Being stuck on a vendor, good or bad?

I've been putting a lot of thought into how my "cert resume" looks lately.

As you can tell from my signature, everything I have is MS besides Server+, which is almost pointless anyway.

Im starting to wonder if im hurting myself by being certified on basically 1 vendor, but the problem is two fold. I want to be VERY good at MS stuff like AD, Exchange, Hyper-V. I have a very solid foundation on MS deployment technologies, and I'd like to be pretty knowledgeable at other things like SQL Server, Sharepoint, SCOM, SCCM, SCDPM, Dynamics etc.

What annoys me though is that as soon as I start to learn one product, the new version comes out and I feel like im way behind. I had Exchange 2007 on my list of things to learn and bam here comes 2010. I get very proficient with 2008 and here comes the R2 train. While I realize and understand that technology evolves at a exponential rate, I also feel like I dont physically have the time to learn everything I want to learn before new versions come out and change the game.

This doesn't even get into the fact that i'd like to pursue a few other things like CCNA:S, CISSP, VCP, etc.

I know you can make good money being extraordinarily good at a couple of things, and you can make good money just having certs and knowledge of one vendor (think Heropsycho as an MS consultant, or Mikej with all his Cisco prowess).

I just don't feel like I can absorb all i need to absorb in the short time between product releases, but because there are that many products. Am I spreading myself too thin, even though I focus on one vendor? Is it even reasonable to think that I should or could be very knowledgeable on the entire SC suite, plus databasing, plus system administration, plus collaboration, etc etc?

I've only been working fulltime in the industry for 3 years, and im just 25. I am doing jobs that I know some people twice my age are trying to figure out how to get into, and im very thankful and proud of myself for what I have done...but I can't help but contemplate how do i get to the "next level".

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Comments

astorrs

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Am I spreading myself too thin, even though I focus on one vendor? Is it even reasonable to think that I should or could be very knowledgeable on the entire SC suite, plus databasing, plus system administration, plus collaboration, etc etc?

Basically yes. Although it is very good to have an understanding of those technologies, you can't possibly hope to really excel in more than one or two of them at a time.

Maybe think of it like this, you can speak all those languages, but you can only teach one or two of them.

Daniel333

Nothing wrong with a specialization in Microsoft. As long as that is what you do at work. I mean, no sense in certifying up with things you don't touch.

You might want to consider your target in the long run... 2-3 years from now to achive high level specializations. Not just MCSE/ITP style cert but Microsoft Certifed Master. etc etc

Comes down to where you see yourself in the next 3-5years. If you see yourself in networking it might be time to let your Exchange 2010 cert slide in favor of a CCNA. You can't do them all

chrisone

I agree with everyones statements in how you CANNOT do everything. One cannot be a programmer, server engineer , network engineer, and a voice engineer. There is not enough money in the world to pay me to do such work , let alone suffer the pressures of doing all tasks. I would never deteriorate my body under such stressful conditions for money!

Hyper-Me

MS stuff is definitely my forte and where I will be staying for quite some time. But there is still an extremely wide array of products and fields that are still MS.

If you think about it, you really have to be knowledgeable on a LOT of fronts to successfully manage an entire MS environment.

You have to know AD.
Likely youll have to know Exchange
Youll need to know networking, due to setting up certain things like AD sites, exchange configurations, etc.
Youll need to know any management tools you use like System Center stuff
The SC suite utilizes SQL databases so you have to know how to manage those as well.

You can't just know peices or parts and hope to succeed. I guess the real challenge is differentiating between what you need to be an expert on and what you simply need to have some knowledge on to get by.

networker050184

I don't think there is an issue getting certified on one vendor. I do however think its a bad thing to only learn one vendors stuff, you just don't have to get certified in every little technology you study up on. The higher up you get you will realize people are more specialized and don't really wander over to other areas often. Where I work everything is done on a project basis and there is an SME assigned for each area, systems, network, capacity, ordering etc. You take care of your part and work with the others to ensure it all fits together nicely. There aren't any projects where one person or team completes everything. In smaller environments one person may wear all the hats, but thats not where the money or the really cool technologies are.

