From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Tue Aug 07 2007 - 14:44:54 ART
Different self-proclaimed "pros" in the industry will have very different
opinions about things all the time.
Most of that depends on where your experience and comfort level lies. It
also depends on what level of security/implementation you need to do. I
know many people who swear by SonicWall equipment. Personally I don't care
for them, but I'm free to admit that some of that is because of lack of
experience with them. Other parts are simply their feature sets (or lack
thereof) based on what my particular needs or client's needs are.
For many different niches, Cisco's security products are excellent fits.
There are a lot of things covering a lot of different areas. And many of
them fit together pretty well. Perhaps experience level, but also knowing
what my clients need (or can afford!).
On the other hand, I'm a huge fan of Netscreen (Juniper) for the SSL-VPNs.
Cisco is getting better, but not quite fast enough for my liking. I'm sure
down the road, that will change and they will be the leader. Hence the
beauty of competition!
Know your clients... Know more than one vendor and how they fit with your
clients.
As for voice versus security, that simply depends on where you are located
and what interests you. They're both very popular, and very helpful to
have. If you are going into consulting, you can never know too much about
too many products/vendors. If you only sell or work on one solution, you're
not a true consultant. You're just a well-educated extension of the
company's sales force. :)
Just my sarcastic opinion.
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
darth router
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:12 PM
To: Group study
Subject: Best paying CCIE skillset, job opportunities, etc...
I am sure this may have been beaten do death, but what is the best skillset
for opportunity? Voice, security, SP, R/S, etc... ? I know voice has just
been blowing up like crazy since 2k, but will it fizzle out? Will setting up
call manager eventually become part of the defacto standard netacad
curriculum? How does cisco security compare in the market to voice? It seems
like pros are saying that cisco security is a bit of a turd and only
succeeds because of ciscos aggressive marketing. Is there truth to this?
Plus there are all these smaller up and comers like shortel tearing into
markets that cannot afford cisco.
I am nearly done with R/S. Took the lab once, barely failed because of
nerves and some stupid mistakes, but I am definitely ready regardless, and
plan to pass. But what is next? I just don't feel like R/S is a good enough
skill set. I wanted to use it as a base, as everything runs on
routing/switching. I felt the skillset transfered into other vendors
products, where the other tracks kinda pigeon hole you into cisco
proprietary. I did not want to be one of these security CCIEs that I hear
everyone joking about that cannot figure out simple switching. I absolutely
love learning, and love what the CCIE path has taught me so far (that I know
nothing!), but I want to go in the direction that gets me the best
opportunities. I have been toying with maybe doing Cisco security and
learning checkpoint along the way, and then I get all excited about MPLS,
and think the SP track would be great. I definitely want to have 2 CCIEs at
least. Some pros and cons would be great.
DR
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