FDM training and Jobs

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Cant I get those tools from here ( this forum) and do some search to find out more about them ?

Would my potential MCITP EA enable me to overcome the lack of server experience ?

Does anybody think that I shouldnt go for it ?

Regards

 

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no no no NOOOOOO

Certification is not the answer to the lack of experience for ****s sake, it's there to prove your capabilities.

As far as implementing an entire infrastructure fit for an NHS approved clinic?? Mate... seriously???

Listen, at the stage of my career now I couldn't do everything required to put up a COMPLETE NHS approved Infrastructure, don't get me wrong I can put most of it in but there are things that you need to be aware of (NHS Spines, Hubs, N3 links etc) and you simply don't have the experience to do this. Now one of two things will happen.

1, You will fail so badly that you will wonder whether IT is actually right for you.

2, You will fail so badly that you get sued by the Dr for complete and utter failure to produce the goods.

If I were you I really wouldn't take on something of this ilk because it's far more complex than you realise (I know because I currently work in with the Infrastructure Team of an NHS Trust and the Infrastructure Manager has been there for nine years and is the only one who knows everything about his infrastructure).

Seriously get some experience and take things slowly, just because you're in IT doesn't actually mean you can DO IT.

 

No you cant get those tools from here and if you have done any basic networking certs you should know what tools you should be getting and how to get them.

No you MCITP EA will not help only real server experience will help.

I don't think you should go for it.

Now I don't mean to be rude but I believe you are trying to run before you can walk, slow down a bit the good stuff will eventually come your way if you work towards it.

 

ITS a private clinic , but will do jobs for the NHS

 

It will have PID (Patient Information Data) that will have to comply with NHS Information Governence, if it has anything to do with the NHS (and deals with patients) then he will have to conform to NHS rules and regulations.

Seriously you will be over your head (and a 20k salary for this kind of hassle is way WAY under what it will actually end up costing).

This is a Dr who is trying to do things on the cheap, unfortunately that just doesn't work when it comes to the NHS.

 

Seriously, this thread is getting worse by the minute and could be leading towards the year's biggest fail - and we're only in January.

Han, despite your insistance that we stick to the subject of FDM, you're now talking about building and maintaining a network for a clinic? Without knowing anything about servers or active directory? Seriously mate, even the printer won't work.

Simon has already beaten me to it by saying that if the NHS is going to come within 100 miles of the place you are going to have to comply with standards and regulations that make a telephone book look like light reading. They will not be impressed in the slightest with a CCNA or a MCSE or anything else for that matter. An MCITP won't help you source and integrate a patient booking system - or a database for managing stocks of materials and medicines.

By all means, do some training - pursue your certification dreams - but please, please do not do this.

At least, not if the clinic is going to be anywhere near me.

 

Hello , and thanks for your reply . I know this thread meant to discuss FDM , but as I m now aware of what they do , Im happy to disgard their offer . While discussing this , i had to put this clinic matter in this thread after I recived multiple replies regarding my career progress , and found the people kind and helpful enough to accept chatting about this . In addition , I wanted to have an professional advice from them as my employer does nt come from a business or IT background , and this has terrified my as he might not know the consequences . That fear applys to me too , as I dont have server experience , but thought doing the MCIPT with some kind of a lab at home would enable me to go for it , especially that my employer does not expect high level of such a service .
I paid for my MCIPT already and also got my high performance PC ready ( costed £ 650) to install VM ware to go from their . I know stopping at a certain point of this project would be better rather regreting at some other points , and this why I discussed it here . Im stuck a bit , I spent more than £2000 prparing for this , and was likely to get the money back from the employer when I finish the course and decide to work for him .
Just one thing to mention here , I though that I will be able to manage active directory after finishing the MCIPT as its part of it . Funny enough , that my employer thought that we would nt need to make it coplex and run Active directory !

 

Hi Han. Well, as Simon has already pointed out, certification is not the solution for a lack of basic experience. Certification is there to demonstrate what you do know about AD, not teach you what you don't.

It seems like a bit of a 'blind leading the blind' situation - your doctor doesn't know what he wants and you can't give him what he needs. It's a recipe for an expensive disaster.

I'm not really a networking guy but I've had some experience. What are you thinking instead of AD? A workgroup? A load of stand-alone machines using a shared folder on a server? I don't even think you can do that for that many users - especially when you consider the security/confidentiality issues that have already been mentioned.

I'm guessing that this doctor isn't 'classically trained', is he?

