Number 1: Treat your home network like a production network. Start by calling it a "NETWORK" and meaning it. - Do you have a Visio of it? Document it. - Does it tell you when it is sick? Set up 2003 as an SMTP Server and then configure SMTP and your event management. Make it send you emails. - Do you have a DNS Server - make it so. - Setup WINS too. - How about LDAP, FTP, HTTP, and maybe a Certificate Authority... get to it my boy! - Now Secure them puppies. - Get a management tool to help you gather info on you network - Spiceworks is free. - Get a Sniffer to watch your network and gather packets for analysis - Wireshark is great! Ummm... Network Monitor comes with Windows... have you used it yet? - Have you setup and Anti-Virus Server and are you pushing GPO's yet - Why not? - I see Ghost on your resume - Where's your R.I.S. Server on your network? - Have you setup your event viewers and learned to use them? - Have you went gotten the Sysinternal/Wininternal tools yet - MS has license to them now as I recall. - Do you know about Insight Manager yet? If not just grab a free demo copy of PRTG and learn to use it... start with monitoring your own bandwidth. - How are you doing backups on YOUR network? I've not seen a network yet where this was not important or shall I say MOST important... Number 1 Job Skill!!! Where's the Disaster Recovery document for your home network? Do you have an Internet, Email, or Security Policy for your home network? Where's your network notebook that tells anyone about your network and the level of detail you consider important? You have a Router - Are you using it? How do you back it up? Does it have the correct time? Where does your network get its time from? Do you have DHCP configured? Why? Why not? What access-lists are you using? Do you use SSH or just Telnet? Do you have a crash-**** confifured? Do you update your router? How would you do this? You have an FTP by now and no doubt it works... why not send the crash **** there. Can you recover a password on that router? Does the Router use SNMP or RMON? HTTP or HTTPS? What's RCP? Why don't you configure R.A.N.C.I.D for your Router? Why don't you audit it with Nipper and then use R.A.T. to check your work periodically? Do you know how to make your Router perform as a DHCP Server? Are your passwords clearly visible on that router? Do you use a loopback address? Where's you IP Spreadsheet of your network? You do manage your own IP's on your network don't you? What naming convention do you use? Is your network accessible remotely? Wirelessly? Analog perhaps? VPN maybe? I could go on for days... I manage networks. If you treat your own network as a Corporate Network then you will find a certain serenity and peace of mind running it and when you are interviewing you will also have the confidence you need to convey your skill level properly. BUT!!! You must do it, live it, document it, and ultimately learn to be it... If it is truly what you want to do. By the way, if you do the things I mentioned above and create a network notebook then you have a great document you can call your portfolio in an interview. When an employer sees what you are capable of and what you have done I'm very sure most employers will be suitably impressed that they'd like to see you getting started right away repeating the process on their network. FYI - This is what I do. I work on my process and I constantly strive to improve it, one step at a time, and it just works. If this is to be your career - act like it and make it happen. No one else will do it for you.