Hyper-Me

networker050184 wrote: »

I don't think there is an issue getting certified on one vendor. I do however think its a bad thing to only learn one vendors stuff, you just don't have to get certified in every little technology you study up on. The higher up you get you will realize people are more specialized and don't really wander over to other areas often. Where I work everything is done on a project basis and there is an SME assigned for each area, systems, network, capacity, ordering etc. You take care of your part and work with the others to ensure it all fits together nicely. There aren't any projects where one person or team completes everything. In smaller environments one person may wear all the hats, but thats not where the money or the really cool technologies are.

My experiences have been somewhat different, but I worked for a school system for a long time. There I designed a massive AD for them, began work on designing a new email system, I oversaw the installation of a new data center and migration of another departments equipment into the facility, I had to help every other IT sub department and other full departments design solutions for their technological needs. I wore all the hats while trying to hold together a 60,000 user domain with 1 other guy on my team. I felt like I had to know everything about everything or else I'd look like an idiot. Perhaps its that environment thats soured my thinking on the matter.

SrSysAdmin

Hyper-Me wrote: »

My experiences have been somewhat different, but I worked for a school system for a long time. There I designed a massive AD for them, began work on designing a new email system, I oversaw the installation of a new data center and migration of another departments equipment into the facility, I had to help every other IT sub department and other full departments design solutions for their technological needs. I wore all the hats while trying to hold together a 60,000 user domain with 1 other guy on my team. I felt like I had to know everything about everything or else I'd look like an idiot. Perhaps its that environment thats soured my thinking on the matter.

I guess it comes down to personal preference, but if I had that kind of experience and knowledge I think I would be looking to get into management rather than pigeon-holing myself into certain technologies.

If you want to stay more technical, then as others have said, you are best off to get higher level certs in a specific field. There is much better money in being the master of a trade or two than a jack of all trades and master of none.

UnixGuy

I'm in the same boat...but Sun (Oracle) instead of MS....

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I've been putting a lot of thought into how my "cert resume" looks lately.

As you can tell from my signature, everything I have is MS besides Server+, which is almost pointless anyway.

Im starting to wonder if im hurting myself by being certified on basically 1 vendor, but the problem is two fold. I want to be VERY good at MS stuff like AD, Exchange, Hyper-V. I have a very solid foundation on MS deployment technologies, and I'd like to be pretty knowledgeable at other things like SQL Server, Sharepoint, SCOM, SCCM, SCDPM, Dynamics etc.

What annoys me though is that as soon as I start to learn one product, the new version comes out and I feel like im way behind. I had Exchange 2007 on my list of things to learn and bam here comes 2010. I get very proficient with 2008 and here comes the R2 train. While I realize and understand that technology evolves at a exponential rate, I also feel like I dont physically have the time to learn everything I want to learn before new versions come out and change the game.

This doesn't even get into the fact that i'd like to pursue a few other things like CCNA:S, CISSP, VCP, etc.

I know you can make good money being extraordinarily good at a couple of things, and you can make good money just having certs and knowledge of one vendor (think Heropsycho as an MS consultant, or Mikej with all his Cisco prowess).

I just don't feel like I can absorb all i need to absorb in the short time between product releases, but because there are that many products. Am I spreading myself too thin, even though I focus on one vendor? Is it even reasonable to think that I should or could be very knowledgeable on the entire SC suite, plus databasing, plus system administration, plus collaboration, etc etc?

