|
BaseballPCHiker posted:Thank you so much for this! I had similar $reasons$ to start studying for that and have gotten side-tracked in the last month with a new dog and family matters. It's probably the single most dry boring material I've ever had to study for. I needed a cram type guide to study and get it out of the way before I start on my VCP class.
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 14:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 04:46 |
|
|
Ozu posted:My last job required all of IT Infrastructure to be ITIL Foundations certified, which was a pretty reasonable goal in itself. Everyone sat through the most boring 5-day class imaginable and essentially crammed "Which phase would this be?" type questions the night before for a couple hours. I think maybe 2-3 people didn't pass out of ~150. I couldn't imagine sitting through 5 days of that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 14:52
|
|
|
Foundations doesn't even seem complicated enough for 5 days - especially when you look at the flip side and see entire teams going to a 5 day VMware VCP course.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 14:59
|
|
|
open container posted:I'm trying to decide between an MCSA in Windows Server vs SQL Server. It seems there's a lot of overlap in the jobs I've looked at, and I've also read that sys admin is a good path to become a DBA, which means it would make more sense to do Windows Server to qualify me to be a sys admin, even though I think ultimately I'd prefer to be a DBA. So I'm really not sure which path to take. At the moment I'm trying to switch careers into IT, I currently have A+ and I'm hunting for a tech support job to get started. I have some experience with SQL and it definitely clicked with me in a way that programming never did. Can anyone advise me? What do you mean by "experience with SQL?" The SQL MCSA is equal parts dev, admin, and SSIS with a fair bit of syntax memorization. Outside of the day-to-day stuff, you need to be familiar with academic things like how Sequences work (not to a huge depth but they're pretty rare in the wild) and be pretty comfortable with SSIS and broadly how data warehousing and ETL work. I've heard of many people who are otherwise quite bright who can't get past the 463 because they hate SSIS and/or don't want to invest the time to learn DW fundamentals. Edit: if you're really looking to be a DBA, you definitely need some sysadmin experience under your belt if you want to be adept. DB servers, at the OS level, require special care and feeding way outside of what sysadmins are typically asked to support, so you need to know enough to ask them for the right things and make sure you're getting them. keseph fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 16:04
|
|
|
MC Fruit Stripe posted:Foundations doesn't even seem complicated enough for 5 days - especially when you look at the flip side and see entire teams going to a 5 day VMware VCP course. I wonder what the success rate is for the 5 day VCP course? Anecdotally, I know of a company that sent a team to the VCP class and only one guy ended up passing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 16:05
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:I wonder what the success rate is for the 5 day VCP course? Really it was an exercise in using up allocated training budget dollars in order to justify the same dollar amount the following year.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 16:44
|
|
|
keseph posted:What do you mean by "experience with SQL?" Thanks so much for your input. My SQL "experience" is one college course where I learned the basics of designing relational databases and writing queries. Sounds like I'd be better off going for Windows Server, it just seems weird to me how it's a progression to go from sys admin to dba yet the certs are equivalent.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 16:52
|
|
|
Ozu posted:Anecdotally, we sent 10 people to the 5-day 4.1 Install, Manage, Configure back in 2010. Only 4 people took the exam directly afterwards since they had the free voucher and zero passed, myself included. The 2 lead virtualization engineers eventually passed with loads of self-study but everyone else never bothered. Management didn't press it because at least the admins knew how to use vMotion and deploy a template if need be. If the 5-day VCP course uses the same material as the Stanly course (Everything looks like it comes from VMware directly and the trainers just read through it) then there is zero possibility of taking and passing the VCP exam on the first try.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 17:04
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:I wonder what the success rate is for the 5 day VCP course? Most places tell you "If you're here for the cert and you haven't read scott lowe's book, have a lab, and done serious study; you won't pass, go get a refund." At least that's what I got told in the 5.1 class and vButt Director class.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 17:34
|
|
|
