Daily Chores as a Network Engineer?

thescottishdude

Hi,

I've got a degree in telecomminications engineering and my Cisco CCNA. I've just started applying for network engineer jobs.

Now that I'm stepping into the real world, what tasks are newbies given when they join a company?

What can I expect to be doing at work? I mean, the network should be already set up, so am I monitoring it?

Thanks,
Andy

FastEthernet

You ask the interviewer what you would generally be doing on a day to day basis

ehnde

My first job out of college was as a NOC tech. This is how my day generally went...

There were large flat screen monitors on spanning all of the walls in a room with 3 rows of about 10 computers all facing one direction. The wall we faced had SNMP monitoring software and we saw every alert. Many of the alerts we would let scroll across the screen as insignificant. The ones that we addressed would be something like this:
- alerts would come in, and we would sort the ones that mattered into tickets and assigned them to ourselves
- switch port flapping for a business customer (they had something like a Cisco 3750 on prem that was ours and we did a handoff to them)
- 500 cable modems in an area have gone offline, find out why and address it as needed...frequently it meant dispatching a cable tech to the area, but we managed the CMTSs that the cable modems ran off of
- OSPF or RIPv2 route changes. What happened? Did a port go bad? Did we lose a circuit somewhere?
- It's game day. Check the channel that the game is on and ensure it is playing properly.
- Nothing else going on? I'm sure you have some to do.

This stuff is not hard, is it? Keep in mind this is the type of stuff you do as a newbie and are just grateful to have your foot in the door

If you are lucky, you would be on 3rd shift when the actual maintenance occurs. This is when you get to configure routers, switches, and other industry specific equipment such as DSLAMs, CMTSs, etc (don't worry, they will train you).

Other than having the foundational knowledge required to do this work, the biggest thing they will be observing is your psychology...that is two questions really:
Can this guy handle serious pressure?
Will he get along with his peers?

Those questions are just about as important as if you have the knowledge to do the job. But hey...maybe you won't work in a NOC! Maybe you'll work for a MSP or as a consultant...who knows what's out there?

darkerz

Depending on the environment; specific things, or EVERYTHING.

I am currently;


Documenting all assets
Change requests
MAC requests
Break-Fix network issues escalated to me
Router maintenance, configuration and provisioning
Switch maintenance, configuration and provisioning
IPSec maintenance, configuration and provisioning
Firewall and ACL's change monkey ( just verify configs, change them once audit and legal approve them)
Wireless maintenance, configuration and provisioning
SNMP/Netflow monitor guru w/ Solarwinds
Circuit plan, order, provision, deploy and maintain


I inadvertently wrote and automated enough of this and standardized configs, devices and processes enough in my short ass time here to make it difficult to justify a second network engineer, let alone a manager for our group.

Let me tell you tho, being *The Only* Route/Swtich/Wireless/IPSec/MAC/Provisioning/Monitor guy for a multi-billion operation in North America is a freaking great resume builder, but it might cause baldness and grey hairs.

Jackace

Just wondering the size of the network you manage? How many nodes? How spread out are remote locations?

gbdavidx

ehnde wrote: »

My first job out of college was as a NOC tech. This is how my day generally went...

There were large flat screen monitors on spanning all of the walls in a room with 3 rows of about 10 computers all facing one direction. The wall we faced had SNMP monitoring software and we saw every alert. Many of the alerts we would let scroll across the screen as insignificant. The ones that we addressed would be something like this:
- alerts would come in, and we would sort the ones that mattered into tickets and assigned them to ourselves
- switch port flapping for a business customer (they had something like a Cisco 3750 on prem that was ours and we did a handoff to them)
- 500 cable modems in an area have gone offline, find out why and address it as needed...frequently it meant dispatching a cable tech to the area, but we managed the CMTSs that the cable modems ran off of
- OSPF or RIPv2 route changes. What happened? Did a port go bad? Did we lose a circuit somewhere?
- It's game day. Check the channel that the game is on and ensure it is playing properly.
- Nothing else going on? I'm sure you have some to do.

This stuff is not hard, is it? Keep in mind this is the type of stuff you do as a newbie and are just grateful to have your foot in the door

If you are lucky, you would be on 3rd shift when the actual maintenance occurs. This is when you get to configure routers, switches, and other industry specific equipment such as DSLAMs, CMTSs, etc (don't worry, they will train you).

Other than having the foundational knowledge required to do this work, the biggest thing they will be observing is your psychology...that is two questions really:
Can this guy handle serious pressure?
Will he get along with his peers?

Those questions are just about as important as if you have the knowledge to do the job. But hey...maybe you won't work in a NOC! Maybe you'll work for a MSP or as a consultant...who knows what's out there?

That sounds like fun! I'm jealous

darkerz

Jackace wrote: »

Just wondering the size of the network you manage? How many nodes? How spread out are remote locations?

