How hard is a Cisco job?

alliasneo

Just curious as to how many people in this forum currently have a job working with cisco gear everyday? What sort of day-to-day challenges can we expect and how difficult the job can be after you are certified?

NOC-Ninja

1. Routers and switches going down
2. Link going down
3. people complaining the network is slow
4. never ending projects
5. never ending maintenance
6. never ending power outage
7. never ending support to security dept and system dept
8. never ending update of the current enterprise software
9. a lot more that Im too lazy to get into details
10. The best part, a never ending studying/learning and applying things you learned at work without any recognition

dmacomber

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

1. Routers and switches going down
2. Link going down
3. people complaining the network is slow
4. never ending projects
5. never ending maintenance
6. never ending power outage
7. never ending support to security dept and system dept
8. never ending update of the current enterprise software
9. a lot more that Im too lazy to get into details
10. The best part, a never ending studying/learning and applying things you learned at work without any recognition

Yeah but I bet you love every minute too!:D

Fernling306

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

1. Routers and switches going down
2. Link going down
3. people complaining the network is slow
4. never ending projects
5. never ending maintenance
6. never ending power outage
7. never ending support to security dept and system dept
8. never ending update of the current enterprise software
9. a lot more that Im too lazy to get into details
10. The best part, a never ending studying/learning and applying things you learned at work without any recognition

Hey now, don't discourage me.

darkerz

Check devices.
Monitoring Tools. Up the arse.
Node checks.
Interface checks.
Script- EVERYTHING.
Show command- all the routing tables
Compared all the configs on hand
Nmap/Wireshark/FloodX all the Core devices.
Blame the system, not the network.
Again, it's usually not the network.
Seriously, for Christs sake, it's not the switch.

...

It's fun. I like it.

NOC-Ninja

Fernling306 wrote: »

Hey now, don't discourage me.

Really? Those were all a glimpse of what we deal day by day. I left behind the detailed part and the troubleshooting part.

There's still more:

1. Phone not working
2. Call manager
3. Gateway
4. ASA
5. ACS
6. Wireless not working
7. Wireless tuning
8. User want wireless coverage
9. Updating Wireless
10. Paperwork
11. Never ending training
12. Redesigning the network
13. Dealing with attacks
14. The lists goes on...

dead_p00l

I'd have to agree with NOC-Ninja 200% on both lists and those still only scratch the surface. Working in the networking field is almost more of a lifestyle choice than a career choice. But honestly with all the headache and sleepless nights of maintenance's and outages i wouldn't trade it for anything.

dredlord

I personaly work in a heavy cisco enviroment. I have to agree with the other posters whit what constitues run of the mill day to day challanges. my 2 cents to the argument are change managment (which in large co-orporate networks can be a nightmare) and prioiritizing projects. If you are debating wheter certification will help you, it will defenetly be an asset. But I also suggest you look into ITIL certification since a certain amount of service managment skills are a huge help.

PhildoBaggins

A: show someone how to do something in an ASA
B: work with sales to design XXX YYY
C: tell a server guy its not my problem
explain to someone why we dont need to open an inbound port for anything but a hosted service
E: train my guys on something I spent 20 after hours the previous week learning
F: Look busy when i'm not busy
G: look ultra laid back when i'm super busy
H: be thrown in last second on every project

I wouldn't want to do anything else with my life. I love networking, I love learning, I love everything about the gig. Even though you may not like some peers, underlings and overlords its still totally worth being the a network tech, then network engineer, then Sr Engineer and hopefully someday something more.

Take every opportunity to knowledge share what you learn.
Take every chance to do something outside your comfort level.
Do not wait for someone to tell you to work on your own training plan.
Do not wait for someone to tell you anything, network engineer must know an amazing amount of information at any given time.
You are or will be a paid expert and it is worth the painful learning curve.

mark_s0

I've just started my first networking-only job and the first thing that I immediately noticed, was that I actually know bugger all about networking in the grand scheme of things. Coming from a jack of all trades type job working on a few switches, to working in an enterprise networking position, I've really realised how complex things are and how much I have to learn. I've read so much topology documentation in the last 2/3 weeks that makes my brain hurt and I've not even really 3/4 of the way through. I'm talking L2, L3, VPN, NAT, wireless, ASA, VOIP, fibre cabling, UPS', upgrades, installations, monitoring and the list goes on.