Dilbert As gently caress posted:Most places tell you "If you're here for the cert and you haven't read scott lowe's book, have a lab, and done serious study; you won't pass, go get a refund." In the course I sat, the instructor flat out told us there was 80-120 hours of reading and labs to do after the course. I think out of 12 people I was the only one who wrote and passed the exam.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 18:23
|
|
|
open container posted:Thanks so much for your input. My SQL "experience" is one college course where I learned the basics of designing relational databases and writing queries. Well, it isn't to say that you shouldn't pursue it if it's interesting to you. I took a very similar class in college about 6 months prior to my first DBA gig and it's turned out fantastically for me! But I was also working 20-30 hrs/wk as a linux sysadmin during college, so I had the background installing from bare metal all the way up to a fully functional network. A DBA isn't also a sysadmin -- I sure make a lot of stupid mistakes every time I rebuild the domain on my VM lab -- but when you start working with anything advanced, your DB server's dependencies stretch deep into the OS and you have to speak competently with the OS guys about, say, making sure your Cluster disks failover successfully within 10 seconds or that your network backup storage requirements are going to steamroll that 1gig NIC they put in the system spec. If it really interests you, then absolutely go for it, because it is depressing how many disinterested DBAs are out there who can't be assed to keep learning the new stuff (and there is a lot of new stuff). Just be amenable to learning, at a shallow level, a lot of the sysadmin and dev stuff along the way.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 02:39
|
|
|
I'm considering pursuing some of the specialty associate-level Cisco certs after my CCNA R&S rather than going straight for the CCNP. (I won't be getting my CCNA anytime soon due to contractual reasons, but I like having goals.) One of my community college instructors recommended the CCDA because it supposedly isn't as far removed from the core routing and switching stuff as something like Voice. I'm roughly at a CCNA level of knowledge thanks to sitting through four semesters of Cisco Academy crap, but I can't really tell from the CCDA syllabus what the hell it covers or how technical it is. Can any CCDA goons tell me more about it? Is it useful knowledge for an aspiring network guy to have, or would I be better served going for something more specialized like Wireless?
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 19:03
|
|
|
What's everyone's go-to for online/video training these days? Was thinking of trying to knock out CCNA Security in a month since it's now DOD 8570-approved, and I've heard it's not difficult to get with R+S knowledge.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:11
|
|
|
Definitely PluralSight - I find that they're releasing videos which I'd consider more advanced. Whereas CBT Nuggets will give you a nice "this is what I need for my cert" video, so you can go search for like 70-412 and find something, you're going to find that 80% of the video is poo poo that everyone already knows. Oh wow that's a PTR record? Thanks I'm home free on my MCSE... On the flipside, Pluralsight usually deals in specific topics rather than exams. Note the difference in some MSSQL lessons: CBT Nuggets: 70-462 - Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases CBT Nuggets: 70-463 - Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Pluralsight: Optimizing OLTP and Data Warehousing with SQL Server 2014 Pluralsight: SQL Server Optimizing Ad Hoc Statement Performance Pluralsight: SQL Server Transactional Replication Fundamentals For that reason, I like Pluralsight, because CBT Nuggets seems to assume no prior knowledge, whereas Pluralsight is closer to a deep dive.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:55
|
|
|
Fag Boy Jim posted:What's everyone's go-to for online/video training these days? Was thinking of trying to knock out CCNA Security in a month since it's now DOD 8570-approved, and I've heard it's not difficult to get with R+S knowledge. Just for the other side of the fence I just passed my CCNA Security using CBT Nuggets as my primary source of study. Also have some experience setting up ASAs so it wasn't exactly my first foray into the Sec topics but it was pretty good for rounding out my knowledge. Now to forget everything I saw about CCP, ugh... Definitely going to check out PluralSight, company just sprung for a membership so my co-worker can start working on his CCNP Wireless. CBT doesn't even have a series on that. Seems like both are still behind on CCNP Security but it is understandable as the old tests expired two weeks ago. Fatal fucked around with this message at 23:18 on May 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 23:15
|
|
|
Fag Boy Jim posted:What's everyone's go-to for online/video training these days? Was thinking of trying to knock out CCNA Security in a month since it's now DOD 8570-approved, and I've heard it's not difficult to get with R+S knowledge. What is it approved for? Level IA-1.5?
