Data Center work

gbdavidx

Wondering if anyone here currently works or has worked in a Data Center? I am working on my ccna, however I am wondering if there's any other certs I should be studying for that could help me land a job in one

kohr-ah

I have had some time in there and was good to know VMware and netapp. Didn't need to know windows persay but how VMware worked did help a lot.

tecke

The key is landing into a specialty role within data center function. Otherwise you will find many overly glorified roles out there as a ticket creator. I confidently believe with a ccna cert you should be able to land a role within a NOC ( Network operations center) @ a data center were you can move up into a more technical networking role over time. Just make sure that the department or company will have a clear upward career path for you ( ask the right questions to your interviewer) or you could get pigeon holed into a data center function were all you do is manage backup tapes and create incidents.

gbdavidx

I create tickets all day working in a help desk, that is my end goal!! scheduled for ccent end of next month

DoubleNNs

I got my CCNA and immediately started applying (currently out of work following a short contract). Within a week I got an offer for a data center position for a big company in my area.

The CCNA didn't land me the job. To be honest, I don't think it'll even help me much on the job - I probably won't have access to their networking equipment right off the bat. But it was part of what got me my interview.

lsud00d

I work in a datacenter but in a contractor/consultant role. It's a small IT shop so the DC isn't huge (12 racks total at primary site for all networking/server equipment).

That said your question is rather vague. What do you want to do in the datacenter? There are all technologies from layers 1 through 7; servers, SAN's, routers, switches, UPS, HVAC, tape libraries, etc.

Keroseen

Had a similar role- it depends on if the datacenter is a Cisco shop. We started out a Cisco shop, but then moved to other vendors during our tech refresh. More and more folks are moving to less expensive vendors like Juniper, F5, and Brocade. If you're looking to diversify, then I'd consider investing in those certs as well.

gbdavidx

Right now I just want to move up and out of helpdesk. Cisco seems pretty easy to learn and navigate throughout the command line, how is Juniper?

chmod

What are your expectations? what do you think and engineer(in this case you) will be doing at a datacenter?

DoubleNNs

I'm [slowly] learning Juniper now. It seems very, very different from Cisco at first impression. The networking concepts are all the same. A majority of the commands are even the same. However, the OS is very different and actually navigating the CLI and configuring the devices is very different.

There are some Junos OS features that would be awesome if they were implemented in IOS. However, I personally like the look and feel to IOS better. At least for now.

The data center position I mentioned above uses both Juniper and Cisco. I actually casually mentioned during my interview that after recently passing my CCNA I was playing around w/ Juniper to learn a bit about multi-vendor interoperability and learn alternatives to the Cisco proprietary stuff. Seemed to impress them.