Originally Posted by
exerauflyboy5
Does anyone have any info on how to get a good start into networking maybe even becoming a network engineer and getting Cisco certification? My idea is to do this on the side in my off time.
Ex
I would stay away from the certification track. For serious employers and folks who need you to do actual work, they want clue & experience, not fancy certs. Plus, most of the stuff you'll learn in the certification track is going to be outdated and useless in the real world. The only cert stuff that I've ever seen get it right is the Juniper certs, which try to stay somewhat agnostic when it comes to protocol selection (Cisco can be bigots).
These days, CCIE's are a joke and they should adjust the number to include the amount of times someone has attempted to take it. The only good CCIE's are the one with the low-digits.
What I would recommend is the following:
-Obtain several books that focus on teaching the technology, not a vendors specific slant on the technology. Ciscopress is horrible and teaches you the Cisco-way of doing things. There are better, neutral publications out.
-Follow the _operator_ mailing lists, such as NANOG, cisco-nsp and juniper-nsp. Go to the NANOG website (nanog.org) and start looking at presentations & tutorials. They are there to educate you and they're going to do it better than most books or any class would teach you.
-Play with stuff at home. You can obtain Cisco IOS emulators and build your own Juniper router at home and try things out live on your own network:
Olive - Juniper Clue
Cisco 7200 Simulator - IPFlow Netflow Collector
Juniper JUNOS is basically FreeBSD under the hood and folks have built Cisco 7200 emulators which can load a Cisco IOS image.
Anyhow, if you are serious about getting into the field, PM me and I can give some more tips.