@jmoore said in Certifications for IT SAMIT Video:

No, jahlelin I think, an everquest name, but i don't think i ever posted, I just read constantly. Love the storage, training, and helpdesk categories

Oh okay, that would explain why I had no idea.

@dashrender said in Is the CompTIA A+ Certification Right for IT? SAMIT Video:

@scottalanmiller said in Is the CompTIA A+ Certification Right for IT? SAMIT Video:

@dashrender said in Is the CompTIA A+ Certification Right for IT? SAMIT Video:

@scottalanmiller said in Is the CompTIA A+ Certification Right for IT? SAMIT Video:

@dashrender said in Is the CompTIA A+ Certification Right for IT? SAMIT Video:

Not on purpose or anything, but I skipped right over the A+ and studied for and passed the NT 4.0 MCSE as my first certifications.

It's not really skipping it any more than you likely skipped your automotive certification. It's not in the path between "interest" and the MCSE. And the Network+ didn't exist back then, so the MCP was the starter cert in that arena.

Well the job I had at the time was hmmm... install/fix end user PCs, run cabling, move (but not program) phones. We did eventually take over image deployment with a Partition Magic for Win 3.1 and 9x machines.

So, is that bench or IT?

That's bench.

This was my assumption.

I definitely didn't to be in that department for long. At the company, the pay topped out at like $28K for a bench tech.

Move to the LAN department (as it was called - the department that was responsible for the network switches/firewalls/servers) ranged from $40K - $130K. remember this is in NE, 15 years ago, and cost of living is still low compared to a lot of places, but apparently it's moderate compared to where Scott likes to live.

A lot of people do go to bench before going into IT. Too many, I think, that it starts to become an assumption.

The basic information on how the certs work from 1996 still apply today. That's 21 years and counting. It's not expected to change for the next several years at least. The MTAs were a pre-pro cert added later, but as they are pre-pro and are not on the roadmap, that's not really a change. They've very slightly altered the MCP name, but that's fine as it was so ridiculous and pointless anyway. It's a bit like the SATs, after the mid-2000s they had to "dumb it all down" a little bit as it was just too hard for their audience.

But the MCSA and MCSE have remained pretty staunchly in place except for a really brief rebranding period that they immediately reverted, for decades and while they are much easier than they used to be, they remain in the same market position as always.

Thank you, just bought it. Will give feedback once I get into it.

I think that he skips mentioning that PPP, the Point to Point Protocol is not a VPN protocol. Even in the 1990s it was not considered that as it is not virtually private, as a VPN is. It's useful to have mentioned here and the Network+ might require it and it is certainly good to know and understand, but he lists it along with VPN protocols and I didn't hear him ever point out that it isn't a VPN Protocol even though it was the first one mentioned in the VPN Protocol list.

https://mangolassi.it/topic/10176/network-n10-006-video-training-by-prof-messer

@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@guyinpv said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

al details. I don't regret buying or reading through any of them. Books on Windows, DOS, printers, networks, repair and troubleshooting techniques, system design and building, etc etc. All of that is good.

Answer questions posed at an interview.

Besides, bench techs don't think, according to @scottalanmiller, they work by script - aka, reading a script and doing what it says. Once you have to start making decisions, you're no longer a bench tech, you're in IT.

Not quite, but that's closer. Bench is about tech, about consumer gear or business stuff that falls into consumer spaces. IT is "Business Information Infrastructure."

Lots of bench people make decisions. Like if you are building a white box desktop for a gamer, the bench guy will likely make several decisions from CPU to GPU to RAM to case and power supply. It's not a script, but it is not BII, either.

hey - you're making it grey again :P

There isn't nearly as many strictly hardware people anymore these days.

Not nearly, most are in datacenters now.

Looks great !!

Thanks for the doc.

@antonit said:

I am referring to the following:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
AWS Certified Developer - Associate
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional

Which one of these would fit the bill better for my career?

Solutions Architect is not what you have done in the past and not where you are looking at being currently. So those are more for a change in career direction more than anything.

The Developer is not at all what you do, so that is out.

DevOps, likewise, would be a major career change. Not a bad one, but it's a very different role and would be a long term transition.

SysOps Admin would be the logical starting point as it leverages where you have been and where you have been thinking of going.

For all of them, Associate is the starting point, you would do that before considering the Professional level.

@ryanblahnik said:

If a lot of these seem to have more value from the material studied than from the cert itself, are there any others that stand out as covering important ground?

I found the process of getting my certs to be incredibly valuable. Probably on par with any of my top learning for my career. It was the late 1990s and I did every CompTIA exam at the time and the hardest, longest Microsoft track and a huge number of Brainbench certs all over just like two or three years. I never once attended a class, I bought loads of books, got an ancient Pentium server (yes the original 586 single proc box!) and about five old desktops mostly 486, one Pentium and two PPros and built everything from scratch and did every lab and tested every configuration. No virtualization back then. And MS trials were 90 days, not 180. And an NT4 install could take two days!! And 33Kb/s dial up Internet access at best.

Reading the books, cover to cover, doing every example as I went forced me to learn the material including the concepts. Doing the actual certs forced me to not skip over details that seemed unimportant. It made me work to completeness and many of the concepts that I would have ignored when I was young turned out to be very important and the people writing the books had a good idea of what I needed to know :)

I think it is time to start sending sweaters to hell. They'll need it!

@Minion-Queen said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@Minion-Queen said:

I think we are going to do a good panel discussion. Allow people to ask anything they want but that is about as close to a "general" session as you really can get.

Like my big open room session at SpiceWorld 2013.

Yes! But everyone complained that it wasn't enough time.

Yes, it was way too short for what it was. Because it was lots of different topics rather than just one it could easily have gone longer than the standard time slot.

That's awesome that there is more variety and ability to focus more. I agree, DC would be the best in general, Cloud probably the second most general. Network and Desktop seem far more focused and likely to be used in less general career options.

I have not seen anything in as high of demand as Linux has been the last several years. Other things get more attention in the news because they are newer, flashier or more interesting to the public, but in the business space it seems that Linux is remaining the big ticket item.

@StrongBad said:

That's not good. Bait and switch is a good way to burn your bridges.

RIght, it's only a 60 day trial too. So, not really free if you ask me. When I receive the sales call I will let you know.

@Bill-Kindle said:

By harder I hope they mean that it will be harder to boot camp these tests.

The description makes it sound that way, at least.

@wowitsdave said:

I took the 2009 objectives- probably much later than you two. ;)

More than a decade later. If you took it is 2009 it must have been updated for Windows 98 since the 1998 objectives were Windows 3.1.