Certification Goals for 2016... What Are Yours?

Started by deanwebb, November 17, 2015, 08:33:43 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

icecream-guy

Quote from: deanwebb on August 04, 2016, 12:01:43 PM
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IS YOUR FAVORITE PERSON AND YOU WANT AS MANY PICTURES OF HIM NEXT TO THE NUMBER 100 AS POSSIBLE!

^ Motivation to keep studying.

Conversely, it's not about the money, it's about what makes you happy and gives you that feeling of self satisfaction.

of course being happy and self satisfied while driving around in a Porsche, makes it all that much better.
:professorcat:

My Moral Fibers have been cut.

deanwebb

Quote from: ristau5741 on August 04, 2016, 01:46:59 PM
Quote from: deanwebb on August 04, 2016, 12:01:43 PM
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IS YOUR FAVORITE PERSON AND YOU WANT AS MANY PICTURES OF HIM NEXT TO THE NUMBER 100 AS POSSIBLE!

^ Motivation to keep studying.

Conversely, it's not about the money, it's about what makes you happy and gives you that feeling of self satisfaction.

of course being happy and self satisfied while driving around in a Porsche, makes it all that much better.


Yeah, but goin' for the benjamins is gangsta.

And, damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

:gangsta:
Take a baseball bat and trash all the routers, shout out "IT'S A NETWORK PROBLEM NOW, SUCKERS!" and then peel out of the parking lot in your Ferrari.
"The world could perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." -- Vladimir Savchenko
Вопросы есть? Вопросов нет! | BCEB: Belkin Certified Expert Baffler | "Plan B is Plan A with an element of panic." -- John Clarke
Accounting is architecture, remember that!
Air gaps are high-latency Internet connections.

wintermute000

#122
I can't imagine tackling all that from scratch and in a matter of months. Fortunately or unfortunately, I went in with real life scars from MP-BGP/MPLS-VPN and DMVPN as well as having gone through all the NBMA scenarios (v4 labs) repeatedly.

The syllabus just sped up my typing and made me memorise all the obscure stuff which of course I have now completely forgotten....

that1guy is spot on, you just need to grit your teeth and push through, there is really no other way. Its kinda like over-pressure - you HAVE to overload yourself (all that stuff to memorise... every scenario, every nerd knob) and the moment you stop trying to keep stuffing it in, you start leaking memories. So really, at the end when its all coming together, its a sprint, NOT a marathon. The marathon is the foundations but the 3 months of non-stop full scale labs (and then cramming notes each scenario you are not flying through on autopilot) is the sprint.


I don't know if benjamins is enough motivation to get someone through the effort. I mean, its not that many benjamins in the greater scheme of things - if you're good at investment/stock picking or worked in sales you could make many times the bump in salary. And at the really high salaries its not about engineering chops anyway, perhaps it is in Silicon valley / hyperscale, but not in most normal workplaces (which is sad but hey such is life).

config t

Totally agree with that1guy and wintermute.. I'm going to have to force my mind into beast-mode if I want to pull this off by Christmas. I haven't made a schedule and have just kind of been going with the flow. Tip of the hat to those of you who did this with families and full-time jobs. You guys are warriors. I'm very fortunate to be in a position where I can tackle this early in my career with no distractions. No doubt.

I won't say it's not about money (because mm.. benjamins). Mostly it's about creating opportunities and becoming a better network professional. After going through some crappy jobs and projects just to build a base of experience and break into the industry it's sort of a capstone to all of those struggles.

More time in the trenches will definitely be needed. I don't expect to be handed a 150k job because I passed a really hard exam, but I will be well-armed and that much closer.


Oh and it will probably be a Jaguar F-Type.. not a Porsche  :pub:
:matrix:

Please don't mistake my experience for intelligence.

deanwebb

Just submitted my CFP for RSA. It's about Game Theory and Information Security. Hope it gets selected. If not, meh. Can always submit for next year.
Take a baseball bat and trash all the routers, shout out "IT'S A NETWORK PROBLEM NOW, SUCKERS!" and then peel out of the parking lot in your Ferrari.
"The world could perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." -- Vladimir Savchenko
Вопросы есть? Вопросов нет! | BCEB: Belkin Certified Expert Baffler | "Plan B is Plan A with an element of panic." -- John Clarke
Accounting is architecture, remember that!
Air gaps are high-latency Internet connections.

wintermute000

VCIX-NV booked for 26/9.

