What does Cisco Route or Microsoft Route mean?

I keep hearing "If you want to go the Cisco route..." or "If you wanna go the Microsoft route..."
I was under the impression that Cisco was all the switches and routers and Microsoft the servers. Or can u have a network with all Microsoft? And a network with all Cisco? So I took it that you take the ccna for the routers and etc, and MCSE for the servers? Is that right?

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dynamik

I believe those references are related to which certification track people are pursuing. Replace "route" with "path" or "track," and it should make more sense. For example, if I said I was going to go the Linux route, that would mean that I would be attempting to specialize in Linux.

charliepaul

Oh yeah I'm sorry I didn't clarify I understood that part but I was asking "Do you have to take a certain path? And what is the reason if you do? Does it just make you the guy they call if there is a certain problem with certain equipment?

Slowhand

You generally have to learn more than one specific technology to work in IT, but a lot of us tend to specialize in one area or another. If you're more on the routing and switching end, you might pursue CCIE, but only really study Windows and Unix/Linux enough to do basic maintenance on servers. If you're more of a server kind of guy, then you might become an expert on Windows or Unix/Linux, and only have enough Cisco knowledge to be able to do some basic networking tasks, like setting IPs and making sure routing protocols are running.

The short of it: you learn a little bit of everything as you work, but you focus on an area you find interesting.

charliepaul

Now I see. Thats kind of what I was thinking. Thanks alot guys! And I take it the main choices like you said are Microsoft and Unix/Linux on the server side are there any others? And as far as Cisco is that pretty much the only choice as far as routing and switching? Oh and am i right in assuming the cert to get for the Microsoft Server side would be the MCSE? Oh and is the MCP worth getting and what is that good for? Thanks for your help!!!

dynamik

Macs actually have a huge enterprise presence as well. Just kidding

MS and *nix are basically all there is. Mac OS X does come in a server version, and I believe the only other thing you're likely to come across is Netware. Here is a list of operating systems if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_operating_systems Most are various flavors of *nix. Cisco owns some ridiculous share of the market, but there are others, such as Juniper.

You should spend some time going through these pages as well as just browsing other forums on this site. You'll develop a pretty good idea of how everything fits together quite quickly.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/certifications.mspx
http://cisco.com/web/learning/le3/learning_career_certifications_and_learning_paths_home.html

Turgon

dynamik wrote:

Macs actually have a huge enterprise presence as well. Just kidding

MS and *nix are basically all there is. Mac OS X does come in a server version, and I believe the only other thing you're likely to come across is Netware. Here is a list of operating systems if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_operating_systems. Most are various flavors of *nix. Cisco owns some ridiculous share of the market, but there are others, such as Juniper.

You should spend some time going through these pages as well as just browsing other forums on this site. You'll develop a pretty good idea of how everything fits together quite quickly.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/certifications.mspx
http://cisco.com/web/learning/le3/learning_career_certifications_and_learning_paths_home.html

There is a bit more than MS and *nix in the enterprise. Historically the cert masses concentrated on Novell and Microsoft because that's where the action was in terms of consultancy projects, upgrades, box shifts, certifications, jobs and spends.

Unix got overlooked but has never gone away and you can expect to find RS6000 AIX/Solaris shoring up datacentres everywhere. Other major systems are Oracle and SAP R/3. The IBM AS400 hasn't gone away either.

Throw that lot together and you have a massive hole in the knowledge of many IT professionals who have followed the Novell (1995-2001) - MS (1998 - 200

herds. A lot of the serious applications that companies run on run on the platforms I have mentioned. Skills in those areas add value to the CNE/MCSE and pretty much guarantee higher earnings.

dynamik

Turgon, you seriously need to just back off. I have enough to study for as it is; I don't need you filling my head with that nonsense

It looks like that all runs on *nix and/or Windows, correct? I was just referring to OSes.

That was a good clarification to make though. I completely agree that there is more to the IT field than just what was previously mentioned. I'll definitely be researching those tonight. Thanks.

Turgon

dynamik wrote:

Turgon, you seriously need to just back off. I have enough to study for as it is; I don't need you filling my head with that nonsense

It looks like that all runs on *nix and/or Windows, correct? I was just referring to OSes.

That was a good clarification to make though. I completely agree that there is more to the IT field than just what was previously mentioned. I'll definitely be researching those tonight. Thanks.

hehehe it's good for you Andrew!

Oracle runs on Unix yes. Solaris for example. SAP R/3 runs on various platforms including AS400. It's important to get a handle on these things as well as the Microsoft streams of work. Often these other things are at the core of what the enterprise does anyway.