(And now, for a great pun, you say 'which doctor?'
Then I reply and say 'that's the one!'
LOLS all round.)

 

He is Opthamologist consultant ! . talking about AD , I did not say that I was think to disgard using AD as I m aware of all bit and peices that you mentioned . All what I was trying to say or reflect was his poor kowledge of IT admin tasks and princilples .

What should I do know ? do the course ? or just cancel it and look for another job .

Regards

 

That, of course, is up to you.
I'd bow out of this clinic job for your own peace of mind as well as everyone else's.
We haven't even started talking about Exchange, ISA, SQL, DMZs or licensing issues yet. Last time I worked on a network with that many users we had 5 servers...

I'm not saying burn any bridges with the guy. You may well be capable of working for him as a network tech on a daily basis keeping things running, all I'm saying is that 'design and build' is probably out of your league right now.

Do a course by all means - but do one that teaches you how to do something useful. Not every course needs to lead to certification. Find somewhere that will sit you in a classroom/lab and teach you how to configure AD or whatever you want to do. Or buy some books and set up a lab at home. Start to fill the holes in your knowledge and look towards a brighter future.

And yes, keep looking for jobs. There is nothing wrong with ambition, but you need to work at building up your basic experience a bit before you move into the big time.

 

Really! They can but only to the basic level....

Think I will stop my CCNP study, give up my job and go and design a network for a hospital lol

 

Han if you enter into this project with the Doctor then it will end up costing you thousands because I can say without hesitation that this sort of project is usually done by teams of very experience network professionals and it can take months if not years to do and to get right.

Doing this on your own without proper experience of doing it before will put enormous pressure on you and your bank balance, you wont have time to eat, sleep let alone go for a dump so I suggest you stop thinking about it because it will be worst decision you ever make.

As for the course thats entirely up to you but generally places like this FDM are a con, they always have a backout plan for them so it does cost you a lot of money and not them. PLaces like these are not there for your benefit they are there for their benefit and to make as much money as possible.

 

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There is no doubt that I respect and appreciate people's opinion and advce , otherwise I would not have submit this thread . I dont know about your skills and knowledge and in essence your ability. You can give up your CCNP if you cant design a network up to this point , and thats up to you !
One thing that I m sure about , is that when I do a course , i dont do it for the sake of the paper or passing the exam . I do it genuinly, top get the knowledge and skills . I do take my tasks either at work or college seriously . When I did my CCNA I was a head of my class during the class room and labs . In addition I did some parctical work at home desgning and parcticing Cisco Routers and Switches .
I was even able in my job to configure Cisci Firewall completely for a client from scratch ,and that was due to the absence of my field engineer , and did this without any previous knoledge or experience . For those who does not know a lot about what the CCNA covers , I tell that Firewalls are not included in the study meterial . FUNNY Enough ! that my previous employer who was the owner of that hosting company , did not know what the CCNA material covers !

Im not arguing about taking that job , plesae dont mis understand that . When I mentioned that I dont have server experience , I was inteding to do the MCITP to get the knowledge ( NOT the experince ) . I had a chat with the Microsoft reps and he confirmed that the MCIPT course is strucutred , to match the job requirment , unlike the MCSA or MCSE . Also , Why would anybody think that I would nt be able to design a network , I will have a home lab and 7 or 8 PC 's to practice . The course is filled with alot of senarios to do , thay would be similar to working field , not the same thats for sure .

If started a basic job as somebody said , then how can I get a better job ???? I will be asked if I had any experience within that role , and the answer will be no ! If nobody is willing to give you the chance to get the experience , providing that you got the skills provided by the vendors ( microsoft or Cisco ) , how would you progress then ????

 

Getting a cert or qualification doesn't mean you can do a job it certainly doesn't mean that an employer will trust you to do that job either.

IT these days is about building experience, you start at the bottom maybe on a help desk, then move onto fixing simple issues then you move onto fixing more complex issues such as network issues.

Unfortunatley there are certs such as the CCNA which are taught by colleges and places and they have no prerequisites for anyone wanting to learn it. The CCNA is a cert that is designed for people who already work with cisco kit and are network professionals it is not for someone wanting to be a network professional.

Certs for people wanting to get into IT are certs like A+,Network+ and MCDST along with the MCDST upgrades, having anything higher than that can give you dilusions of grandure and stop employers from hiring you because you dont have the experience that the cert is supposed to back up.