Its irritating as I feel 90% ready, but there is only 1 exam centre offering it in my town and I've had a co-worker bomb out already as his RDP session was unusable (its a 4 hour lab exam, not this pansy multiple choice stuff LOL). It was so bad, Vmware gave him a free re-sit.

Fortunately for me I have a project in another town coming up in a month and they've nicely agreed for me to fly up a day early to sort this out in a test centre that hopefully wont' have unusably slow internet (or private network or however Pearson connects back to Vmware labs).

Unfortunately for me, I have to wait a bloody month!


routerdork

Wasn't on my goal list but my previous employer had me scheduled to go to LogRhythm training a couple months ago. So I took the test a few weeks back and I'm a LogRhythm Certified Professional now  :wall:
"The thing about quotes on the internet is that you cannot confirm their validity." -Abraham Lincoln

deanwebb

I'm reading almost everything on security except my CISSP official cert guide. Today is the day I open that book again and start reading it... right after I finish posting here.
Take a baseball bat and trash all the routers, shout out "IT'S A NETWORK PROBLEM NOW, SUCKERS!" and then peel out of the parking lot in your Ferrari.
"The world could perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." -- Vladimir Savchenko
Вопросы есть? Вопросов нет! | BCEB: Belkin Certified Expert Baffler | "Plan B is Plan A with an element of panic." -- John Clarke
Accounting is architecture, remember that!
Air gaps are high-latency Internet connections.

srg

som om sinnet hade svartnat för evigt.

EOS

Quote from: srg on August 30, 2016, 08:10:51 AM
CCIE RS, passed yesterday in Brussels  :pub:


CONGRATS!!!!!   That's awesome!    :pub:

How long did you study for it?

deanwebb

Take a baseball bat and trash all the routers, shout out "IT'S A NETWORK PROBLEM NOW, SUCKERS!" and then peel out of the parking lot in your Ferrari.
"The world could perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." -- Vladimir Savchenko
Вопросы есть? Вопросов нет! | BCEB: Belkin Certified Expert Baffler | "Plan B is Plan A with an element of panic." -- John Clarke
Accounting is architecture, remember that!
Air gaps are high-latency Internet connections.

Rllavona13

Quote from: srg on August 30, 2016, 08:10:51 AM
CCIE RS, passed yesterday in Brussels  :pub:

Congrats[emoji1373]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

srg

Quote from: EOS on August 30, 2016, 08:13:40 AM
Quote from: srg on August 30, 2016, 08:10:51 AM
CCIE RS, passed yesterday in Brussels  :pub:


CONGRATS!!!!!   That's awesome!    :pub:

How long did you study for it?
A little over a year from passing the written, but as always it's been in waves with lots of work and other stuff.
som om sinnet hade svartnat för evigt.

wintermute000

#133
A big congratulations! You are now in the exalted 0.75%.

(3% of Cisco certified people are CCIEs, and only 1/4 of CCIEs go on to get a second).

icecream-guy

Quote from: deanwebb on August 23, 2016, 03:33:56 PM
I'm reading almost everything on security except my CISSP official cert guide. Today is the day I open that book again and start reading it... right after I finish posting here.

You get that CISSP and it looks like you may be sufficiently qualified for DoD work.  Looks like the CISSP qualifies you for
Information Assurance Technical (IAT) Level-III and
Information Assurance Manager (IAM) Level-III Cybersecurity Workforce (CSWF) Certification

(I has to do research on this yesterday, job I was sending in my resume for required the IAT and IAM certs).
Looks like I am on my way to CISSP as soon as I get this stupid TSHOOT under my belt..

:professorcat:

My Moral Fibers have been cut.