Sunday, January 17, 2010

Cisco Training In Your Own Home Compared

By Jason Kendall

If you're looking for training in Cisco, then a CCNA is most probably what you're looking for. The Cisco training is intended for individuals who wish to understand and work with routers and network switches. Routers connect computer networks to another collection of computer networks over dedicated lines or the internet.

The kind of jobs requiring this knowledge mean the chances are you'll work for national or international companies that are spread out geographically but need their computer networks to talk to each other. Or, you may move on to joining an internet service provider. Both types of jobs command good salaries.

Getting your Cisco CCNA is perfectly sufficient to start with; don't be cajoled into attempting your CCNP. Once you've got a few years experience behind you, you will have a feel for whether you need to train up to this level. If so, your experience will serve as the background you require to take on your CCNP - which is quite a hard qualification to acquire - and mustn't be entered into casually.

A lot of training companies only provide basic 9am till 6pm support (maybe a little earlier or later on certain days); very few go late in the evening or at weekends.

Beware of institutions who use call-centres 'out-of-hours' - with the call-back coming in during office hours. It's no use when you're stuck on a problem and could do with an answer during your scheduled study period.

The best trainers utilise several support facilities around the globe in several time-zones. An online system provides an interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, irrespective of the time you login, help is at hand, with no hassle or contact issues.

Never make the mistake of compromise when it comes to your support. The majority of would-be IT professionals that can't get going properly, would have had a different experience if they'd got the right support package in the first place.

The market provides an excess of work available in IT. Picking the right one in this uncertainty is a mammoth decision.

Perusing a list of odd-sounding and meaningless job titles is no use whatsoever. The vast majority of us have no concept what our own family members do for a living - let alone understand the subtleties of any specific IT role.

Consideration of several areas is vital if you want to expose the right answers:

* Personalities play an important part - what things get your juices flowing, and what are the areas that put a frown on your face.

* What time-frame are you looking at for your training?

* How highly do you rate salary - is it the most important thing, or is job satisfaction higher up on your priority-list?

* Considering the huge variation that computing covers, you really need to be able to take in what is different.

* You'll also need to think hard about what kind of effort and commitment you're going to give to your education.

For the average person, getting to the bottom of these areas requires a good chat with someone that knows what they're talking about. And we don't just mean the certifications - you also need to understand the commercial needs and expectations besides.

A question; why should we consider commercial qualifications as opposed to traditional academic qualifications gained through schools, colleges or universities?

As we require increasingly more effective technological know-how, the IT sector has moved to the specialised core-skills learning only available through the vendors themselves - in other words companies such as Microsoft, CISCO, Adobe and CompTIA. This frequently provides reductions in both cost and time.

Many degrees, for example, become confusing because of a lot of background study - with much too broad a syllabus. Students are then prevented from getting enough core and in-depth understanding on a specific area.

In simple terms: Authorised IT qualifications give employers exactly what they're looking for - the title is a complete giveaway: i.e. I am a 'Microsoft Certified Professional' in 'Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network'. Therefore employers can identify just what their needs are and what certifications are required to perform the job.

A study programme must provide a nationally accepted exam as an end-result - and not some unimportant 'in-house' diploma - fit only for filing away and forgetting.

All the major commercial players like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe or CompTIA all have nationally recognised proficiency programmes. Huge conglomerates such as these will make your CV stand-out.

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