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 02:22
|
|
|
See if you can make head or tail of this. From what I can tell, it should be acceptable for any "Security+ Required" position?
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 03:33
|
|
|
Fag Boy Jim posted:See if you can make head or tail of this. From what I can tell, it should be acceptable for any "Security+ Required" position? Sec+ get's you 95% of the jobs in IT in Hampton Roads, if you are looking for a sec job or crypto PM me I can put you in contact with a guy. either way I work with TCC we have a job program so I can give you leads.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 03:44
|
|
|
in all honesty Sec+ bored the hell out of me when I studied for it, which is actually why I bothered going for the CCNA in the first place, so I'm a bit reluctant to go back to it. I'm not looking for a security job in particular, but loving everyone here and in Nova needs DOD 8570, so I might be left with no choice. Not particularly looking for a security job- dream right now is an entry-level data center/ISP job, but I'm just applying to every netadmin/NOC position that isn't a $15/hr helpdesk at the moment.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 04:04
|
|
|
MC Fruit Stripe posted:Definitely PluralSight - I find that they're releasing videos which I'd consider more advanced. Whereas CBT Nuggets will give you a nice "this is what I need for my cert" video, so you can go search for like 70-412 and find something, you're going to find that 80% of the video is poo poo that everyone already knows. Oh wow that's a PTR record? Thanks I'm home free on my MCSE... I thought PluralSight was garbage. The videos and the exam materials for 70-410 were a loving joke. It did not even come close to preparing you.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 05:18
|
|
|
I start Cracking The Perimeter tomorrow, signed up for a 30 day class. I'll be going for OSCE in about 45 days or so. I'll post up how things go if anyone is interested.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 05:31
|
|
|
Fag Boy Jim posted:in all honesty Sec+ bored the hell out of me when I studied for it, which is actually why I bothered going for the CCNA in the first place, so I'm a bit reluctant to go back to it. I'm not looking for a security job in particular, but loving everyone here and in Nova needs DOD 8570, so I might be left with no choice. To be fair, the test is quite easy. I found many of the questions where the answer was straight forward and knew instantly which was correct. None of that garbage of weird or tricky wording designed to throw you off.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 14:48
|
|
|
Soylent Heliotrope posted:I'm considering pursuing some of the specialty associate-level Cisco certs after my CCNA R&S rather than going straight for the CCNP. (I won't be getting my CCNA anytime soon due to contractual reasons, but I like having goals.) One of my community college instructors recommended the CCDA because it supposedly isn't as far removed from the core routing and switching stuff as something like Voice. I'm roughly at a CCNA level of knowledge thanks to sitting through four semesters of Cisco Academy crap, but I can't really tell from the CCDA syllabus what the hell it covers or how technical it is. Can any CCDA goons tell me more about it? Is it useful knowledge for an aspiring network guy to have, or would I be better served going for something more specialized like Wireless? Do you want to get a job later with your certs? The CCDA is really not that good of a cert unless you want to become a sales engineer. I would go down the CCNA to CCNP route first.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 15:22
|
|
|
Fag Boy Jim posted:See if you can make head or tail of this. From what I can tell, it should be acceptable for any "Security+ Required" position? CASP... 
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2014 22:25
|
|
|
If I pick up A+ and N+ certs would I qualify for a lovely, minimum wage help desk/support type job with no experience in the field and no schooling? Then I would probably go to college (in Canada, so like American community college), while working and go for the other certs (CCNA and so forth).