 

The CCNA is a cert that is designed for people who already work with cisco kit and are network professionals it is not for someone wanting to be a network professional.

how can they become Network Professiol from first begining then ?
and if they are Network pro , why would they need to do the Certs then ?
What about Microsoft then ?? I had a chat with them not with a college , they said what I mentioned in my previous respond .

 

hi han

I think people are trying to save you from a very costly and time consuming mistake. I spent 2 years as part of a network design & installation team, there were 7 of us, each had our own specialities.

Even with 7 people. Most had extensive experience (I was the new guy) it would take anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks to install a network (after the cables had been laid), it would take months to work out the bugs, and over the 2 years I was part of the team I helped install 20+ networks, not 1 went smoothly, and every network had its own problems (mostly the client expecting things that wasn't part of the original spec).

I think what they are trying to say is that if you take the job on - you can't win, the slightest bug months down the line will be your fault, a user forgets their password - your fault, a Microsoft update balloon pops up - your fault.

Even if you manage to do all the setup, without going over time or budget, you'll be very lucky to build a good reputation based on the project.

Build yourself a solid foundation with good experience and certs before you take on a job like that. It will take you a few years, but when you get there, you'll stay there. If try and do too much, you'll be lucky to work in IT again.

Oh - and I guess stay away from any training provider, better off with a time-share or make a deal with a Nigerian official who is trying to sneak a few million out of his country via your bank account.

 

Did you read what I put? and what Jonny said? There are certs for people wanting to get into IT like A+,Network+ and MCDST these certs get people into the bottom, those people then gain experience and when they gain experience in particular areas then they can do certs which are designed to show their experience level in a working environment.

Experience means that they have done something whilst in a job not on a home network or class project. Certifications are designed to show your experience level. So having the MCSA means that you have experience as a network administrator, having the MCSE means you have experience as a systems engineer and having the CCNA means you have experience as someone who supports, manages and maintains Cisco hubs and switches unfortunatley colleges and training companies do not tell you this.

No network manager in their right mind would hire someone to support their network if that person had no experience of doing it regardless of their certs.

Nobody walks into a networking job it has to be built towards so like I said people start at the bottom and progress then they get experience then they can do certs to go with that experience so when they apply for better jobs they can say I have done this this and this and I have the certs to backup my experience.

 

To be honest I worked for NHS. Every practice in the borough I was working for had a local server, with 20-30 machines connected to this server. No AD was configured, just internet access. Then they had a separate server which was what they connected to for the prescription system.

My job was to roll out servers and migrate all machines to the central domain based at the PCT with AD configured and managed centrally. I can tell you that it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to design all that by yourself, however basic you plan on making it. This project was planned MONTHS in advance and if there was any problems then we had SPECIALIST guys responsible for EACH area. Even if you had 20 years experience, you would struggle with this job.

Secondly, I disagree with the fact that you HAVE to start in first line, do A+, Network+, MCDST and then move to 2nd line. I did a BTEC in computing, a degree in Computing Science, and was generally good with computers. I didnt want to waste time going into first line when I knew I was ready for a higher step considering I got my customer service experience working in retail during my education. However, if you have no prior experience, then I suggest it is right to follow the path suggested considering jobs are more harder to come by etc.

My advice is to follow what Michael and the other guys with the business experience say. Map out a plan for yourself which is realistic and achievable for the next 3-5 years. Be ambitious if you want to but also keep in mind the setbacks your likely to get.

 

Thanks for that , and yes I feel that I dont need to start from the bottom as I already have one year experience as an IT technician and 6 months in networking environment .

I will discus thses points highlighted in this threads with the employer who is a causin of mine to make things clearer to both of us .
I appreciate the fact that I dont have any server experience or skills . Its very fair to say that getting the cert will not give you the experience , but disagree the with the saying that it wont give you the skills .


However, considering thses guys advice is for SURE .

 

No one has said that certs do not teach you skills but the skill you learn whilst studying those certs but that does not count as experience.

Secondly when I was mentioning first line I was doing that as an example. You do not have to start in first line at all but its where a lot of people do start.

My main point was that you have the CCNA which is a useful certification for someone to have who actually does the job its designed to reflect but it is not useful for someone who is starting out andlooking to progress their career. There have been many people on here who have high level certs but not the required experience and they have had to hide those high level certs on their cv because as soon as employers had seen that they had no experience they were not getting interviews, once they hid the fact the were MCSE or CCNA certified they got interviews and jobs.

Han if you want to really be a networking pro then you should make you cv geared to the networking experience you have and get a low level network cert such as the network+ then once you have more experience put the CCNA back on your cv and then you will get better opportunities.