Network Engineer or Network Administrator role?

malcybood

Interested in fellow network professionals views on their preferred role, a network engineer or network administrator?

Having worked with/as both job roles I'm undecided which would be my preference if I had the choice as they each have their pro's/cons.

This is my take on the differentiation between the roles

Network Engineer
Work for an ISP or managed services company
Deal with on a daily basis with one or two specialised areas of the folowing example; Core networks, MPLS edge, security / firewalls / loadbalancers, VoIP, LAN
Working on lots of different company networks in your specialism
Easier to gain certification in a specialist concentration such as CCIP, CCIE etc
Longer hours and higher likelyhood of shift work (paid overtime / shift allowance more likely though)

Network Administrator
Administer a large private or public sector company's network
Usually responsible for larger variety of technology LAN (not servers), WAN, Security, VoIP, Load balancers
Exposure to troubleshooting more variation of technologies all be it not in the same depth of specialisation / expertise as a Network Eng.
Investigation of new technologies to suit your specific business needs and implementing (project work)
Usually no overtime, but may get days in lieu

Would like to hear some others thoughts on this topic?

Cheers
Malc

networker050184

Sounds about right IMO.

I used to work more in what you describe as the administrators role but my tittle was Analyst so I wouldn't really get caught up in the titles.

Now I'm doing pretty much what you have for the engineer role and it matches my tittle this time.

I really enjoyed working on one network for a while but eventually it started to get old. That is one of the main reasons I decided to move on to a role with an ISP. I'm working in a different scenario every day and it keeps things fresh. The only thing that gets me some times is that you have to learn a new network everyday and you usually do not have access to every part of the customers or service providers network so it can get frustrating at times to troubleshoot just a piece of the puzzle with not much insight into the rest of the pieces. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side!

malcybood

yeah I'm not too bothered about job titles, they were more generic to differentiate between the 2 different working "styles and responsibilities" I guess.

My official job title is system administrator, however so is everyone in the intranet, application, business intelligence and server support teams. They wanted to keep standardised job titles throughout the systems teams. So I administer the LAN, WAN & VoIP system and have the same job title as the guys who administer the ERP applications lol

I know from dealing with our ISP it can be frustrating when you phone the NOC and ask them to perform a "no shut" command on a newly commissioned site's LAN interface and they advise they do not have the rights :P

The other one is where we have configured the ADSL CPE routers as per our standard config and there are no routes on the RADIUS server for that particular LAN subnet ans it has to go to the team who administers the RADIUS, provisioning do not have the rights and it has to go through change control blah blah you catch the drift!

Anyway thanks for the insight and comments

empc4000xl

I'll take the 1st 1

I like working on different technologies. I'm mainly VOIP, but I get to touch a lot of different things. My main concern is that i'm not able to do much OS related stuff, I wish I could do.

nel

i can see where networker050184 comes from when he has limited access but its the same at our place but the other way round for me - we are moving alot of our connections over to managed solutions and now i cannot even touch the devices. it annoys the hell out of me because i have no idea whats goin on with those devices. i havent even got a config of the things. drives me mad ...however i can see where my job role is heading eventually i guess...in the bin ...is anyone else work moving to these solutions?

As for the original post i would like to work in the administration role initially then move into the engineer role and working on more "high end stuff".

networker050184

A lot of the sites I work with do not have any IT staff on site. You have to wait until they can get their one IT guy there from a corporate office and then he usually doesn't know much anyway. It gets frustrating, but what can you do? Most companies do not have the need for on site IT support when most things can be done remotely these days. At least that is what they think until something goes down and there is no remote access....

I think the role of engineer is a much safer career choice than an administrator in the world of networking.

Just my $.02

empc4000xl

networker050184 wrote:

A lot of the sites I work with do not have any IT staff on site. You have to wait until they can get their one IT guy there from a corporate office and then he usually doesn't know much anyway. It gets frustrating, but what can you do? Most companies do not have the need for on site IT support when most things can be done remotely these days. At least that is what they think until something goes down and there is no remote access....

I think the role of engineer is a much safer career choice than an administrator in the world of networking.

Just my $.02

That is the way we are headed right now. Unless you work for a Large corp. Most small to medium sized places have it all contracted out. The large places usually prefer to do it in house, but rest assured some of them will eventually start to move it out also.

RATTLERMAN

I agree with alot of the posts.

What do you all think of managed service providers. They way things are going if you cant beat them join them.

I have intervied with a couple here in atlanta. The business model makes sense but something
just doesnt feel right.

UnixGuy

I think the role of engineer is much better. You have just said that working as an engineer, you will see much more networks, this means more exposure, you will learn faster, and you will definitely get more experience in shorter time.

But there's a catch here, it depends on where you work. If your company has a lot of customers with big sites, then it's for your own good. Otherwise it can be really frustrating if you only do small things.

Also, for Administration jobs, it depends on the site and the responsibilities given to you.


so roughly speaking, the engineer role should be more useful, as with the experience you get you should be able to do both engineering and administration, but not the other way around, because the admin (generally speaking) have experience only in the things he is administering.