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 00:20
|
|
|
Trax416 posted:If I pick up A+ and N+ certs would I qualify for a lovely, minimum wage help desk/support type job with no experience in the field and no schooling? It isn't a guarantee, but it'll be an advantage over anyone without the cert. I recommend it just to make sure you're a good fit for IT, if you can get those two certs on your own, you already have a lot of attributes needed to succeed.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 00:24
|
|
|
Trax416 posted:If I pick up A+ and N+ certs would I qualify for a lovely, minimum wage help desk/support type job with no experience in the field and no schooling? I'm not sure what your experience will be, but I got the A+ and Network+ a year ago and while it did land me some interviews I had no luck landing a job (and this in a very IT region -- near DC.) Maybe I interview horribly. One thing that's really curious is the laundry list of requirements for jobs people seem to require (must be experienced with Linux, microsoft server, ccna, college degree preferred, at least 2 years experience etc etc.) Absurd.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 15:27
|
|
|
ZergFluid posted:I'm not sure what your experience will be, but I got the A+ and Network+ a year ago and while it did land me some interviews I had no luck landing a job (and this in a very IT region -- near DC.) Maybe I interview horribly. Thats called widening the net. The requirements arnt always made by anyone working an actual IT job. HR will just pull a bunch of keywords and catchphrases. HR screening is hilariously worthless. A good company will utilize the experience of the hiring manager/directorate manager and let them come up with requirements. Apply anyways and hope for the best.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 16:01
|
|
|
ZergFluid posted:I'm not sure what your experience will be, but I got the A+ and Network+ a year ago and while it did land me some interviews I had no luck landing a job (and this in a very IT region -- near DC.) Maybe I interview horribly. I tell everyone to use the 25% rule: if you have any kind of experience with even 25% of the the position requirements, apply anyway. Applying for entry-level and early career work is usually a shotgun approach in that you should be applying to as many positions as possible. If you wind up in a lovely Tier 1 position, you at least have a steady source of income and are getting some basic experience before something better comes along. And I'm not trying to be a dick, but if you can't get a basic helpdesk job in the DC metro area then yeah, there's definitely something wrong with the way you're presenting yourself at the interview. Maybe try a few mock interviews or work with a recruiter who can point out what you're doing wrong.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 17:06
|
|
|
Trax416 posted:If I pick up A+ and N+ certs would I qualify for a lovely, minimum wage help desk/support type job with no experience in the field and no schooling? That's what I did. That lovely part time job turned in to a lovely full time job that pays salary with benefits. All poo poo talk aside, i love my job. I did a career change because this is what I always wanted to do, but ended up doing Project Management in the gaming industry for 9 years. I had no prior IT experience other then being an avid computer dork on my own free time. I put a resume together and got my A+ to get noticed. A+ allowed me to get my foot in the door. Since I prefer networking, I then got my Network+. I'm working towards my CCNA right now and i'm currently a Jr Network Admin that still ends up doing Helpdesk poo poo because a title change doesn't mean poo poo for the end users.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 19:42
|
|
|
Frag Viper posted:I'm working towards my CCNA right now and i'm currently a Jr Network Admin that still ends up doing Helpdesk poo poo because a title change doesn't mean poo poo for the end users. Stop handling their poo poo and they'll learn
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2014 19:55
|
|
|
Alright, passed my RHCSA this weekend. The practice tests in the Jang book and online really are good prep. Now on to finding a job in the SF Bay area. Anyone wanna hire me?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 02:44
|
|
|
I've just finished typing up my notes for Objective 5.1 of the VCP, bringing me to a grand total of 51 pages thus far. I've still got 5.2-5.5, 6.1-6.4, and 7.1-7.2 to finish up, and I expect I'll have 75 pages of notes at a minimum. Christ, I don't remember my Praxis exam being this involved when I took it to get my teaching certificate, and the potential subject matter was the entirety of human history (for some reason I remember getting questions on the history of Jazz and ancient Greek architecture - weird). Anyways, my pace has been slowed because I just can't sit for 10-12 hours straight working on reading the review guides and writing up my notes without breaks of a couple hours. Plus I have to get into vCenter to double-check myself to see if what I wrote makes sense. I know I've reached a limit when I can't decipher what the hell I wrote. So even though I planned on taking the exam two weeks from tomorrow I think I would be better off delaying another two weeks so I have sufficient time to finish my notes without a huge time crunch and still have sufficient time left over for labbing. Someone once mentioned that they were told it takes 80-120 hours to adequately prepare for the VCP5 exam and that sounds about right from my perspective. I pity those people who don't have the opportunity to deal with VMware at work, because unless they have a kick-rear end home environment they aren't going to be nearly as prepared as they could be.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 03:01
