Working toward data center

I want to work toward an IT career, preferably in a data center, and would appreciate your advice about certification.

I don't have a tech degree or any certs. I'm hoping for a data center because I worked in one many years ago when I was in the military (limited to basic operation). The experience wouldn't be relevant today, but I do know the atmosphere and what the work basically entails.

I see there is a CISCO Data Center cert, but I think I should get a couple of foundational certs first, if only to review and to be qualified for entry-level work. I'm thinking about A+ (mostly a review for me) and Network+ (lots of new info for me). Do you agree that these two would be a good start? Would it be reasonable to start Data Center from there, or should I do any other certs first?

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Comments

darkerz

I'm currently in the data center space.

To enter, you don't need to have data center experience. But, you need to have technical chops (Think ECMP; BGP, OSPF, MLAG's, Traffic Flows, Python / Powershell, Simplification on the mind) along with the ability to think "At Scale".

Most of the scenario problems you'll see in interviews, that I've personally given, start off as seemingly innocent.

For example;

"You have 100,000 VM's just deployed, all of a sudden they are not working. Let's walk through it".
"Yes, the DHCP server scope is full with "Bad Addressing"
"Yes, the log shows changes made on the network, but tell me what you're looking for"

Etc. The goal is thought-process. The scenario I just gave you is a complex, scary problem myself and 4 people just spend 2 hours solving, it's fresh in my head and I want to put you into the situation. Bonus points if you solve it, but I'll dock you if I can't get you to squirm unless it's a Senior / Architect role.

Another Example I just used;

"What is ECMP?"
"Why BGP and not OSPF?"
"Draw out a topology, now tell me what mechanisms will I use in my attribute paths to manipulate traffic"
"Ok, let's break a few links. Tell me what happens".

I don't need an expert unless it's an Expert level - Senior Level role. I want someone who knows how these things work. I will interview 20,30,40 "Qualified, Certified, Experienced" engineers on paper but the second you ask them to explain OSPF, BGP or CST/MST Finite State Machines, they fold super quickly.

Hope that helps. Data Centers are cool. We just got a batch (400+) of Arista 7500's. Yum.

Jackace

I work for a Service Provider now and it's a pretty interesting environment that always seems to have something going on, but I have wondered what it would be like to work in a big data center as well. Working for a Service Provider it is mostly all just routing and switching and I don't have much exposure to firewalls, load balancers, fiber channel, etc like you would probably get in a Data Center.

certoi

From my understanding based on what you are saying, candidates must have real world experience and experience to advance skill set just to get in the door. If a person is competent enough to have pass the recommended IT certs and have basic real world experience with a passion to learn and be successful would you have taken him/her under your wing and train and mold them?

darkerz wrote: »

I'm currently in the data center space.

To enter, you don't need to have data center experience. But, you need to have technical chops (Think ECMP; BGP, OSPF, MLAG's, Traffic Flows, Python / Powershell, Simplification on the mind) along with the ability to think "At Scale".

Most of the scenario problems you'll see in interviews, that I've personally given, start off as seemingly innocent.

For example;

"You have 100,000 VM's just deployed, all of a sudden they are not working. Let's walk through it".
"Yes, the DHCP server scope is full with "Bad Addressing"
"Yes, the log shows changes made on the network, but tell me what you're looking for"

Etc. The goal is thought-process. The scenario I just gave you is a complex, scary problem myself and 4 people just spend 2 hours solving, it's fresh in my head and I want to put you into the situation. Bonus points if you solve it, but I'll dock you if I can't get you to squirm unless it's a Senior / Architect role.

Another Example I just used;

"What is ECMP?"
"Why BGP and not OSPF?"
"Draw out a topology, now tell me what mechanisms will I use in my attribute paths to manipulate traffic"
"Ok, let's break a few links. Tell me what happens".

I don't need an expert unless it's an Expert level - Senior Level role. I want someone who knows how these things work. I will interview 20,30,40 "Qualified, Certified, Experienced" engineers on paper but the second you ask them to explain OSPF, BGP or CST/MST Finite State Machines, they fold super quickly.

Hope that helps. Data Centers are cool. We just got a batch (400+) of Arista 7500's. Yum.