Small/Med Business VS Large Enterprise

Which do you prefer. I have worked both and I see things move much slower in the large enterprise world, but I also see them always buying the latest and greatest of the high end gear and having there own WAN's. The Change request and management process get on my nerves, but it serves a function

Small Med business. You can often implement changes much faster. You have much larger control over the network. You even get things like admin access to you own PC(this is critical) and you are often allowed to work from home and you are a jack of all trades master of none.

Which do you prefer. I got offered a job, but haven't taken it yet which is with a 20,000 user network which will be getting a VOIP and wireless setup in the future. Also there is a Cisco Partner who focuses on the small/med business. There largest customer has only 26 sites. But I will get to touch a lot of different products and setup a lot of new implementations. The only downside is no BGP/MPLS. No in depth routing. I kinda have my mind made up, but what do most of you like?

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HeroPsycho

Enterprise. I love money.

mikej412

shodown wrote: »

Which do you prefer. I got offered a job, but haven't taken it yet which is with a 20,000 user network which will be getting a VOIP and wireless setup in the future. Also there is a Cisco Partner who focuses on the small/med business. There largest customer has only 26 sites. But I will get to touch a lot of different products and setup a lot of new implementations.

You'd probably get more experience with a Business Partner. As long as they have an effective sales force and you're getting the job done you should be making them a lot more money than you cost -- so you should make more money than an Enterprise job.

In an Enterprise -- unless you're providing billable services to the Enterprise's customers -- you may watch the outside vendors come in and do the glamor work, which you only get to touch after it's installed and configured. And at an Enterprise, you're just an expense to be cut when the executives need to "earn" their bonus.

And it's even possible that you could get in some small Voice and Wireless installs and support experience at this SMB Business Partner, change to a larger Business Partner and wind up being part of the team that Enterprise calls in when they finally get around to implementing VoIP & Wireless.

shodown

I forgo to add for the large customer I'm actually working for a defense contractor who bills out services to this large customer. They have there own network ops that supports the network. I will be on there WAN Team deploying services through there enterprise. So in a essence they have there own support group. I will be doing Upgrades and updates. I don't know how much it entails, but my interview was extensive on STP, BGP and OSPF. Job details were kept kinda mute.

rsutton

The last large company I worked for was about 120,000 employees and all the serious tech work was contracted out. I spent more time doing paperwork than I did doing things technical in nature. That was why I left, now I work for a 100 employee company doing sys admin, net admin, DBA etc. and I love it.

HeroPsycho

mikej412 wrote: »

In an Enterprise -- unless you're providing billable services to the Enterprise's customers -- you may watch the outside vendors come in and do the glamor work, which you only get to touch after it's installed and configured.

Did I mention I'm a contractor?

NinjaBoy

shodown wrote: »

Which do you prefer...

To be honest, for me it's not a case of SMB vs Enterprise class organisations, it's the work environment. I've worked in a variety of companies (all different sizes) and the working environment does really play a large part. It does affect how you perceive and generalise the "class" of organisation.

So I can't really answer this question...

-Ken