Networking experience....

Hey everyone. I just wanted to put a general topic and ask the question:

What has your networking experience been like and what is your favorite aspect of the job?

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Mrock4

My networking experience summed up: It's been a blast, extremely challenging, I've been exposed to lots of various technologies, somewhat thankless at times..not always, always studying to stay up with current technology.......I wouldn't do anything else.

favorite aspect: The ability to restore communications for a lot of users..and have them know you were responsible for it. There's a lot of responsibility on your shoulders..from helpdesk all the way to enterprise network designer.

dynamik

TechBoy22 wrote:

What has your networking experience been like

Having a DC die, not knowing what the random problems were caused by, using one of my TechNet support calls to have a guy in India fix it, and then reading about seizing the FSMO roles in my 294 book a week later and realizing what a simple problem it was.

TechBoy22 wrote:

and what is your favorite aspect of the job?

Realizing what I know now seemed mysterious and difficult in the not-too-distant past.

royal

Favorite experience has been all the Unified Communications stuff I have been doing. I have deployed OCS, Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging, OCS Enterprise Voice (using computer as a phone), OCS Remote Call Control (using Communicator to control your hard phones), integrating Exchange UM to be the voice mail system for OCS, etc... I love this stuff.

I know an amazing amount of information compared to what I knew 2 years ago. It makes me wonder how much I will know 2 years from now.

I absolutely love this job because of how things change. It always gives us stuff to read, learn, and not be bored. It's a great thing if you love this stuff.

marco71

well, I started with peer-to-peer networks in '90s, most of them were Windows for Worgroups v3.11 machines and MS-DOS workstations with NT3.51 client for DOS; had some practice on client-server Novell networks also (Netware v2.2, 3.11, 3.12 and 4.01) and after y2k worked with Windows 2000 server and 2003 server with Active Directory... but favorite net-experience was in 2004-2006, when I worked for a local ISP, linux-specific, as a NOC engineer; did a lot of monitoring (Nagios, mrtg) and support for internet and voip-telephony clients, configured a lot of equipments (ISDN & DSL-modems, wifi-routers, Access Points, linux routers, FXO/FXS VoIP equipments, etc.)...
now, I'm stuck in a tiny company, with a small peer-to-peer network (Windows XP) and a single DSL-modem/router for internet access and have not so many networking tasks to do

that's why I'm studying at a local Cisco NetAcademy, on my own, without employer's support

undomiel

My favourite experience? Has to have been when I started the job here. I knew absolutely nothing about servers as all my experience had been on the desktop support side of things. I start here and think that I'll just be easing into the roll, it would just start out with maintenance and user account creation and such. Nope! Shortly after I start I get calls from the ISP that they're going to shut our line down because our systems are compromised and have been used in cracking other systems, a virus outbreak starts taking down the sales department PCs, I find out we do not have the login nor password for our edge router, and finally Exchange was relaying spam all over the world. No mentor either, I was all alone. I almost quit right then and there because I was so in over my head. I managed to get everything under control really fast thanks to my friend Google and in two weeks had repossessed the router and taken out the open relay. I thank that experience for making me the systems administrator I am today. Nothing like being tossed into the fire. I love diving in and learning new stuff in that sink-or-swim fashion. That's the most enjoyable aspect of the job to me.

TechBoy22

Wow thank you guys for sharing. Sounds like some pretty interesting stuff although I dont understand most of it yet lol. But it sounds like a lot of fun no matter how hard the work is and a rewarding job at that. I cant wait to get involved in the networking side of things. Hopefully my time will come soon.

mikka07

I don't have any networking experience to speak of. I've recently been acquiring knowledge here at work by taking on issues that I feel I can get a hndle on. I do have a technical background and am naturally curious. I love to try to solve tough problems, so i think that gives me some ammo to take to the IT range. I'm getting saome good training by making use of my friends in the IT department since this is really the only way for me gain hands on experience.