Best way into the IT field

reaver84

Well, I'm new, so I'm glad to finally post something! I really like what I see coming out of these boards. You all seem like good folk.

Anyways, I've been working with Alienware for over 4 years. I started off as Level 2 support helping call center techs with escalation/tech issues. I moved over to a Government/Corporate support for about a year until I became a Critical Issue agent working with VIP customers and doing everything to satisfy. All these positions held technical support and working closely with depots and product engineers.

After my stint at Critical Issues, I decide to get my A+ and took/passed the Essentials and IT Tech exam on first tries. That was in April. At this time, I'm about 60% through my Network+ studying and I hope to take the exam in about 2 weeks. After this, I'm curious where to go next. I've been suggested to go CCNA.

What I'm really trying to accomplish though is to stray from the Customer Service roles I've had and go straight to IT support within a company, helping corporate clients. This seems difficult at times because I'm still pursuing my AS in Computer IT. I should be done by Summer 2009.

So here are my questions. What are your takes on MCDST, MCSA and CCNA. I'm contemplating MCDST after the Network+

Thanks guys, hope to hear good stuff.

-James

IT Man

Well reaver84, welcome to the site!! Well, while I don't have a MCDST, it seems like it is along the lines of the A+ but just geared towards Microsoft. I am not saying its a bad cert to have, but I can't see how it could get you off the helpdesk. If you are trying to get off the support role, I would recommend going either with the CCNA or MCSA/E. Which one would depend on which direction you want to go in. You really can't go wrong with either decision being that both companies are major players in the IT world.

Turgon

reaver84 wrote:

Well, I'm new, so I'm glad to finally post something! I really like what I see coming out of these boards. You all seem like good folk.

Anyways, I've been working with Alienware for over 4 years. I started off as Level 2 support helping call center techs with escalation/tech issues. I moved over to a Government/Corporate support for about a year until I became a Critical Issue agent working with VIP customers and doing everything to satisfy. All these positions held technical support and working closely with depots and product engineers.

After my stint at Critical Issues, I decide to get my A+ and took/passed the Essentials and IT Tech exam on first tries. That was in April. At this time, I'm about 60% through my Network+ studying and I hope to take the exam in about 2 weeks. After this, I'm curious where to go next. I've been suggested to go CCNA.

What I'm really trying to accomplish though is to stray from the Customer Service roles I've had and go straight to IT support within a company, helping corporate clients. This seems difficult at times because I'm still pursuing my AS in Computer IT. I should be done by Summer 2009.

So here are my questions. What are your takes on MCDST, MCSA and CCNA. I'm contemplating MCDST after the Network+

Thanks guys, hope to hear good stuff.

-James

The customer facing stuff will help you, and any awareness of how technical support is carried out even if you haven't been directly configuring solutions to problems yourself. Try the buddy network first to see if you can get in somewhere where you have a headstart. Failing that, go for a grunt job in a department where you get access to infrastructure to support. Sometimes the SMEs are good for this because you tend to get more hands on and exposure to everything. Immerse yourself in all the problems for 12 months. Great experience. I certainly look back on my early years in hands on support and administration as being a terrific grounding. Too many folks skip the grunt and get into design work too early. The insights you get in support are priceless later on particularly today where people want multiskilled designers with end to end project management skills to get the datacentre designed, built, migrated, colocated..whatever. You just cant anticipate the problems there without some first hand insights!

Push on for MCSA/L+/SCSA/CCNA after N+

Good luck!

TechJunky

From the sounds of it, if you are trying to get away from customer support then you should take the Cisco route. Cisco guys typically sit in a cube all day monitoring alarms and such and very rarely deal with "customers". They are typically dealing with System Administrators from other companies networks that you manage.

The thing I liked about the Cisco track was you could study all the time because nothing really happens on a well configured network. Most of the problems occur with applications now adays, not the networking equipment.

I am a Systems Administrator and our company's core problems are with the database applications and regular day to day helpdesk stuff. The system pretty much runs itself otherwise. To give you an example, daily our helpdesk handles about 250 tickets.

So to get to top where you dont have to deal with customer support it takes many years or really good paper behind your name on the Windows side of things.

networker050184

TechJunky wrote:

From the sounds of it, if you are trying to get away from customer support then you should take the Cisco route. Cisco guys typically sit in a cube all day monitoring alarms and such and very rarely deal with "customers". They are typically dealing with System Administrators from other companies networks that you manage.

The thing I liked about the Cisco track was you could study all the time because nothing really happens on a well configured network. Most of the problems occur with applications now adays, not the networking equipment.

