Most demanding Cisco Path?

I know it largely depends on your job requirements and your personal interest for what Cisco path you want to choose. But, what do you all you experienced guys think is the most demanding Cisco path?

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GT-Rob

Demanding as far knowledge needed to know, I would say maybe security.
Demanding as far as responsibility, probably Design.

Its all relative though. Implementing a city wide voice project and managing a call manager in a small company are 2 very different things, yet both are Voice.

sthomas

From what I hear VOIP is hot right now. But no matter which path you take you will have to start out with CCNA unless you go straight to CCIE.

dynamik

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

dtlokee

For me I would say the voice track was the most demanding. Possibly having a background in telecommunications would help, but it could also hurt when you think about how many steps it can take in a VoIP environment to accomplish what was simple with a PBX (mostly due to proprietary standards on the PBX vs open standards on the VoIP system)

Mishra

dynamik wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

I've always wanted to get my hands a LITTLE dirty in voice just to see if I really like it or not. But as a sys-admin it is hard to get into it since IP based telephony is rarely (if ever) rolled into the sys admin areas. And you can't easily set up a lab at home.

Luckycharms

Mishra wrote:

dynamik wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

I've always wanted to get my hands a LITTLE dirty in voice just to see if I really like it or not. But as a sys-admin it is hard to get into it since IP based telephony is rarely (if ever) rolled into the sys admin areas. And you can't easily set up a lab at home.

^^^ ASTERISK ^^^ Now you are correct about a CCM, that is a little harder to get experience if you don't have one at home.

Ooh and hello, FIRST POST!!!!

dtlokee

Mishra wrote:

dynamik wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

I've always wanted to get my hands a LITTLE dirty in voice just to see if I really like it or not. But as a sys-admin it is hard to get into it since IP based telephony is rarely (if ever) rolled into the sys admin areas. And you can't easily set up a lab at home.

Another option to asterisk might be Microsoft Communications Server, although I haven't yet used it.

Mishra

Luckycharms wrote:

Mishra wrote:

dynamik wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

I've always wanted to get my hands a LITTLE dirty in voice just to see if I really like it or not. But as a sys-admin it is hard to get into it since IP based telephony is rarely (if ever) rolled into the sys admin areas. And you can't easily set up a lab at home.

^^^ ASTERISK ^^^ Now you are correct about a CCM, that is a little harder to get experience if you don't have one at home.

Ooh and hello, FIRST POST!!!!

Interesting.

Welcome to the forum.

Is Asterisk a good representation of the duties of the typical voice guy?

coffeeking

Thanx for your input guys. I am just getting in the Cisco world and am not sure which way I will be asked to go at my new job. CCNA off course is the start, but CCSP is something I personally want to have under my belt.

liven

Mishra wrote:

Luckycharms wrote:

Mishra wrote:

dynamik wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

I've always wanted to get my hands a LITTLE dirty in voice just to see if I really like it or not. But as a sys-admin it is hard to get into it since IP based telephony is rarely (if ever) rolled into the sys admin areas. And you can't easily set up a lab at home.

^^^ ASTERISK ^^^ Now you are correct about a CCM, that is a little harder to get experience if you don't have one at home.

Ooh and hello, FIRST POST!!!!

Interesting.

Welcome to the forum.

Is Asterisk a good representation of the duties of the typical voice guy?

Well I don't know what a typical voice guy does. But I admined an ASTERSIK system. Developed a custom deployment system, and setup phones in 2 buildings. Tied the ASTERISK box into the traditional PBX. We had phones working building to building, building out thorugh the pbx, in through the pbx to the asterisks voip phones, and even voip to voip over seas.

I guess you could call that the typical duties of a typcial voice guy. Although we didn't do just voice.

Luckycharms

Mishra wrote:

Luckycharms wrote:

Mishra wrote:

dynamik wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on your background as well. For example, the voice track would definitely be the most foreign to me while someone with telephony experience would probably pick it up quickly.

I've always wanted to get my hands a LITTLE dirty in voice just to see if I really like it or not. But as a sys-admin it is hard to get into it since IP based telephony is rarely (if ever) rolled into the sys admin areas. And you can't easily set up a lab at home.

^^^ ASTERISK ^^^ Now you are correct about a CCM, that is a little harder to get experience if you don't have one at home.

Ooh and hello, FIRST POST!!!!

Interesting.

Welcome to the forum.

Is Asterisk a good representation of the duties of the typical voice guy?

That depends on your interpretation of a voice guy. Deployment or Management?? But just building an Asterisk box will give you some baseline knowledge of some of the key components in a voice network. SIP/MGCP architectures ... ( Don't think Asterisk supports MGCP though.) Gateway/Gatekeeper , etc.... its a place to start and Asterisk is open source and support is very good...

Personally, I have both at the house ( Asterisk, CCM ) Both have pro's and cons but that is for another thread...