Looking for career advise

suttons84

Hi,

Just joined the forum and exciting about using it. I'm looking for some career advise. I want to work as a network administrator with an a speciality in security.

I'm currently employed as a desktop support technician for company I have been at for 5 years. The certs I have now is MCDST (Windows XP) and ITILv2. I'm currently studying for MCITP: Server Administrator certification.

I want to learn so I can do the job and not just to pass a test. What certification path and training can I do to further my technical and hands on knowledge?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

DigitalZeroOne

Have you ever asked the network staff to show you some of the tools they work with? After 5 years you should know some of your co-workers well enough to walk up to them and ask.

I would tell them that you want to increase your knowledge, and if they have time would they just show you some of the basic tools and commands that they use.

suttons84

Thanks for the suggestion Digital..However I asked them and haven't got a respond back. IT departments here are kinda isolated and dont want to interact with other departments. Anything else I can do? Specifically studying to specialize in security?

ITVince

suttons84 wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion Digital..However I asked them and haven't got a respond back. IT departments here are kinda isolated and dont want to interact with other departments. Anything else I can do? Specifically studying to specialize in security?

Thats a damn shame....sounds like your co-workers are a bunch of stuck up pricks worried about job security. Sigh.....sorry to hear this

cyberguypr

Man, some of you work in really messed up places. If they are not willing to help there's nothing you can do. What is your skill set? How's you knowledge on networking? Windows server? Some flavor of Linux? As a security specialist you will need to touch all of those sooner or later. Based on your current expertise we can recommend a path.

Stick around here and you will learn a lot.

lordy

A lot of people want to get into the Security field but this requires a very solid base. You just cannot ensure network security if you don't know the inner workings of networks.

If you want to get into network administration your first goals should be either Network+ or the CCNA depending on the knowledge you currently have. During the preparation for these certs you should pick up all the basics you need to keep a network up and running.

Once you are at that point you should have a good overview on networking and can then plan the next steps.

suttons84

cyberguypr wrote: »

Man, some of you work in really messed up places. If they are not willing to help there's nothing you can do. What is your skill set? How's you knowledge on networking? Windows server? Some flavor of Linux? As a security specialist you will need to touch all of those sooner or later. Based on your current expertise we can recommend a path.

Stick around here and you will learn a lot.

I rate my understand from 1 to 10..10 being great:

networking: 4

Windows Server: 6

Linux: 2

All i done was desktop support for mac/windows with the once in a while project that involved touching servers and office wide impact. For example I help set up our landesk management suite and set up it for all our offices. Currently doing our desktop patching using landesk but used WSUS before.

Thanks for the encouragement guys.