Spoken like a true sys admin

I wish it worked that way. I'd have a few CCIE's by now if I got to study all day

Daniel333

Ha, "this job would be great if it wasn't for the customers"

Sounds like you have a great foothold into the industry, don't spend too much time on Comptia though. Comptia won't get you paid.

Get into the vendor specific exams from Microsoft, Cisco or RedHat.

Example -
CCENT >> CCNA >> CCNP

TechJunky

Heh, then how come when I contact the managed services side of things they always say its our application...

We all know its one big goat rope. When I worked for an ISP on the managed service side of things we very rarily had problems that were caused by the actual config. Maybe replace cards, or upgrade equipment... But the actual links never really seemed to have problems unless someone was messing with it.

My brother has stuck with the Data side of things and he very rarily complains about outages due to networking equipment. Usually if the hardware is setup correctly the first time around it works just fine. With networking equipment you are generally using a typical IOS and a standard config and dont have to deal with the applications causing problems with your config.

IE: Windows updates, Patches etc.

Im not saying each doesnt have it's own problems. I am just stating if you work in a typical cisco environment then you dont have all the other problems.

You could counter and say that well, denpending on users on a network node it could cause slow traffic blah blah, but really that is the same as windows servers gettting overloaded. Again, I was referring to the environment differences, not how one has to do more than the other or vise versa. Just trying to give him some insight on the "basic" differences.

When I worked for an ISP and a contacting company configuring/installing cisco equipment I could count on my hand how many times someone asked me to fix their cisco pix or ASA because it wasn't setup properly and how crappy it worked. That was generally saved for the windows guys and how crappy their email was etc.

reaver84

THanks for the great advice so far. Another question I had brewing was:

In terms of study cost, I'm under the impressions that Cisco certifications require a lot of hands on experience or simulation software. I'm more of a hands on guy myself, so what kind of costs would I be looking at to just achieve my CCNA?

Daniel333

Hands on all the way.

When I did my CCNA I spend about $100 on books, $200 on training DVDs and about $300 on routers, switches and cables. I would recommend spending a little more on equipment if you plan on doing your CCNP down the road. I believe I spent 8 months training myself. But I am the kind of guy who runs every lab at least twice.

Crunchyhippo

reaver84 wrote:

Well, I'm new, so I'm glad to finally post something! I really like what I see coming out of these boards. You all seem like good folk.

Anyways, I've been working with Alienware for over 4 years. I started off as Level 2 support helping call center techs with escalation/tech issues. I moved over to a Government/Corporate support for about a year until I became a Critical Issue agent working with VIP customers and doing everything to satisfy. All these positions held technical support and working closely with depots and product engineers.

After my stint at Critical Issues, I decide to get my A+ and took/passed the Essentials and IT Tech exam on first tries. That was in April. At this time, I'm about 60% through my Network+ studying and I hope to take the exam in about 2 weeks. After this, I'm curious where to go next. I've been suggested to go CCNA.

What I'm really trying to accomplish though is to stray from the Customer Service roles I've had and go straight to IT support within a company, helping corporate clients. This seems difficult at times because I'm still pursuing my AS in Computer IT. I should be done by Summer 2009.

So here are my questions. What are your takes on MCDST, MCSA and CCNA. I'm contemplating MCDST after the Network+

Thanks guys, hope to hear good stuff.

-James

Forget the certifications for right now - get some experience in networking somewhere, even if it means volunteering. Experience counts for about 95%, certs for about 5% as far as entry level. Once you get experience, absolutely, get some certs. Sure, you may luck out and get a job with only certs, but unless you have some real-world networking experience, most employers will just bypass your resume.

Turgon

networker050184 wrote:

TechJunky wrote:

From the sounds of it, if you are trying to get away from customer support then you should take the Cisco route. Cisco guys typically sit in a cube all day monitoring alarms and such and very rarely deal with "customers". They are typically dealing with System Administrators from other companies networks that you manage.

The thing I liked about the Cisco track was you could study all the time because nothing really happens on a well configured network. Most of the problems occur with applications now adays, not the networking equipment.

Spoken like a true sys admin

I wish it worked that way. I'd have a few CCIE's by now if I got to study all day

hehehhe..me too! Mind you I only do occasional 4th line support these days. Designing network solutions to meet customer requirements takes up all my time at work.

Forsaken_GA

networker050184 wrote:

I wish it worked that way. I'd have a few CCIE's by now if I got to study all day

Heh, no kidding. And even if the network isn't going haywire, there always seems to be some cable that needs to be run....

gojericho0

Forsaken_GA wrote:

networker050184 wrote:

I wish it worked that way. I'd have a few CCIE's by now if I got to study all day

Heh, no kidding. And even if the network isn't going haywire, there always seems to be some cable that needs to be run....

Not only that, but there is always something to improve