[74397] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Cisco moves even more to china.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik Haagsman)
Thu Sep 23 20:56:10 2004
From: Erik Haagsman <erik@we-dare.net>
Reply-To: erik@we-dare.net
To: "Dan Mahoney, System Admin" <danm@prime.gushi.org>
Cc: Nicole <nmh@daemontech.com>, nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <20040923202345.O5738@prime.gushi.org>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:54:59 +0200
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 02:29, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
> I've always personally taken anyone who said "but I'm an MCSE" with a
> grain of salt. I've had equal respect for the A-plus and Net-Plus
> certifications, which are basically bought.
I take most certifications with a grain of salt, including degrees,
unless someone clearly demonstrates he know's what he's talking about,
is able to make intelligent decisions and learns new techniques quickly.
In which case a certification is still just an add-on ;-)
> I used to have more trust in the /CC../ certifications but I find I may be
> laughing those off too quite soon.
The vendor's introductory certs (CCNA, CCNP, JNCIA, JNCIS) don't say
anything about a candidate, except exactly that ("I got the cert"). CCIE
and JNCIE are still at least an indicator someone was at a certain level
at the time of getting the certification, but are still no substitute
for experience and a brain in good working order. It's too bad there
aren't better "general" (non-vendor specific) certs, since what often
lacks is general understanding of network architecture and protocols.
You can teach anyone the right commands for Vendor X and they'll prolly
get a basic config going on a few nodes, but when troubleshooting time
comes it's useless without good knowledge of the underlying technology,
which none of the vendor certs teach very well (IMHO anyway ;-)
Cheers,
Erik
--
---
Erik Haagsman
Network Architect
We Dare BV
tel: +31.10.7507008
fax: +31.10.7507005
http://www.we-dare.nl
