Cisco CCNA CCNP Network Admin/Network Engineer...What should I expect??

Deemeetri

Hello everyone,

I am going towards my CCNA and later on towards my CCNP in order to become a network engineer at some point but my fear is that this profession will have me sit in a secluded room monitoring the network with only routers and switches to talk to. I'm a people person and love to be surrounded by people. Am I wrong in thinking that's what a Network Administrator does??

Deathmage

Coming from experience if your a network engineer you will still need to talk to people. Nobody understand networking like a network engineer does and you will always need to explain it to people. Let me tell you, you need people skills, you get a ton of glazed-over-eyes affect, so I think even though you want to be a network engineer you will skill do interactions. Plus if you in a IT department your normally also going to be approached by people looking for help since your in "IT", so be able to be flexible in what you do as your role but also learn other things.

Being that you have the 1st two comptia certs those will come in handy with the mundane silly stuff...

that's my 2 cents.

cisco_kidd20

Here's the flip side from my own personal experience. You said you are GOING for your CCNA, then CCNP. Do you currently have a job involved in networking? If not, you have to start somewhere, and work your way up. If it means monitoring a network at a company or somewhat, it's a resume builder and exposure in the field. I also recommend, once you get your CCNA, and you aren't working with routers or switches yet, to get a job doing so. So at the end, you have experience in monitoring different types of network outages pre CCNA, then applying what you learned being on the front line of the actual diagnosis and fix post CCNA.

If you get your CCNA and get a job monitoring networks that is not a big deal either, you will get your job depending on your experience on your resume. Use that job to learn and move on.

rowelld

You'll find yourself surrounded by people unless you work at a NOC in the middle of the night.

ninjaturtle

rowelld wrote: »

You'll find yourself surrounded by people unless you work at a NOC in the middle of the night.

I remember those days. NOC graveyard shift. That's where I did most of my studying and movie watching

Node Man

Im doing that now. Its the price to get a foot in the door. Im ok with that. Graveyard weeds out the non-hardcore.

Deemeetri

Currently I do not deal with networking at all, I am a SharePoint Analyst. What would I be doing as a network administrator or an engineer??

LeBroke

Most of my posts here were written during a graveyard shift. Hell, I'm writing this during one right now.

Node Man

LeBroke wrote: »

Most of my posts here were written during a graveyard shift. Hell, I'm writing this during one right now.

+1 Cheers

awitt11

Weekend+overnight here. If you aren't studying during this shift, then you are doing it wrong.

BerkshireHerd

Our Network Engineers handle both networking duties and server / sys admin duties and they love it because they get to handle a lot of different stuff, not 100% network related.

stlsmoore

Once you start moving up within the networking field there will be plenty of opportunities to get from behind the cubicle a mingle with people. Especially when you start getting into network design or management. It sounds like Pre-sales will be right up your alley eventually, a lot of income to be made there as well.

I occasionally have to present my designs, implementation plans, and SOW to other business units within the Enterprise I work for. Nothing to the level a Network Engineer working for a VAR would have to do but it's something that's inevitable I think as you move up the IT ladder.

cisco_kidd20

Deemeetri wrote: »

Currently I do not deal with networking at all, I am a SharePoint Analyst. What would I be doing as a network administrator or an engineer??

That's a vague question, it depends. You can be a deployment engineer who designs networks. Or you will be troubleshooting network outages. In my experience from the troubleshooting perspective, I would get a phone call from those people monitoring the network (surveillance team) stating they see an issue and they need me to investigate. If it's an outage, they will fire up a conference bridge and the surveillance rep will document ticket notes of my findings until I resolve the issue.

So you see, they get exposure to what I'm doing by listening to different issues.

LeBroke

awitt11 wrote: »

Weekend+overnight here. If you aren't studying during this shift, then you are doing it wrong.

Too tired to study much, but I work on major projects. Recently set up a datacentre PXE system, thinking about doing something backup-related now, and then I lab in Cisco or VMware.

Either way, doesn't matter since I start an MSP job (that comes with a people schedule, good pay increase and job title upgrade) in about a week.

rcsoar4fun

Keep in mind this is coming from someone that started out working the NOC and worked my way up. "Officially" a network engineer now, CCNP and CCIE written.

The higher up you go the less time you spend with head down logged into network devices and the more time you spend dealing with people, projects and problems. I have CCNAs that work for me that spend far more time configuring devices in any given time frame. However, if something is really broke, or there is an architectural change than I am involved. I run a very large LAN, it wouldn't be unusual for me to go several weeks without needing to log into anything. Honestly, that is exactly how a network SHOULD run.

To put it a different way, at my last job my boss was giving me a good natured hard time about being on youtube during the workday. I replied he didn't pay me for 40 hours worth of work, he paid me 39.5 hrs a week screwing off for the half hour he really needed me. Obviously a slight exaggeration, but one with a great deal of truth to it.