which tells me to start to settle where I can I have learned my lesson. I must be jack of all trades but going to try to focus on network engineering/admin/systems area with some cisco hahahha

mistabrumley89

Having to work with multiple vendors is nothing like being a JOAT. Doing anything relevant to IT would be more of a JOAT type job. Idk why you are so hung up on Cisco. The theory is there with all vendors. Cisco just has more proprietary stuff to remember. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Cisco. Just open up your avenues a little bit.

itdaddy

I guess you are right. the more interviews I get the more I see cisco is just s drop in the bucket ..many people just look for price difference and hope hey get the quality. yeah I guess. I just want to specialize but I see in the IT world you cant so much many jobs are JOAT shops. I don't mind different vendors just network gear is kind of nice to see cisco but the more I look the more I see HP switches, brocade switches, etc...yeah been 10 years since I looked for a job...Lesson to learn ;( but I am learning thank you buds

qcomer

To be honest - I don't see why you keep going back to this "...but, Cisco IS what they should be using" attitude. Not quoting you as saying that, but that's the attitude you give.

#1 - To a of people, Cisco is not affordable.
#2 There are plenty of rock solid competitors these days - juniper, brocade, HP procurve to name a few.
#3 - Some are much cheaper than cisco and just as reliable.
#4 - To some people - cisco is just not "all that". Other vendors are doing some awesome things these days. It is no longer a one-man show.

I think once you get some more years and employers under your belt your attitude will change a little and open you up a little. Don't think you would be happy at an MSP or K12 at this time with the way you feel about other vendors . lol.

Don't get me wrong - cisco skills are great and I like cisco, but try the others too. You may be surprised.

wastedtime

I know about 3 or 4 years ago I was looking for a 24+ port layer 3 switch that was all gigabit ports and copper cabling...and supported PoE and preferably in a 1U form factor. Was having a hard time finding one from cisco that was even used for less than 4500 and if I remember right couldn't get it in a 1U. I ended up finding a HP procurve for about 2400 and it even had a slot for a 10g module. I went ahead and got it figured I would learn it. Turns out the configuration was almost identical to a Cisco catalyst and I never had any issues with it. I would try the others the technology is the same for the most part and it is something additional you could put on a resume for the future if you desire.

Deathmage

I personally love HP switches, they always work and their warranties have never failed me. But since Cisco is used heavily in the tri-state area I want to specialize into Cisco.

However like Iris has said, I've had numerous cases were our HP Procurve core switches ran into problems with our Dell Powerconnect switches when they had issues with our Cisco Routers communicating to an accounting Adtran router that was used since my boss is **** about network security. It was a very interesting phone call having 4 vendors blaming the other for the issues.

Staunchy

The fundamentals of networking stays the same the only thing that change is the way each vendor does it so if you know what you what you trying to setup you only have to find out the commands. Also each vendor has their own special feature that the other doesn't, example Juniper does batch configuration so you can make multiple changes and then apply it after all the changes so that you don't just lock yourself out if you working remotely and the other nice thing Juniper has is rollback where it saves 50 configs (49 previous config + 1 the current active config)

tprice5

Deathmage wrote: »

It was a very interesting phone call having 4 vendors blaming the other for the issues.

This is the exact reason people are beginning to use flexpod and vblock.

itdaddy

I looked at Brocade site and looked over the manuals and you know it looks just like cisco. I will embrace Brocade like family hahha...you are right I was hard headed on Cisco but I do understand...I will continue my cisco studies since my lab equipment is all purchased and well same concepts just at work will program in Brocade no problem. thanks men for your good words to me...;)

kurosaki00

AwesomeGarrett wrote: »

The protocols stay the same, just implementation changes. You could get a **** sheet at first. The better question is, why does a bank with two branches and only 100 employees need a senior network engineer?

^This.
Brocade is meh, but is not that bad. Ive had to deal with it with some state equipment. It could be worse, could be hp.

itdaddy

Originally Posted by AwesomeGarrett The protocols stay the same, just implementation changes. You could get a **** sheet at first. The better question is, why does a bank with two branches and only 100 employees need a senior network engineer?

I agree but it I a Senior Network admin. They want me to do all work and CIO do other things???
but if they pay me BIG then oky.....