I've only been working fulltime in the industry for 3 years, and im just 25. I am doing jobs that I know some people twice my age are trying to figure out how to get into, and im very thankful and proud of myself for what I have done...but I can't help but contemplate how do i get to the "next level".

veritas_libertas

networker050184 wrote: »

I don't think there is an issue getting certified on one vendor. I do however think its a bad thing to only learn one vendors stuff, you just don't have to get certified in every little technology you study up on. The higher up you get you will realize people are more specialized and don't really wander over to other areas often. Where I work everything is done on a project basis and there is an SME assigned for each area, systems, network, capacity, ordering etc. You take care of your part and work with the others to ensure it all fits together nicely. There aren't any projects where one person or team completes everything. In smaller environments one person may wear all the hats, but thats not where the money or the really cool technologies are.

+1, specialization is where the money is at. There is nothing wrong with this. If you have done mostly Cisco, Microsoft, or Linux and are certified in that area exclusively you have a much better chance IMHO. As Networker said that does not mean you have to be stupid in all other areas, and does not mean you can't be certified in another area to some extent.

My plan is to mostly certified in one area and be certified a little bit in other areas to be well rounded. I don't want to look certification Christmas tree though

jnwdmb

Very Interesting to hear peoples opinions on this subject.........

eMeS

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with being focused on one vendor. We all have to choose which horse we want to ride. Those that don't choose a horse often get left on the banks of the river. I definitely don't try to ride every horse, but I do keep many different saddles in the barn should I need them.....

I do understand your point though. To be successful in today's market we all also have to be somewhat muti-disciplinary.

One of the most useful things I ever heard from an HR person I will pass on here. It was the concept a visualizing your career capabilities as a "T".

Basically, the thinking goes, you want to know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about 1 or 2 specific areas. Those specific areas are the leg(s) of the "T". For example, your general areas might be all Microsoft technology, with specific focus on Exchange and Virtualization.

The truth of the matter is that the composition of your "T" will change many times throughout your career. At this point the top of the "T" becomes wider and in places deeper, and your specialization might change something different based on market demands, etc.. When I first became involved in ITIL-related work, around 10 years ago, I would have said that the depth in my "T" was in various forms of systems automation, specifically with a couple of product lines. Now, ten years later I'm specialized in totally different areas. Ten years before that things were different too...

MS

Claymoore

eMeS wrote: »

One of the most useful things I ever heard from an HR person I will pass on here. It was the concept a visualizing your career capabilities as a "T".

Basically, the thinking goes, you want to know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about 1 or 2 specific areas. Those specific areas are the leg(s) of the "T". For example, your general areas might be all Microsoft technology, with specific focus on Exchange and Virtualization.

MS

I agree with MS here, and I recommend that the jot of the 'T' should support your primary specializations. I often use Exchange as an example of one of the highest Microsoft disciplines because of what else you have to understand in order to be a great Exchange admin - AD, virtualization, switching, routing, storage, plus client OS and general server administration are almost necessary.

For example, one of my clients was having a weird error on their Exchange 2007 deployment where Outlook would continually prompt them for authentication. After troubleshooting for a while I discovered the series of events that caused the problem. The virtual CAS servers were in a Network Load Balanced cluster, and they were originally set up on the same host in Unicast mode. The client later decided to separate the virtual servers to separate hosts and they changed the NLB mode to multicast to avoid flooding the switch. Rather than implement IGMP snooping on the switches, they decided to statically map the MAC address to the host ports - only they missed a couple of the ports in the VMware trunks/etherchannels. Outlook would be unable to communicate over the normal connection because of the missed MAC entries and would fail back to using RPC over HTTPs (Outlook Anywhere). The URL for the Outlook anywhere site was not correctly defined as being in the Intranet zone, so Windows would not automatically pass the user credentials and would prompt for credentials instead. Fixing the static MAC entries solved the problem, but I had to convince a very reluctant networking team that they needed to make a change (thus implying they screwed up the first time). Solving the problem required knowledge of Exchange, VMWare, NLB, Cisco switching and IIS. Relying on the client's teams for that knowledge would have meant many days of finger pointing instead of fixing the problem.

mikej412

eMeS wrote: »

Those that don't choose a horse often get left on the banks of the river.

