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Hey All,

I’m a relatively young guy in IT (22 years old) with about 4 years of Helpdesk work under my belt from two major companies. I’ve been exposed to a lot of networking admin, server admin, and AD admin type stuff over the years and networking really peaked my interest so I was wondering what are the most beneficial/practical networking certs to look at? I currently only have work experience on my resume and was hoping to beef that up a little with some certifications. Any point in the right direction would be super helpful

Thanks guys

@CompTIA

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CompTIA Net+ is a good one. CCNA and other Cisco certs are obviously respected but they are vendor specific and Net+ is vendor neutral so it’s the one that most people will steer you towards. I went the CompTIA route A+ then Net+ etc…

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CompTIA + Cisco + MSCE infra

a good combo

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You will need to pick a path. Network/Switching vs MS Server, Linux Server etc…

If you have not already, start playing around at home with them and once you pick what you like, get that cert. CCNA, MSCA etc…

I disagree with Repair Bot. There are to many employers that actively dislike Comptia certs - they have a pretty bad rep. Pick a path and cert up for it.

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Echoing SeanW. I always say stay away from CompTIA, grossly outdated questions. Most reputable employers don’t recognize them anymore, much like MTA. Good to start with would be MCSA > MCSE, CCNA (skip CCENT and just focus on the CCNA). Don’t worry about Linux certs. Most employers in a Linux environment don’t seem to care about certs. They’ll test your knowledge and know exactly where you stand pretty quick.

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Thanks for the input gentlemen, its much appreciated. CCNA was on my radar but its good to hear about some other ones that weren’t necessarily on there before

any advice on which would be better to do first? like to help set up a good foundation to help with the others or the “harder” ones?

Most of my experience is just hands on so I have a hard time translating it to words haha I’m a culprit of the “what do you think broke it?” I’m not sure I just know how to fix it haha so my book knowledge of networking is not really up to snuff with my actual applied knowledge

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If you want to check into virtual environments, you’ll want some VMware in there. Check out this 2015 road map. You’d want to start with Datacenter Virtualization, and Network Virtualization. You’d only want vCloud if you were working for a very large enterprise environment that hosts numerous datacenters.

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Here’s a few books to check out, you don’t have to buy them necessarily, but just areas to start looking into. I’m always buying more and more books.

http://www.amazon.com/CCNA-Routing-Switching-Study-Guide/dp/1118749618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450112&sr=8-1&keywords=ccna+study+guide

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Complete-Study-Guide/dp/111885991X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450181&sr=8-1&keywords=mcsa+study+guide

http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Active-Directory-Management-Lunches/dp/1617291196/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433450527&sr=1-4&keywords=subnet

You can study a book and know all the questions. The real question in this thread is do you want to really dive in deep and learn the material right now? Or do you want to just get your certs out of the way and then learn as you go? I did the first method, I’ve known techs that did the second. They had a bunch of high class certs and I had zero. They could hardly get their work done. Here’s some books I bought this year/last year just to see what was new before I upgraded our equipment (again, not saying go out and buy a bunch of books necessarily. It’s just what I do, to keep up on all the new tech coming out every year. I bought some others but I can’t remember what exactly.):

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Microsoft-Exchange-Server-2013/dp/1118556836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450281&sr=8-1&keywords=exchange+2013

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Windows-Server-2012-R2/dp/1118289420/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450307&sr=8-1&keywords=server+2012+r2

http://www.amazon.com/Group-Policy-Fundamentals-Security-Managed/dp/1118289404/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&am

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VMware-vSphere-Nick-Marshall/dp/1118925157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450322&sr=8-1&keywords=vsphere+6

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Private-Computing-vCloud-Director/dp/1118180585/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450353&sr=8-1&keywords=vmware+private+cloud

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Private-Cloud-Computing-Aidan/dp/1118251474/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433450380&sr=8-1&keywords=microsoft+private+cloud

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Hyper-V-Installation-Configuration/dp/1118486498/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-System-Center-Configuration-Manager/dp/111882170X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433450427&sr=1-2&keywords=sccm+2012+r2

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damn, great reference points. Thanks a ton, I typically learn hands on - I’ve always had a problem with translating a book to applied knowledge but tech books are a little different so it is a little easier for me, I will probably end up doing a combination of reading and getting my certs that way I can play around with stuff as I go

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No problem. You should setup a virtual lab if you have the resources. Setup a couple domain controllers/virtual switch/a few workstations. See what happens when you pull the plug on some role and watch it all break, then figure out how to fix it. Like deleting a FSMO role off a DC, knowing what each does and then understanding what errors mean and what is trending in the network when a role is not functioning properly.