The Industry Direction

Discussion in 'Training & Development' started by Phoenix, Jun 21, 2004.

  1. Phoenix
    Honorary Member

    Phoenix 53656e696f7220 4d6f64

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    The Direction of the IT Industry
    a short article by Phoenix

    I have noticed over the past few months alot of newcommers here, not only to the forum, but to the IT industry in general, I have prepared this short little article to highlight some of my observations over the past few years, and hopfully assist you in better preparing your certification roadmap, and career path in IT.

    Let me start off by telling you a little about myself, for those that don't know me. I am 22 years old and have worked in IT since I was 14, my certs include 2 MCSEs, a CCNP and CCDP, A+, Security+ and a various other certifications.

    Unfortunatly I was on the tail end of the NT4 MCSE boom and the CCNA boom, what I mean by this is that by the time I had obtained them, the industry had disregarded thier worth due to the huge uptake of the certs thus lowering thier usefulness significantly, you may or may not already notice an MCSE is a pretty standard base requirement for the majority of support work around the world, which is funny considering the abilities an MCSE is supposed to possess.

    Hiring Practices
    During my years in the industry I have noticed it move from a degree orientated hiring scheme, to a certification based hiring scheme, to an experiance based hiring scheme, It has currently settled somewhere in the middle where it belongs, this doenst make it that easy for newcommers though, its a bit of a catch 22 situation, no work without experiance, no experiance without work there are opertunities to get your foot in the door soley on certs, especially with the rarer and harder to find certs (they wont however, always be rare and hard to find).

    The Industries Direction
    The IT industry has gone through quite an changing time over the last few years, with the dot com fizzle and the rise and fall of various major players, but a few things have set the wheels in motion for the next few years, namely the microsoft antitrust case, and the 'rise of terrorism' as mr bush would put it. This has led to the rise of F/OSS (Free / Open Source Software) becoming ever more mainstream, and Security becoming a bigger issue, already we are seeing major shifts in server operating system trends, along with security budget increases year after year

    What does this have to do with you?
    Well alot if you plan on having a steady future in IT, determining trends early on allow us to adapt to these new technologies before the 'herd' giving us the time to aquire experiance and knowledge before the 'herd' this pretty much puts us one up on the competition when new technology
    becomes 'the' technology. Specialist areas will always attract only a few,and they will have steady jobs as long as the technology holds, but for
    those of us who inhabit the 'generalist' spectrum of the IT field, we need to adapt with that field, and Open Source and Security are the two key areas of growth in the next few years.

    Already more and more certs are becoming available in these fields, but it may be a while before they are latched onto by the masses, this gives the early adopters more chance at early positions, and more experiance when things start moving

    The Players
    here is a quick run down of the 'must have' certs of the next few years, these are just predictions

    MCSE:Security
    Windows will remain a major player in the OS field for the forseable future, so MCSEs will always be required, having that security specialisation will give you an edge on the competition in paranoid organisations (see: most)

    CCSP
    Ciscos Security certification will no doubt be a de facto standard in the near future, not only does it cover neutral security concepts, design skills and knowledge, it also prepares you for a wide range of cisco (see: market leader) security equipment

    RHCE
    Red Hat enterprise linux is staking its claim, and its growing every year, as it grows, so will the requirement for skilled and qualified people to work with it, remember, most enterprises love to have vendor qualified staff onsite.

    SuSE Certification
    New off the block, but since its aquisition by novell SuSE is behing pushed harder than Red Hat, and with the backing its getting now things should only get better for this distribution

    Security+
    It's an entry level cert compared to the other behemoths in this list, but its a great starting block in the security field, and it counts toward the MCSE:Security so you cant go far wrong with it

    CISSP
    Industry standard security certification, looked on by governments to signify a base understanding of security concerns and requirements in enterprise and government systems, the CCSP has recently reached a par level with it since it was certified by the NSA/CNSS as meeting the 4011 training standards

    Checkpoint Certifications
    as one of the leading firewalls across the globe, the check point certifications are already becoming hot commodities and may well be required by most companies who utilize checkpoint firewalls. (see: CCSA, CCSE, CCSE+, CCSPA, CCMSE, CCMSE+VSX)


    Conclusion
    There are many other certs, many will come and go, others will stick around, I have primarily listed the key security and linux certs on par with the industies current direction, other key areas of growth include VoIP and Wireless, its upto you individualy to assess your area, find out what you feel is emerging, and take the opertunity before its required,remember, dont just do a load of certs, gain certs to further your career,and expand your knowledge, and above all have fun, its a crappy industry to be in if your not having fun

    Sorry for the rambling and poor english, its 4am here.
    if anyone wants to spellcheck it and throw it up as an article by me thats cool, dont have smtp here atm so cant email :/
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCITP, VCP
    WIP: > 0
  2. SimonV
    Honorary Member

    SimonV Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Thanks for contibuting this Ryan, once the forum has moved to VB there is a new article section that this can be published to.
     
    Certifications: MOS Master 2003, CompTIA A+, MCSA:M, MCSE
    WIP: Keeping CF Alive...
  3. AJ

    AJ 01000001 01100100 01101101 01101001 01101110 Administrator

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    Very interesting Ryan, thanks. I enjoyed reading that. :D
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCSA (messaging), ITIL Foundation v3
    WIP: Breathing in and out, but not out and in, that's just wrong
  4. nugget
    Honorary Member

    nugget Junior toady

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    Thanks for the insight Phoenix. Very helpful at the moment as I'm seriously thinking of changing track to linux certs.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP (270,271,272,290,620) | MCDST | MCTS:Vista
    WIP: MCSA, 70-622,680,685
  5. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Cool!!! 8)
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  6. Reders

    Reders Bit Poster

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    Well done Ryan, a very interesting read.
     
  7. wizard

    wizard Petabyte Poster

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    Very good read. :)
     
    Certifications: SIA DS Licence
    WIP: A+ 2009
  8. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Spot on Analysis Phoenix. I think one of the major players over the coming years will be Linux. It's so underused by the general industry but I think that may well change over the next 3-5 years.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  9. sbarks

    sbarks New Member

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    Hi

    agree 100%, hence why im looking at MCSE security :)



    steve
     
  10. Firthy2002

    Firthy2002 Byte Poster

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    I intend to get into network security in a big way because of the trends you mentioned.
     
    Certifications: None currently
    WIP: CompTIA A+ & Network+

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