CompTIA Certifications

Nah, but good luck to ya! Then go get Linux+ (I realistically have no idea how "good" either of those certifications are, but they sure do look better than nothing on a resume!)

 

I have an A+. I got it back in 98/99 or so.

I don't remember much about the exam. I do remember that the printer jammed when printing my results.

 

starfish: you sure that wasn't part of the exam? Making sure you could fix the printer?

 

yeah, I've got my A+, Network+ and Server+. Missed the Security+ by a few points....never got around to taking it again. I can tell you this I've had job offers while I was in high school based solely off that certification. The linux plus is now backed by LPI. The only thing I don't like about the CompTIA certifications is that they really aren't practical(so if you have a lot of luck you've got about a 25% chance on each question).

 

I'm currently doing an A+ 11 prep course, hopefully I'll be able to get my certification later on with ease.

Good luck to you getting your A+, Mitchell!

 

Good question on the value of certifications. They surely aren't the free pass to a high paying job as they were before the papermill of MCSE's and to some degree CCNA's.

As someone who worked as a sysadmin / network techie for quite a few years, made it to a more senior position in IT and somehow almost always end up in the hiring board when hiring new employees, I personally would look for:

1. Experience:

Yes, that a tough nut to crack as an entry level IT-person. Try to at least get voluntary work under your belt if you can' paid work

2. Demonstrated willingness to learn:

This includes certifications or going back to school for a degree. Being a proven self-starter means a great deal (voluntary works also means something here).

The average B.Sc in IT (or Computer Science) is probably good for many jobs. But for sysadmin/network techie types that is generally not needed IMHO.

3. Genereal knowledge about IT-security

Please please please... at least consider getting some security certifications under your belt. This is getting more important by the day. I am of the opinion, that no techies should be allowed near a server, a router or a firewall without having any general knowledge of IT security. The SANS certifications looks very good (and they are very practical). CISSP is a different beast (and highly theoretical), but it gives you a theoretical foundation for working securely with IT.

Oops.... turned the post into career advice for techies. Don't think anyone asked for that ;-)

 

^ No, but it's solid advice and lets be honest. minus unskilled labor your going to be hard pressed to find a carrear field that doesn't involve IT in some form or fashion. The more you know the better!!! CCNA is bitch....i spent 1/2 a year studying for it and still don't feel like I'm ready. I've never considered taking anything from Microsoft. Are they really worth it?

 

Nah, a Microsoft certification is (as Koan so aptly put it) a papermill. I think that they are more and more devalued these days.

Where I work, we constantly try and hire straight out of college (Ivy League doesn't hurt at this particular place), so what I'm looking for in those people is a willingness and drive to learn. If they're willing to learn, they can certainly be taught whatever skills they need to know.

In fact, my interviews of these kids are decidedly non-technical, unless there's something on their resume that I can grill em on. Project work helps here, particularly something that I can go look at (coding behind a public website, etc).

All that being said, I got hired as an experienced hire with 10 years of experience and no degree at this place, so you can certainly overcome a lack of a degree with enough experience (and being known externally in your field doesn't hurt either )

 

From my understanding, Microsoft have totally revamped the MCSE this year. Supposedly with a heavy emphasis on cloud, much harder and much more practical.

So it might be worth at least checking it out.

I hardly ever ask technical questions either (at least no factual technical questions). I might however ask questions about how they were going to troubleshoot some technical problems. I want to know if they know how to determine the impact of a problem and if they follow a structured approach to solving IT-problems.

 

See i never cared much for the "cloud" theory of networking, because usually it means outsourcing some part of it. If it's a decent company I'm going to make my own "cloud" not outsource it.

 

I think that is the point of the certification. Being able to create and manage public or private clouds.

 

The MICROSOFT way lol.....I wouldn't trust a microsoft windows server further than I can throw it. Sorry, but it's the truth...when it comes to mission critical i'm BSD or linux all the way. (LPI certifications!!) I need to get one of those...

 

The IT-shop where I work runs hundreds of systems on Windows which are deemed mission critical by our customers.

Windows servers has improved leaps and bounds since Windows NT. The difference is not that great any more, and I'd say that the security of either operating system depends more on skillset of the admins than the operating system itself.

If I were to decide between running on Windows and Unix I would be looking more at which applications and applications to run (f.ex. Java platform vs. DotNet) and the inhouse competencies available, rather than the relative technical merits of either platform in terms of security.

(unless you have very specific needs in terms of security - f.ex. scalability - in which I would probably opt for something like BSD - again depending on the specific platform or application to run).

The right server operating system always depends on the context in which it is to be used. This is why many techies could also use a minimum (at least) of business skills.

 

Yeah, I've used the 03 and 08 server editions and in the end if it's a task that can be accomplished in the *nix world....generally I'll take that route over the windows route. Takes a little more work on the setup, but a lot less troubleshooting later.

 

You are thinking of SaaS, Software as a Service. PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) are more about automation and reducing time to establishment of service.

There are public PaaS and IaaS services, but most interest right now are in Private PaaS and IaaS clouds. I've built a few private clouds. I really don't care for the term cloud. Cloud is nothing new, it is just old stuff with different wrapping paper on it.

Back in 2006 I was working on a project with an incredibly short run way. Me and a couple of coworkers decided to use VMs running on ESX and automated the heck out of it. Fast forward 9 months and the term cloud starts to come en vogue. We are standing around going what the heck is a cloud. So we start reading up and sure enough we had built a cloud and didn't even know it.

 

<rant>
I *somewhat* agree with this. Everyone calls everything that is virtualized in even the smallest degree a "cloud". I would posit a different definition, and I think people could get on board with this:

1) Self service is a requirement. Requiring an admin to do *anything* means that you don't have a cloud.
2) Usage based billing (number of compute hours, amount of storage used, whatever)
3) To go with 1, you must be able to scale up (or down) the services on demand without intervention (which implies that you have capacity to do this)

That's a cloud. A bunch of ESX servers is *not* a cloud.
</rant>

 

Totally agree.

Cloud is both a delivery model and a billing model.

 

Yep and that is really nothing new. Well I take that back. The technology is just technology which has been around for 40 years. The new stuff is the changes in IT policies. For long time policies and procedures have been written around people manually doing stuff. In my experience is hardest part is to get the powers to be to sign off on the automation. I'll admit that has made me a bit jaded.

I think there needs to be levels of clouds. Sort of like Capability Maturity Model. I'd call an ESX server with a VM level 0 and Amazon Level 5.

Anyway I' just rambling at this point.

 

Also, I forgot to mention - there is NOTHING in the definition of cloud that I proffered above that requires the use of any sort of virtualization. It helps as the means to the end, but is not the end in and of itself. Another pet peeve of mine

However, I think this thread has now been officially hijacked Let's start a new thread if we want to continue

To the OP: Good luck on your certifications, and do let us know if you need any help - as you can see, there's a bunch of guys on here passionate about technology!