UnixGuy

RATTLERMAN wrote:

I agree with alot of the posts.

What do you all think of managed service providers. They way things are going if you cant beat them join them.

I have intervied with a couple here in atlanta. The business model makes sense but something
just doesnt feel right.

well it depends. I know many MANY NOCs, Managed services, system admins that "manage" UNIX servers without actually knowing anything about the hardware or the OS in use. They have monitoring softwares and whenever the server "sneezes" they call us. This is where we come in play. They do the easy things usually.

Whenever there's a project, big implementation or serious upgrade, then managed services "monitoring" experience is useless.

But again, it depends on the team. I've seen many good experienced people, but they're few in UNIX world. In Microsoft/Cisco, yes I've seen a lot more experienced people working in managed services, but nonetheless, the Gurus were ALL field engineers/Architects.

malcybood

UnixGuy wrote:

I agree with alot of the posts.

What do you all think of managed service providers. They way things are going if you cant beat them join them.

I have intervied with a couple here in atlanta. The business model makes sense but something
just doesnt feel right.

I agree it's a double edged sword.

Taking away the operational day to day monitoring, software upgrades and configuration changes sounds very appealing to companyies, however in my experience it depends very much on the provider and their internal processes.

I've been in several situations where we have assigned basic configuration or upgrade tasks to service providers and the general consenscous is "i'd be quicker/better doing it myself".

I think in an ideal world (dependant on your business requirements and internal technical skill sets) you would outsource network monitoring but keep the rest in house i.e. configuration changes etc. As long as change management is in place which would keep the SP aware of any topology or config changes I don't see an issue other than the SP's losing £££££ on the managed service contract.

If expertise was required for complex configuration or moves/adds/changes, that's the time to involve the SP.

A kind of half way house management wrap would be ideal, however I'm talking from the customer side of the fence so I'm sure some ISP techy's & account manager's would disagree

malcybood

RATTLERMAN wrote:

well it depends. I know many MANY NOCs, Managed services, system admins that "manage" UNIX servers without actually knowing anything about the hardware or the OS in use. They have monitoring softwares and whenever the server "sneezes" they call us. This is where we come in play. They do the easy things usually.

+1

RATTLERMAN

It just seems here in atlanta the market is soft if you want anything other than desktop/helpdesk jobs. But i know i will get there one day

nel

Interesting thoughts really. i mean i work for a large company and we are moving all our wan links over. im very dissapointed as it would be great experiance for me and it seems weird as they have created network engineer positions for each division too? i could understand the logic if the skillset isnt there but when we do have it its pretty worrying really.

For those who have worked at places where managed solutions have took over - whats happened next? in terms of job losses, workload etc? i'll be interested to see.

malcybood

nel,

our WAN is a managed service but you still need resource on site and a point of contact to develop the network, identify traffic related issues etc etc.

I'll give you an example of only some of the type of stuff I have done on the WAN rollout project only;

Worked with ISP on detailed design to discuss internal LAN routing protocols and how the HQ MPLS routers would communicate with the LAN
With the ISP designed the policy based routing to enable email traffic to traverse the "backup circuit" to take utilisation off the primary circuit.
Worked with LAN consultants to develop the policy based routing on the core HQ LAN switches
GRE tunnel configuration and MTU issues due to GRE overhead of 24 bytes
WAN kit such as NTE's, overtures (bonds 2 x 2MB into a 4MB circuit)
circuit diversity and different levels
QoS, CoS & policing, policy / class maps etc
per hob behavious and how the CoS is applied to the traffic on routers
mark packets for QoS on application specific traffic (Voice, signalling and ERP application)
Dealt with spanning tree re-design due to having 2 different WAN links
Learned about redundancy configuration and design i.e. HSRP, VRRP
Failover testing, packet captures and checking for DSCP markings correct on voice / app traffic

Now granted I knew how to do alot of this stuff already, I didn't think I would be as involved as I was but you will learn loads depending on how much your company want to involve you in the rollout and ongoing liaison with the SP in developing the network. I was technical lead for the project rollout over a 10 month period, so I know the network inside out, better than the majority of people in their NOC, 2nd and some 3rd line support staff, but as networker said, these guys deal with different customer networks every day so could do with somebody at the customer site knowing right away how it should opearate and what the symptoms of issues suggest.

Since the network was rolled out, we have has a few issues linked to class maps being applied to interfaces incorrectly on the MPLS which caused issues with VoIP signalling (long story) this is only one example, but it took 2 or 3 days of testing etc and it turned out to be related to bandwidth allocation to a policy on the backup link being swamped - we had to fail the site over to backup etc to discover this but done alot of investigative together (not like they went away and came back and said "fixed") work before nailing the issue. I'm talking real complex needle in a haystack issues here but they need knowledge on the SP and the customer sides to bring to timely resolution.

Trust me there is alot to learn even if your network is out to a managed service. Think about the bigger picture than the actual routers on your premesis and try to learn about how the MPLS operates i.e. PE to CPE communication, routing protocols used, classes of service and even down to how the network is subnetted with VLSM /30, /24/ /29 subnet masks, to the LAN addressing etc. Get the account manager or designer's contact details and ask them for detailed design document with configuration templates etc. Ask them for read only access to the routers, they can control what you can "show" etc.