It may come across as a lot, but I wouldn't want to be doing anything else and it makes me want to pass the CCNP even more. The CCNA will no doubt help you in a networking career, but realistically, if you want to become more than a basic network tech, you need to read as much as you can with at least CCNP in future goals. Also, listen to packet pushers podcasts, follow network engineers on twitter, read blogs, keep up with the latest networking trends because the exams won't teach you everything.

Hope that helps.

craigaaron

I agree with above, its worth the fun and stress that goes with it, i did it for 13months via a placement from my university, now i am doing a desktop role with many projects but the project time is always limited to when not supporting desktop users, which sucks, but would love to get back in to it!

djfunz

Nice thread. I was actually wondering the same thing.

Zartanasaurus

Just to echo all of the other posts, your main function is to tell the server team, who don't even know what subnets are, that it's not the network. My favorite is when they blame network changes because something isn't working on their servers only to discover that it never worked in the first place because they didn't test it.

Server Guy: What's wrong with the network? Our XYZ service isn't working.
Me: Nothing's wrong with the network.
SG: Well you must've changed something because it's not working.
Me: I haven't changed anything. When is the last time it worked?
SG: Well we set it up 6 months ago. This is the first time we've tried to use it.
Me: /facepalm

Ryan82

It's stressful and awesome at the same time. You will learn new stuff every day, most of which you will never find in a book or certification program.

Take for instance a simple IOS upgrade in which a card is no longer present following the upgrade which is servicing several sites. You may have an hour for your maintenance window to scramble and try to figure out what the heck is going on. You don't want to roll back the code because it took FOREVER to finally get all of your customers approval for the maintenance window!

Or how about crazy syslog messages about a CPU crashing 134 times on a slot and is not resolved until the router automatically reboots the module only to find out it's related to one of your QoS policy's?

Or maybe it's getting blamed for everything from blocking customers traffic to incorrectly routing their traffic, to latency. You have to be that much smarter to prove to them why it's not something related to your network configuration.

I can't picture doing anything else..:D

vinbuck

I'll throw in a slightly different list from the viewpoint of a Service Provider Enigneer

1. Squirrels chewing through 30 year old copper runs
2. Rednecks bush-hogging one of your fiber runs, which you notice as a curious middle of the day OSPF reconvergence on another path (sub-second OSPF hellos save the day!)
3. While troubleshooting an outage alarm on a DSLAM, you discover that you can't ping it because the DLSLAM is underwater (sip coffee, wait for flooding to recede)
4. Learn IP subnetting like the back of your hand because you've got hundreds or even thousands of subnets.
5. Understand why "show run" is a bad way to do business if you have a 900 line config.
6. After hitting the space bar 273 times on the first show run, you learn regular expressions and more complex verification commands.
7. Get used to people calling in to say their DSL isn't working when they Have Fiber To The Home (My favorite ).
8. Explain to non-technical folk that when the Dept of Transportation contractors accidentally cut several hundred fibers under a road, it takes a few minutes to patch them up
9. Dear Network Engineer, I would like to introduce you to the Control Plane and Data Plane. Pssst they are important.
10. BGP and MPLS - Learn it, love it, eat with a side of OSPF core routing.

And lastly, tell your best friend EIGRP that you can't play together anymore because you work in a multi-vendor envrioment.

alliasneo

This is really interesting, thanks for all the info everyone. I'm really looking forward to hopefully getting a job in networking this year but I'm both scared of all the possible issues that I'm not going to know and really interested in learning a whole heap.

Roguetadhg

The first thing that came to mind, while cleaning out my office and trying to organize years of computer parts, keyboards, discs, candy is: "Toto, We're not in Kansas anymore."

1. The person before you usually leaves the office looking like trash. (Moldy cupcake in a drawer...)
2. The person before you didn't leave you anything in terms of documentation.
3. The person before you left patch panels not matching with the layout of the building. Really.
4. Politics. Learn to play the game before the game plays you. I can not stress enough: Email conversations. Protect Your Arse.
5. Any information end-users have generally leads to you spending more time trying to fix it.
6. Have a good network with your department, a strong IT department is key to get things done.
7. Experience is better than Certifications. The two go hand in hand.
8. Do not be afraid to do anything new. Fight the fear and explore outside what you know.
9. Don't be afraid to tell people that "I do not fix computers for free". Even managers. You fix it for free once, you'll have every worker and third-cousin in-law knocking on your office door saying "Fix this. Thanks".
10. Above all, people are good. Personal and Professional. Keep it professional and keep the personal separated. People outside the department and even those inside are not going to be scared to throw you under the bus. (See Emails)