Every year I look at what I'm doing and ask myself if it will still be relevant in 2 years. When my IBM horse started getting tired because of all the outsourcing, I shifted to my Cisco horse. Yet it was my IBM Horse that brought me to my current contract (outsourced project gone bad) and the Cisco horse that's kept me here.

Hyper-Me

I think my problem is that, while trying to gain some knowledge on other topics my "focus" topics change. Then I start updaing the focus topics and the dozens of other technologies leap versions and it starts all over again.

While, to be honest, I don't care about databasing, I feel like if i dont learn some SQL maintenance skills that I cant properly support applications that use it. That same thing applies to many things.

I guess i just dont feel like I have the time to spread the top of the "T" out as much as I think it needs to be, while at the same time extending the leg of the "T".

chrisone

not bad if the vendor is doing really great and there is high demand for workers that have knowledge and skills in the vendor specific product.

SrSysAdmin

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I think my problem is that, while trying to gain some knowledge on other topics my "focus" topics change. Then I start updaing the focus topics and the dozens of other technologies leap versions and it starts all over again.

While, to be honest, I don't care about databasing, I feel like if i dont learn some SQL maintenance skills that I cant properly support applications that use it. That same thing applies to many things.

I guess i just dont feel like I have the time to spread the top of the "T" out as much as I think it needs to be, while at the same time extending the leg of the "T".

I work for a smallish company and get to do a ton of different things like yourself. However, the reality is that most larger companies aren't setup so that you have to be amazing with a bunch of different things. Once you start working at companies with say 500+ employees that's just not the way it is.

eMeS

mikej412 wrote: »

Every year I look at what I'm doing and ask myself if it will still be relevant in 2 years. When my IBM horse started getting tired because of all the outsourcing, I shifted to my Cisco horse. Yet it was my IBM Horse that brought me to my current contract (outsourced project gone bad) and the Cisco horse that's kept me here.

Everyone knows that Cisco junk won't be relevant in 1 year, much less 2!

Seriously though, as far as I can tell this is how it works. The horse that you're riding today probably won't be the horse that you're riding in a few years. Get in, make your money and get out; early if possible.

If you enjoy amusing yourself as much as I do, head on over to the ITIL Discussion groups on LinkedIn and throw in a grenade such as this: "like all of these things we've seen before, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, etc.., there will be something that comes along within 5-10 years that supplants ITIL as the new organizational paradigm."

People who should, by all accounts and experience, know better, totally go into a tailspin with things like that....

MS

AlexMR

Very nice posts in this thread!!

I am trying to get a job in the Cisco field in my country. I havent found it. I thought i needed some diversification mostly because of my non-IT background, but then I decided that I wanted to do Cisco and I was going to do that. I am studying a lot and I think I will be another CCNP without related experience in 3-4 months. I got some MS training material and I fell in love with it (2k8 AD and network infrastructure) , and I know I will eventually learn and probably get a few Server certifications but at this point I will stick to Cisco.

My path is going to be CCNP and then probably DA and DP, to later move to IP. The IE R/S is the final destination at this poiint. I might be aiming above my head but Im decided and determined. In all my professional life Ive been too sspread and while it helps you get a lot of low and mid level jobs, it is hard to move to the point where you are a real influence in the big game being this way, without being a master of something. The only good thing about my background and education is that it generally makes outstanding general managers. The problem is that without the focus as i said it is really hard to get to that level...

I think OP has selected the best vendor there is if you want to be exclusively with one. Microsoft is everywhere and that is not going to change in the short term. If i were you I'd pick maybe the CCNA because it really complements all the things you work on, and then move on and aim for the MCM or whatever other MS certifications you are interested. The world wont be in a surplus of Microsoft gurus because the demand for their products is simply incredible. In my country there is only one Cisco Gold partner and like 17 Microsoft ones. A Senior DBA told me that if my efforts would have gone to training in Microsoft I would have been working in the field a long time ago.

You should be proud of yourself, OP! Great job!