In my opinion, you always need somebody who understands both the business expectations and the technical stuff on the customer side so push for it if you want it.

Stick in
Malc

itdaddy

I will take Network admin job
I bet you get paid almost as much with less headaches! not to be wimp but I bet the NOCs get dumped on and blaimed for everything! I bet a network engineer position is thankless job!
just my 2.3 cents. I have just seen it tooo manytimes. Network engineers get crapped on and blaime for everything on call all the time and well. too many bosses! Network admin is top dog!

nel

Malcolm, thanks for the reply. Thats put it into perspective pretty well indeed.

Its just after me hearing a few horror stories from people within the group you start to wonder, you know?

empc4000xl

itdaddy wrote:

I will take Network admin job
I bet you get paid almost as much with less headaches! not to be wimp but I bet the NOCs get dumped on and blaimed for everything! I bet a network engineer position is thankless job!
just my 2.3 cents. I have just seen it tooo manytimes. Network engineers get crapped on and blaime for everything on call all the time and well. too many bosses! Network admin is top dog!

Yes it is, its always our fault, and we are the jack off all trades master of none, but I prefer it over a network admin, but I would like to move into one of our higher support positions.

nel

i imagine a high end architect position would be immense thats is something i would like to come to one day.

networker050184

nel wrote:

i imagine a high end architect position would be immense thats is something i would like to come to one day.

I hate working with our VoIP architects. They seem to know little to nothing about VoIP
(or networking in general for that matter). One actually asked me what our network marks voice traffic as...... I was like "EF?" thinking it was a trick question. Unfortunately it wasn't and he needed the information to give a customer. Very sad.

nel

networker050184 wrote:

nel wrote:

i imagine a high end architect position would be immense thats is something i would like to come to one day.

I hate working with our VoIP architects. They seem to know little to nothing about VoIP
(or networking in general for that matter). One actually asked me what our network marks voice traffic as...... I was like "EF?" thinking it was a trick question. Unfortunately it wasn't and he needed the information to give a customer. Very sad.

Seriously? i thought you would have to be pretty clued up to reach the top end?

malcybood

networker050184 wrote:

nel wrote:

i imagine a high end architect position would be immense thats is something i would like to come to one day.

I hate working with our VoIP architects. They seem to know little to nothing about VoIP
(or networking in general for that matter). One actually asked me what our network marks voice traffic as...... I was like "EF?" thinking it was a trick question. Unfortunately it wasn't and he needed the information to give a customer. Very sad.

That's awful, you sure he did not mean signalling and not RTP?

Also some providers may re-mark traffic on the CPE if the customer is doing some crazy marking on the LAN switch that doesn't comply with the ISP core network, although probably not for RTP as if you mark it anything other than DSCP 46 (ef) there's a good chance they would be sounding like a dalek over the WAN for VoIP lol

networker050184

Either way he is an architect and should know how the traffic is marked or remarked. I should be the one asking him! I don't blame him though, I blame the person that hired him

itdaddy

empc4000xl

I would actually like network engineering more than network admin but man
I have just seen all the sh&t role to NOC and it kind of pisses me off they have a huge job
and peripheral support doesnt have a clue how much work is involved and well
been sh&t on too much you get tired when noone listens but I would by choice rather be NOC than Net admin any day of the week.

empc4000xl

itdaddy wrote:

empc4000xl

I would actually like network engineering more than network admin but man
I have just seen all the sh&t role to NOC and it kind of pisses me off they have a huge job
and peripheral support doesnt have a clue how much work is involved and well
been sh&t on too much you get tired when noone listens but I would by choice rather be NOC than Net admin any day of the week.

Hopefully I move to engineering in the next 2 years. I want to up as my "my **** is broke" as I can take, then move on to something stable. One key we all can learn is to COA and learn how to maneuver around and "IT politics"

networker050184

itdaddy wrote:

empc4000xl

I would actually like network engineering more than network admin but man
I have just seen all the sh&t role to NOC and it kind of pisses me off they have a huge job
and peripheral support doesnt have a clue how much work is involved and well
been sh&t on too much you get tired when noone listens but I would by choice rather be NOC than Net admin any day of the week.

Just FYI not all engineers work in a NOC. I'm not really fond of the NOC environment. In my experience its mostly techs working a NOC and they would escalate to the engineers for assistance. But tittles differ by organization so one place may call their techs engineers or their engineers techs.

itdaddy

empc4000xl


you are very right IT politics...it sucks but you have to play the games ;)good luck man sounds like you are going to do great for yourself..

ITdude

networker050184 wrote:

nel wrote:

i imagine a high end architect position would be immense thats is something i would like to come to one day.

I hate working with our VoIP architects. They seem to know little to nothing about VoIP
(or networking in general for that matter). One actually asked me what our network marks voice traffic as...... I was like "EF?" thinking it was a trick question. Unfortunately it wasn't and he needed the information to give a customer. Very sad.

Maybe you just should have said (46) for kicks, to see what his reaction might be.