|
|
|
Tigren posted:Alright, passed my RHCSA this weekend. The practice tests in the Jang book and online really are good prep. Congrats  I feel like this forum leans Windows heavy so I am always happy to see another Linux person join the fold. My unsolicited advice would be to lab up one of Chef or Puppet at home and teach yourself some basic Python or Ruby. Store those lab exercises in git or Mercurial. With some combo of those under your belt you won't be looking for a job long.Double bonus points for using Amazon AWS' free tier as your "lab" so you can get ~cloud~ on your resume, too.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 04:18
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:Double bonus points for using Amazon AWS' free tier as your "lab" so you can get ~cloud~ on your resume, too. Is this a reasonable path? I might have to get in on this. Any pointers on how to get started?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 04:22
|
|
|
AWS offers a free tier which is basically 1 year of the smallest possible instance of each service (a micro EC2 instance, etc). You couldn't do a full RHCE lab or anything 100% free but just some exposure to the AWS GUI and some sort of CLI tool whether it's the official API's or something like the Python boto library is extremely valuable. And while you're learning the AWS ecosystem you might as well take advantage of the box you've spun up to play with something like Puppet/Chef/SaltStack/Ansible and a scripting language. I don't have a great tutorial off the top of my head but if I find one in my bookmarks or anything I'll post it.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 05:01
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:I don't have a great tutorial off the top of my head but if I find one in my bookmarks or anything I'll post it. That would be awesome. I just got my lab box setup and fired up the Learning Puppet VM. It is pretty neat. Other projects on my list are Vagrant, Docker, and RDO (Red Hat's OpenStack release). I appreciate the unsolicited advice. I'm looking to switch careers and it's a bit daunting. You make it seem like basic exposure to some of this stuff is all it takes to pimp it on a resume. How familiar are you with a concept or technology before you claim to know? Tigren fucked around with this message at 05:19 on May 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 05:13
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:Is this a reasonable path? I might have to get in on this. Any pointers on how to get started? RHOS/RDO is easy as openstack goes, but AWS free is capable if you don't have spare hardware, want AWS experience and not just "cloud" (eucalyptus is private AWS, basically), or can squeeze into a Debian (or other small) image
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 05:17
|
|
|
Tigren posted:Alright, passed my RHCSA this weekend. The practice tests in the Jang book and online really are good prep. which online practice tests do you think are good? I'm basically a DevOps dude that works mostly in Debian/Ubuntu with a few CentOS servers and have been thinking about getting the RHCSA cert (even though I focus on servers and not desktops) i'm basically self taught - and after a phone call from Google about a possible job, have come to the realization that I know nothing. Google starting asking me questions about "inodes" and I was like....I have no idea what that is (obviously after looking into it after the question, I understand - I had just not come across that term before...which is pretty sad, heh)
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 16:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 04:46 |
|
|
Tigren posted:That would be awesome. I just got my lab box setup and fired up the Learning Puppet VM. It is pretty neat. Other projects on my list are Vagrant, Docker, and RDO (Red Hat's OpenStack release). A good rule of thumb is whether you'd be comfortable talking about it in an interview. If it's a junior type job, you can speak intelligently about what Puppet is and why config management/infrastructure as code are desirable, and you can read, understand and make simple changes to their existing manifests that's probably fine. If they want you to architect a large deployment from the ground up that might be outside the scope of what you can reasonably learn in a home lab. It should be reasonably clear from the job description how much of a guru you're expected to be. Don't lie about the fact that you haven't used it on the job, but you don't need to downplay what you've done either if it had practical value. "yes it was in a home lab, but I wrote manifests from scratch to deploy a LAMP app" or whatever.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 17:14
|
|