Staying ahead of the Curve

buchatech

We all know about the standard most popular certs. What about staying ahead of the curve in IT? What certs/new up and coming technologies do you want to get certified in? What is your plan for staying ahead of the curve?

In your opinion what do you think is the next wave? What are companies introducing into their environments?

Me I am interested in load balancing and application delivery network devices. With more and more applications going web based this will continue to grow. Storage solutions, Web based applications, high availability, and virtualization are some of the few that utilize application delivery and Load balancing technology. Some certs I am interest in are the not so popular ISA and F5 devices. F5 actually offers a certification track: http://www.f5.com/training-support/certification/ and you can take the exams at Prometric.

Some other technologies that I think are hot and on the rise are, Virtualization off course, Unified Communications, Content Management Systems such as (SharePoint, Joomla, & Drupal), NAS/SAN/storage solutions a huge skill to have.

What is your game plan?

dynamik

Virtualization, storage, VOIP, and security (always and forever) seem to be popular now.

buchatech

dynamik wrote: »

Virtualization, storage, VOIP, and security (always and forever) seem to be popular now.

Any good certs to have out there on VOIP and storage?

dynamik

CCVP is probably the most popular for VOIP, but other vendors probably offer certifications for their respective products as well. For vendor-neutral storage, check out SNIA. Otherwise, EMC and other vendors offer certs as well (those are the ones you'd want to get).

Paul Boz

I'm going to keep working on security certifications. I'm going to get started on the GPEN tomorrow or Friday.

dynamik

Paul Boz wrote: »

I'm going to get started on the GPEN tomorrow or Friday.

*drools*

Paul Boz

dynamik wrote: »

*drools*

I do a lot of pen testing so it will really help me out. Three of my co workers are working on the GPEN right now. One of our former co workers is actually doing a mentor program for them. I prefer to self study so I am going that route.

buchatech

dynamik wrote: »

CCVP is probably the most popular for VOIP, but other vendors probably offer certifications for their respective products as well. For vendor-neutral storage, check out SNIA. Otherwise, EMC and other vendors offer certs as well (those are the ones you'd want to get).

I here of EMC all the time. I have not had the chance to work with any of their solutions.
WHat certs do they have?

buchatech

Paul Boz wrote: »

I'm going to keep working on security certifications. I'm going to get started on the GPEN tomorrow or Friday.

Security is a good space and will not be going anywhere. What is GPEN? I am not familiar with it.

Paul Boz

buchatech wrote: »

Security is a good space and will not be going anywhere. What is GPEN? I am not familiar with it.

GIAC Certified Penetration Tester

GIAC Certified Penetration Tester (GPEN)

It's a pretty hot topic right now so they're jacking the price of their courses through the roof. They're up to like $4000 for the on demand training, books, and the exam itself. Thank god I have a company training budget!