Stats of a Consultant

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Phoenix - your job sounds fantastic, I really like the way you laid out of CV too.

You mentioned in this thread you could walk into a datacentre and set everything up from scratch - I have massive gaps in my knowledge and mentally cant vizualise where to start, what the process is etc - I want to learn and am currently setting up a lab at home to get some hands on in the newer things work arent using yet.

Is there any white papers out there/books that map out the process of what you mentioned (about the setting up the datacentre) - kind of where you start, things to consider, the process etc? (I know i couldnt recreate it but I would love to read the work invovled so I can understand it).

 

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Again, not to be rude, but people who pass a CCIE written still haven't proven anything... why do a CCIE written f you don't want to go to do a CCIE Lab? CCNP is worth more then CCNP Written imho.

I've finished CCNP, afterwards I've seen the 350-001 exam and it's not a bit harder then CCNP. It was even easier... the CCIE Written was invented by Cisco to earn more money, not to have people 'prove' to can handle the lab.

The CCIE Lab is the real thing, you don't, but people who claim to be CCIE while only accomplishing CCIE Written are not more then scams.

Besides all that... what I said before, you surely have a great ammount of knowledge.. and yes, I still stay with my opinion that your networking level is certainly not worthy a CCIE title.

 

Cisco Certifications have become alot harder than they ever have been.

I was looking at an ancient CCNA book the other day, it was tiny, contained hardly anything, you could have nailed it within a month.

This plus I was chatting to an an expired CCNP who said that he reckons the CCNA nowadays isn't far off the CCNP when he took it.

This is in complete contrast to the new MCTS (200 exams by MS which are way easier then the old 2003 ones.

 

Can you recommend any particular blogs? or you just browse around?

From time to time I find my self reading some blogs but it's not nearly enough... One thing I've learned is that those who make it to the higher up positions such as yourself, tend to read a lot more and are more current on the new technologies like you mentioned.

Ryan, you did well for yourself and you definitely deserve to be where you are today. I would like to do the same one day so who's better to ask then the those who got there

 

What's interesting too, is that I find Cisco is becoming more and more popular each year. When I did the course back in 2005, the CCNA was part of the curriculum and it was not as popular as it is today... Now in the same school they are offering CCNA, CCNP, etc... where before it was just the CCNA.

 

Agreed
And I agree with some of the below regarding the changes to Cisco content and the exams I did being considerably easier than present ones, that said, I work with the tech today, I don't just read about it and sit tests

I self funded my NA, DA, NP and DP and my IE written
I was not about to fund the IE lab myself, and was out of work at the time
the direction I took soon after evolved into what is now one of the biggest growth areas in the Datacenter,
I work with several CCIE's and can still hold my own, in fact I out pace them on some of the new technology that has yet to hit mainstream (such as IPv6 and DCB/DCE) but that's beside the point
had I continued down a true Cisco path then maybe an IE would of been payed for, although I am more likely to pursue DE now if i return to that space

 

It's generally not a one trick pony mate
and in reality, its not something that one person ever has to do, or should ever be lumbered with!
I think it speaks more to the diversity of roles I've had over the years, and what that has exposed me to(to the point that i can tell when my power distribution is poorly designed etc)

its very rare the guy patching cables can configure exchange clusters or Oracle RAC
or the guy configuring Exchange clusters knows what BGP even stands

I'm pretty sure if you got experts in each field, they could probably do it quicker and better than i could, the fact remains though, that the single focus expert is a dieing breed, and the day of the datacenter engineer is fast coming to realization, almost everyone i know at the top of the virtualization food chain came there from somewhere else, and almost all of them can do what i described, we handle the whole stack, not just a certain piece

this is what IT departments are demanding these days, as they scale back expensive hires like CCIEs, how many end users do you know with multiple CCIEs on staff? what about VCDX or MCM/MCAs? CCIEs are far more common, but even large companies are moving to the model where they 'hire in' expertise when needed, and have run rate guys for day to day work, its a better model for them, and in fairness a better model for the 'expert' who now gets to stay a lot busier

 

Much like Ryan I think that the world now stores more stock in the Jack of All Trades than the specific master of one particular specialisation.
Whilst I can’t compete with Ryan in his Cisco skills I like to think I can hold my own with the Data Center (oh and it’s the Border Gateway Protocol but don't ask me to configure it ).

It certainly pays off being a person who is adaptable and approachable, the kind of person who has the ‘can do’ attitude rather than the ‘not sure’ attitude and unfortunately I see a small minority of people on the site who fall into the latter category and no amount of advising\pointing will help them be more than that.
Again like Ryan I would say that 95% of my certification has been self-funded and because of that I have chosen the route that I have and because of that it’s given me more confidence in other areas (I have no issues talking and advising CEO and CIO’s and have done on multiple occasions in the past).

Remember that each person is in charge of their own destiny and by choosing the certifications that they choose is what helps them with that, just because someone hasn’t gone all the way with Cisco (CCIE) or VMware (VCDX) or Microsoft (MCM and MCA) doesn’t mean that they can’t hold their own with their peers who have taken those exams and shouldn’t be discounted because of it.
Actions speak louder than words and someone who can walk the walk and talks the talk speaks louder than someone who only has the certification but lacks the experience to hold their own.

 

I agree with what's been said. I'd much rather hire someone who could do a little bit of everything than a lot of just one thing. And, on the working end, I'd much rather have the variety of doing many different things than be buttonholed into a narrowly focused job role. It'd drive me crazy to do nothing but Exchange administration day after day!

 

I am with everyone too as I am currently on a four days VMware vSphere 4 Troubleshooting course and finding it very interesting. I am in by no means an expert yet but I can find my way around VMware VC, vSphere 4, log files and migration and building of vm's.

Well in a nutshell gone are the days of am a specialist of xyz in IT as the more you're involved in the more marketable you and your skills would be.