New gig

Hey techies...

I just landed a new gig at a university up here in Ontario, as a Network Admin. The interesting part... it's entirely a Nortel shop. I'm quite surprised they went with me, though my OSPF is pretty strong.

All three of my last gigs have been in cisco shops, and I've never logged into a nortel device. Can anyone fill me in on what to expect? What are the big differences in the CLI? Do nortel devices have an SDM?

The bonus of this position is that all courses are free (except taxes), so I'll be taking advantage of that... just not sure how I'll finish my CCNP now. Gonna be interesting.

Mike

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Comments

larkspur

did you know it was nortel going in? Do they have plans to move away from that platform.

cdad2000

Nortel is very similar to cisco. The switches are easier to configure. There is a CLI, but Nortel has a GUI, which is easy. Trust me, you'll be a expert in 2 months.

networker050184

Once you have all the standards down you can pick up on the vendor specific stuff pretty quick. Nothing beats Cisco though

Netstudent

We just went with the NOrtel 5510's and 5520 POE models and I like them. They have a http based GUI as well as a menu driven initial setup, and a CLI. They aren't quite as granular as IOS but they are pretty good. A lot of the commands are the same as IOS and the prompts are about the same as far as enable mode configuration mode, ect...

STP config options are setup a lot different in the NOrtel OS.

sprkymrk

Never used Nortel, but wanted to say "congrats" on the new job.

jamesp1983

congrats

techED

congrats on the job.
The real bonus: you will be a multi-platform expert in the end. sweeet

mikearama

Thanks guys... I appreciate it. And yeah, pretty pleased about the role. And I went from driving 45 minutes to having to drive 3... or a 23 minute walk (did it this morning... sweet).

I was rather surprised to get the gig. Coming from cisco-only environments, I didn't expect much, but I killed the tech interviews, and had no trouble with the stp/ospf/vlan questions. That, and my charming/charismatic/effervescent/dynamic/etc personality... oh, and good looks... and voila!

I spent the morning adding a couple AP's to the more than 300 already in place, and discovered a great version of a wireless controller used here called Symposium. Playing with the nortel switches wasn't too much of an issue... I guess having a Cat1924 as part of my home lab paid off after all, as the cli was almost the same. And, my last gig at Toyota had a few left over Baystack 450's, so so far so good.

@larkspur... there's been no mention of moving away from nortel. If it's in the plan somewhere, it would explain a lot.

@teched... yeah baby, yeah! On top of Nortel, they use Checkpoint firewalls, so might as well own them too.

And as a bonus... oh my god, the scenery!!! Beaucoup women! (read: girls. At 38, I'm starting to feel like a dirty old man).

Mike

mikej412

Congratulations!

Sounds like its a nice place to work!

GT-Rob

Congrats. Good looks eh? Did you show some skin? :P

Which university are you at now btw?

mikearama

Durham College / UOIT. Out in Oshawa.

Mrock4

mikearama wrote:

At 38, I'm starting to feel like a dirty old man).

Mike

From a 17 year old younger Mike to another Mike......it's because you ARE a dirty old man.

Just kidding..wanted to say congrats as well. It's always good to hear about fellow IT pro's finding jobs they enjoy...and learning new technologies is always good.

Aquabat [banned]

do they have nortel phones too?