CCNP - Cisco Specialist ??

Author

Cisco Specialist ??

aadami1

2001-09-07, 12:58 pm

Hello Every1,

I am a Network Analyst who has been made redundant in the last few weeks due to the downturn in the economy. I passed my CCNA last Sept 2000 and have 6 months good comercial experience. I did my CCDA back in March 2001. I have (in my last job) used Cisco routers from 1600 -->7*** series.
Also Nortel passport , Lucent + Ascend RAS POPs . Securid + Radius.

I have applied for several jobs but most people that I compete with have 2-3 years experience and will take a cut in status/salary just to get work and it leaves us poor people without any opportunity.

Therefore I have decided to specialise and get into a niche market - Is this god or bad ?

I want to move into network security. My question is what are the tools needed for me to get my foot in the door?

1 >Should I carry on with my CCNP - self study and do all 4 exams without hands-on experience @ home.

2 >Shall I do the MCSE 2000 to get a broader insite of LAN/WAN issues and look at IPSEC etc..from MS prospective.

3 >Do I gain experience with some **nix flavors. - I only have one computer a pII 450 mhz, 700 MB HD, and I need that for email, web access, MS Word etc... I am a bit scared o put Linux over it.

Please note that I do not have much money bcoz I have lost my job. So don't tell me to go out to ebay and buy a few routers and switches to play around on . Those are toys for rich boyz.

Any advice/input/encouragement will be appreciated.

aadami1

2001-09-07, 5:14 pm

Hasn't anyone got any views ????

Come on folks.

darthfeces

2001-09-07, 8:32 pm

do ccnp because it all comes together anyway.
do the security specialization. not much in
the way of books on this one but do at least
mcns first as a start. use the cisco text get it used if you have to.
security is the overall application of a
corporate policy not just nat or a firewall or an accesslist or explaining to a clueless user who thinkshe is tech-savvy why telnet across the internet is bad !
check out sans.org. learn unix, solaris, irix,
linux ... any security person will know how
to manage and secure servers (or at least place
them in a dmz and only open necessary ports.
i have never met a windows certed person who
actually knows network security.

aadami1

2001-09-08, 6:44 am

quote:
Originally posted by darthfeces
do ccnp because it all comes together anyway.
do the security specialization. not much in
the way of books on this one but do at least
mcns first as a start. use the cisco text get it used if you have to.
security is the overall application of a
corporate policy not just nat or a firewall or an accesslist or explaining to a clueless user who thinkshe is tech-savvy why telnet across the internet is bad !
check out sans.org. learn unix, solaris, irix,
linux ... any security person will know how
to manage and secure servers (or at least place
them in a dmz and only open necessary ports.
i have never met a windows certed person who
actually knows network security.

Thanks for your comments. I was totally Cisco focussed. But I thought maybe I was being to narow-minded and needed a broader knowledge base.

My aim is to be an accomplished CCIE , so I thought it was good to get an overall understanding of the 7 layers of the OSI model ?

I was going to get my 1st MCSE book this morning , but now I'm having 2nd thoughts.

I bought the CCNP Prep Library a couple of months back. I think I will carry on with CCNP cert . But it's gonna be difficult without any access to routers/switches!!

BTW - How do I gwt into Unix/Linux. which is the best distro to install at home ?

2001-09-08, 11:09 am

quote:
Originally posted by aadami1

.....How do I gwt into Unix/Linux. which is the best distro to install at home ?

I bought Red Hat Linux 7.1 Bible and the book came with a cd that has RH on it. I also have Solaris 8 which you can download from their site. You can find a lot of info on the web as well as books for them. You might want to post this question or search the archives on the linux/unix forum, here on examnotes.

hth
ea

ramlax

2001-09-08, 2:03 pm

400 MB is small buy a 10 gig for less than 50 bucks at comp usa or best buy. If you have room in your computer (ie have another ide slot) just put it in and put linux on the new hard drive.

depamo

2001-09-08, 4:23 pm

I am pretty much into consulting now, left my network behind for the easier life right now. If anything I did find that you do have to have a nitch to get noticed but I am not sure if a Cisco Cert will get you to where you want to be. There are tons of Cisco Certified people out there so it isn't really a nitch anymore (unless you are a CCIE and such).

Nitches these days are things like Checkpoint, Oracle, SAP, ColdFusion, and I am sure that there are many more. If you want to 'nitch' into Cisco, you need to find a place that not many others have gone for whatever reason and choose that path. Problem usually is that there isn't much documentation out there for 'nitch' areas and the certifications are not easy to take without hand's on.

One of the areas that I am delving into right now is Security, portholes, Unix, Solaris, Linux, Win2K and such from a security point of view only. I do plan to specalize in Cisco security but that won't get me really noticed if everyone applying for a job also has Cisco Secrity on their resume (I do have a job right now, but I miss owning a network).

A big thing to do right now for you would be to determine what is needed in your area. Houston (where I am right now) is power wholesale as the dominant force and they mostly use SAP, Unix, Solaris, Oracle and such for big customer bases with automated billing and payment. So contact your friends and see what is going on in the surrounding IT world and shape what you want to attack those jobs when they become available.

Hope that helps and good luck!! CCNP is also pretty good for the resume but 4 exams, at $100.00 a pop and the studying can be a big delay. I have tons of experience with Cisco routers and still had to study for the BCSN pretty hard.

aadami1

2001-09-10, 11:46 am

[/B] [/QUOTE]Originally posted by Depamo...
Hope that helps and good luck!! CCNP is also pretty good for the resume but 4 exams, at $100.00 a pop and the studying can be a big delay. I have tons of experience with Cisco routers and still had to study for the BCSN pretty hard. [/B][/QUOTE]

Thanks Depamo.

I think I will carry on with CCNP from home FTTB.

And I will start MCsE 2000 Security track with my bros.

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