Starter's Guidelines for Persuing Expert Network Certifications

After many emails from youngsters and juniors asking how I started my career and pursued a successful career in Information and Communications Technology. Finally i was able to devote some time to write something as a guideline to pursue a successful career in networks engineering.

First things first, there are a lot of misconceptions getting into the Systems / Networks Engineering, most of the fresh graduates are asking me repeatedly the same question that "is it worthy enough to pursue a career in it after graduation and do certifications, will it be a good career with growth and progression?"

The simple answer is, it depends. There are several specialization paths that could be followed such as "Systems Engineering" , "Network Engineering" , "Security Administration" , "Storage Area Networks Engineering" , "Voice over IP Administration" and "Wireless Networks".

Lets take each one, once you enter you could go into "Systems Engineering / Administration" that is mainly dominated by Operating Systems and Server Administration like Windows Server System, Linux, Unix and Solaris. Almost all of them offer several enterprise services such as Directory, Naming, Email, Security, Data Transfer, Communication, Voice, Video etc.

Certifications involving Systems Engineering are available from several different vendors such as Microsoft, RedHat, IBM, HP, Sun, Comptia, EC-Council etc.

The next path is "Networks Engineering / Administration" which is a very promising and growing field, it sub-divides into several different categories such as Routing & Switching, Network Security, Service Provider Networks, Wireless Networks and Voice over IP. These are very wide, vast fields which can be a WORLD in themselves.

Major Certifications are offered from Cisco and Juniper.

The other path belonging to Systems and Network Design and Architecture, this is the next career progression for an engineer after working in the implementation for a considerable number of years. This is a critical job role involving Enterprisewide Systems and Networks design.

Cisco Offers a seperate track for its design professionals including associate, professional and expert level certifications. Several other vendor neutral and vendor specific certifications are also available, but designing and architecting the enterprise requires implementation experience.

So far I have highlighted the sub-divisions of the Networks and Systems Engineering including:
- Systems Engineering
- Network Engineering including Routing, Switching, Service Provider and Wireless
- Network and Systems Security Administration
- Network, Systems and Security Design