network engineer

what are the important certs that are must have to qualify for a network engineer position? thank you!

EDIT: Also, what technologies should I be familiar with? (example, servers). I'am trying to build a strong foundation before I graduate from college, I hope you can help me. thank you!

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Comments

CiscoKidd

It would depend on the scope of the work you do. If you are just routing & switching, VoIP, wireless, security, etc. Most people won't just start out with a network engineer position. So if this is your first IT position, I'd say start with the A+, Network+, and Security+ certifications. Those will give you a good foundation. From that, you can see what interest you and work in that direction.

To answer your question, the most common certs I personally have seen for network engineering positions are the Cisco CCNA and CCNP certifications. I have seen some CCNA: Security and CCNA: Voice as well as Juniper-JNCIA/JNCIS certs. I haven't seen much for wireless, I am sure its out there but I just haven't seen alot for it from the positions I've held of the jobs that have come across my desk.

gbdavidx

CCNA i think had become an industry standard, but depends on the corporation on what brand they use

Iristheangel

As CiscoKidd mentioned, there are many flavors to networking. If you have a decent understanding of computers and networking, you can skip the CompTIAs or just study the material. Every since they started expiring every 3 years, they just haven't been worth the monetary investment in my opinion.

I would recommend picking up the CCNA, CCNA:Security and CCNA:Voice to learn the fundamentals and then some. At that point, you can decide which appeals to you more and go for it. After you get the Cisco's done, you can always go for the equivalent on the Juniper side so you're a well-rounded engineer. Check out Network Warrior (book) as well to get some extra knowledge that won't be on the exams but you'll see in the real world.

Good luck!

it_consultant

CCNA is the basic cert for network engineering. In the industry you will see Cisco, Brocade, HP, and Juniper so be prepared to learn those as well. Luckily they [despite the passionate arguments on these forums] are not that much different from each other.

That gets you to routing and switching which, if you are lucky enough to snag an ISP job out of the gate, should be good enough. In the enterprise you will be expected to know more than just routing and switching. You could learn telephony through Avaya, Cisco, or Shoretel. If you hate phones then storage networking (SAN) is a natural offshoot of normal networking and the way the industry is going networking will swallow SAN (just like we did to phones) so you would be well to do to get on that boat early. Plus, storage network guys are the highest paid (by cert) in the industry, that ought to motivate you.

I normally encourage learning platform systems (like SQL, Exchange, Linux, Windows, etc) but I am seeing this getting less valuable over the long term.

CaptainL

it_consultant wrote: »

CCNA is the basic cert for network engineering. In the industry you will see Cisco, Brocade, HP, and Juniper so be prepared to learn those as well. Luckily they [despite the passionate arguments on these forums] are not that much different from each other.

That gets you to routing and switching which, if you are lucky enough to snag an ISP job out of the gate, should be good enough. In the enterprise you will be expected to know more than just routing and switching. You could learn telephony through Avaya, Cisco, or Shoretel. If you hate phones then storage networking (SAN) is a natural offshoot of normal networking and the way the industry is going networking will swallow SAN (just like we did to phones) so you would be well to do to get on that boat early. Plus, storage network guys are the highest paid (by cert) in the industry, that ought to motivate you.

I normally encourage learning platform systems (like SQL, Exchange, Linux, Windows, etc) but I am seeing this getting less valuable over the long term.

do virtualization plays a big part in an network engineer position?

to all who replied. thank you! I appreciate your comments

shodown

Virtualization depends on the positon. I have to know a decent level of VMware as all of my installs are done on Cisco UCS gear, but if its HP or some other vendor they usually have a dedicated networking team which does the work. In some enterprises anything with "cisco" on the nameplate belongs to the networking team.

CaptainL

shodown wrote: »

Virtualization depends on the positon. I have to know a decent level of VMware as all of my installs are done on Cisco UCS gear, but if its HP or some other vendor they usually have a dedicated networking team which does the work. In some enterprises anything with "cisco" on the nameplate belongs to the networking team.

what positions does it come into action? I have been told by my friend that if I want to venture out in networking I need to study, servers, OS and virtualization.

shodown

I do mostly cisco, so when I do a install if we are going to be installing Cisco Applications like call manager and so on the customers sometimes buys cisco servers so we have to know basics of VMware to get them up and going. Other than that we dont have to do much. When it comes to things like Vmotion and other features most network engineer that focus on cisco have no clue, unless they are Data Center engineer, then they usually have a pretty strong grip on those technologies.

CaptainL

shodown wrote: »

I do mostly cisco, so when I do a install if we are going to be installing Cisco Applications like call manager and so on the customers sometimes buys cisco servers so we have to know basics of VMware to get them up and going. Other than that we dont have to do much. When it comes to things like Vmotion and other features most network engineer that focus on cisco have no clue, unless they are Data Center engineer, then they usually have a pretty strong grip on those technologies.

what basics are you talking about here? I don't know anything about VMware.

lantech

Where I work the network engineers don't seem to know anything about VMware. Though they might and it's just not required. But in my dealings with them they have not given any indication as to knowing anything about it.

The guys that work with VMware however also know a little bit about Cisco and are learning more about it as they progress.

What you have to know will vary from company to company. IT is not a one job description fits all.

it_consultant

Our SAN engineer has his VMWARE certs from the 3.5 days. In my experience it is more important to know SAN for a virtualization guy than regular ethernet networking. I think this is because a network engineer that knows nothing about VMWARE will be able to do the networking for VMWARE pretty easily. Things like LACP and VLANs work the same in VMWARE as they do everywhere else. Storage networking, on the other hand, is not something any old ethernet or virtualization engineer will know organically. Ultimately if you run into a "VMWARE Engineer" who doesn't know zoning, you have someone who knows barely more than someone who simply reads the VMWARE documentation.