~230 sites, 100 of them are 50-1000 people, a few colo's we rent space out of, and 2 data centers - 1 managed by an outsourced company and one at our Head Quarters location. HQ alone is a DC + 50 access switches + 89 AP's with 1500~ users.

Total node count is going to be hitting above 18,000, with 700 non-HQ switches, 49 ASA's, 25 Riverbeds, 229 PE's and 229 VoIP routers / gateways. Each site has between 1 and 10 AP's.

Total switch count for HQ is 209, total router count for HQ is 10, total firewall count for HQ is 6, 2 LB's, 2 Wireless Controllers, 4 VPN "gates" and 20 legacy network devices we're replacing with better capability and virtualization (Netflow, SNMP, packet shapers, etc).

I built our Solarwinds NTA, NPM, IPAM, etc. from the bottom up just so I could survive. There used to be a team of 3, I came into a no documentation (or old, poor documentation) and no Network monitor solution (like PRTG or Solarwinds), the guys before me must have gone insane.

Jackace

That is a huge network for 1 person to manage. You have to be putting in a ton of hours. I hope you are getting paid well. The experience you are getting though is top notch. About the only thing I didn't see in there was Voip experience.

darkerz

I did Shoretel SIP and PRI deploys for 3 years before this job, and am currently involved in our Cisco VoIP shop on the router/gateway setup and testing side, unfortunately we have 2 "Telecommunications" people who do purely VoIP and PBX.

The amount of hours I spent on Ad trans dissecting SIP messaging is astounding.

darkerz

ehnde wrote: »

My first job out of college was as a NOC tech. This is how my day generally went...

There were large flat screen monitors on spanning all of the walls in a room with 3 rows of about 10 computers all facing one direction. The wall we faced had SNMP monitoring software and we saw every alert. Many of the alerts we would let scroll across the screen as insignificant. The ones that we addressed would be something like this:
- alerts would come in, and we would sort the ones that mattered into tickets and assigned them to ourselves
- switch port flapping for a business customer (they had something like a Cisco 3750 on prem that was ours and we did a handoff to them)
- 500 cable modems in an area have gone offline, find out why and address it as needed...frequently it meant dispatching a cable tech to the area, but we managed the CMTSs that the cable modems ran off of
- OSPF or RIPv2 route changes. What happened? Did a port go bad? Did we lose a circuit somewhere?
- It's game day. Check the channel that the game is on and ensure it is playing properly.
- Nothing else going on? I'm sure you have some to do.

This stuff is not hard, is it? Keep in mind this is the type of stuff you do as a newbie and are just grateful to have your foot in the door

If you are lucky, you would be on 3rd shift when the actual maintenance occurs. This is when you get to configure routers, switches, and other industry specific equipment such as DSLAMs, CMTSs, etc (don't worry, they will train you).

Other than having the foundational knowledge required to do this work, the biggest thing they will be observing is your psychology...that is two questions really:
Can this guy handle serious pressure?
Will he get along with his peers?

Those questions are just about as important as if you have the knowledge to do the job. But hey...maybe you won't work in a NOC! Maybe you'll work for a MSP or as a consultant...who knows what's out there?

Serious deja-vu, that explains my first NOC very well. They were fun times, once we had no calls in an entire shift.

Others, 16 hour days.

antielvis

All of the above plus

- stop off at the liquor store on the way home ;-P

staticz

Jackace wrote: »

That is a huge network for 1 person to manage. You have to be putting in a ton of hours. I hope you are getting paid well. The experience you are getting though is top notch. About the only thing I didn't see in there was Voip experience.

This. I dont know how you survive it. I have 8 sites with about 2,000 users and a 1 hour semi-maintenance window per month (we get two full outages for 1 hour per year) and I go nuts. Then again it looks like you have more experience than I do! What is the ballpark pay range for your gig if you don't mind me asking?

thescottishdude

thanks for the info guys, much appreciated. I guess I just need to go with the flow, I'm bound to find any of the basic jobs quite interesting at least.

Trifidw

Jackace wrote: »

That is a huge network for 1 person to manage.

What happens when you are on AL too?

Jackace

Trifidw wrote: »

What happens when you are on AL too?

I'm not sure what AL stands for, sorry.

Trifidw

Sorry the reply wasn't aimed at you, was agreeing it was a very large network to look after alone. AL = annual leave.

darkerz

staticz wrote: »

This. I dont know how you survive it. I have 8 sites with about 2,000 users and a 1 hour semi-maintenance window per month (we get two full outages for 1 hour per year) and I go nuts. Then again it looks like you have more experience than I do! What is the ballpark pay range for your gig if you don't mind me asking?

Comfortable, Hit the 90,000~year mark. Can't complain, since 4 years ago, I was making 13 an hour... And 5 years ago, I was working for free at a College intern program in the Network / Datacenter Lab rooms.

Annual leave is a tricky situation, I don't think I've had more than 3 days off in awhile. I've accrued 4 weeks of PTO and that WILL happen soon, the goal is to hire someone soon, hopefully.

My only complaint is the lack of study time due to work.