RE: Certification or College degrees?
Up here in Canada, iirc, its actually illegal to call yourself an Engineer without a degree. There's something about a bridge falling down in Quebec and killing a whole whack of people that brought that about. That said, Dalhousie University now offers a Masters Degree in Internetworking over seen by Cisco, TARA, Nortel, Bell and others. Pretty neat stuff, and may actually be a good indicator of experience AND book skill... http://www.dal.ca/internetworking ./dave -Original Message- Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, there are schools which have Networking programs..For instance, New York Institute of Technology has an AAS in Telecommunications Technology and a BS in Telecommunications Management. Classes include multiple Voice & Data classes, as well as Wireless Networking, Traffic Management, Network Management, LAN/WAN/MAN, Telecom Law/Policy, as well as a slew of Electronics and CompSci classes... All very useful for foundations, and pretty interesting...At least I found it useful and worth the money... Jeff
RE: Certification or College degrees?
Replies inline.. > From: Bruce Pinsky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Blake Fithen wrote: > >>Stephen Sprunk > >>Thus spake "Nigel Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> > >>If you're looking to write software, sure. A CompSci degree > >>won't help you > >>in the slightest at operating networks. > > > > Usually what you say is helpful. I have to disagree with > > you here though. A few things I learned in a CIS degree program > > which apply to networking: > > > > bits/bytes/megabytes [deletia] > In the end, however, being inquisitive, resourceful, and > self-motivated, far > outweigh "book knowledge". It's not about knowing the > answers but rather > knowing where to go to get the answers. You may learn that I agree. I just wanted to attempt to negate Sprunk's statement above. > bep -- blake
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
I guess I've got a little bit of a mad on about this topic. Hit "D" now.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ("Paul A Flores") writes:
> What you have to remember is that having a degree or certification allows
> the non-clue full out in the 'real' world to easily tell the difference
> between you and say, the world's smartest garbage man.
The trouble is, often times I'd rather hire the world's smartest garbage
man. I never forget that when I got done interviewing for my first full
time programming job I went back to my job fixing cars and pumping gas, and
my fallback plan in case programming didn't work out was driving a tow
truck (which paid better than either.) As it happens they hired me, and now
my skills have atrophied to where I actually pay other people to fix my car
since I don't grok all the new hoses and computer thingies they have now.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leo Bicknell) writes:
> > So what you're saying is, if I hadn't dropped out of high school during
> > my 17th trip around Sol, I wouldn't've gotten stuck in this dead end job?
>
> I said college provides those skills. I did not say college was
> the only way to get those skills. The converse is true as well,
> having those skills doesn't guarantee success.
Actually you said...
> > If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, or run a
> > theoretical group you are going to need the math and English
> > backgrounds that college provides. ...
...and your use of the word "ever" is what cost me a higher score on the
nanog all-time posting stats just released here. As of ten years ago, I've
been assured by professional educators that I am up to snuff on the things
one is supposed to learn from a masters' program. But before that I'd been
completely self taught and there were enormous gaps in my knowledge -- yet
the code and docs I wrote are in some cases still in production use, and I
set and held records for operational uptime as what's now called a "sysadmin",
and I'm having a lot of trouble relating any of that to the presence or
absence of a degree or vendor certification.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leo Bicknell) also writes:
> > Cisco has done an excellent job @ brainwashing the IT
> > community. The have (unfortunately) set the standard for
> > "Network Engineers".
>
> I'm biased, see .sig, but having been through the process, and seen
> what other vendors (eg, Microsoft, Novell) do with their programs
> I do believe that Cisco wants their certifications to mean something.
I'm also biased, but as I told you when you and I shared a reporting chain,
I never held your CCIE against you since you'd demonstrated competence. I
have met more CCIE's who were gibbering morons hiding their lack of skill
behind their vendor certification thatn I have met CCIE's who, like you,
probably ended up teaching the teacher a thing or two during "the process."
In 1981 and '82 I worked for Golden Gate University, and part of my job was
as a lab aid for COBOL and database students. A more earnest crew, I have
never met. But I can assure you that 19 out of 20 of those students were
going to come out of the program knowing exactly what was required to pass
the tests and get a job, and not one speck more.
Give me someone with the yearn to do and to know and to succeed, and I can
plug them into the right team and get a hell of a lot more work done, than
if you give me someone who has *only* the right letters after their name.
Again, statistically speaking, CCIE has more often indicated moronhood
than excellence, amongst those I have met. I forgave you yours, but only
after watching you carefully for a couple of months to make sure that CCIE
was an irrelevant accident in your case.
--
Paul Vixie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
President, PAIX.Net Inc.
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 05:51:36PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: [snip] > The narrow scope of industry certification will be its undoing, unless one can > create industry certifications that exemplify industry-wide best practices. SAGE has just started a certification program that attempts to be interdisciplinary, but I suspect it will take some time before it becomes known and trusted. http://www.sagecert.org Of course, if you're not really a systems administrator, it may not apply to you ... -- Scott Francis darkuncle@ [home:] d a r k u n c l e . n e t Systems/Network Manager sfrancis@ [work:] t o n o s . c o m GPG public key 0xCB33CCA7 illum oportet crescere me autem minui msg02123/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: list problems?
Sort of ironic opinion for someone who supports a network dedicated to higher education ... My sig actually has some merit here, and maybe thats what I learned in college : "The fact that there are actually ways of knowing and characterizing the extent of ones ignorance, while still remaining ignorant, may ultimately be more interesting and useful to people than Yarkovsky" -- Jon Giorgini of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Shawn Solomon > Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 12:07 AM > To: Paul Vixie > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: list problems? > > > > no way... > > The option where you come out into "life" 35k in the hole, no experience, > and four years behind your "collegues" is obviously better. > > And its hard to put a value on.. > > that bitterness you learned from spending the "best years of your life" > with a bunch of rich, drunken dumbasses. > > The tolerence you gained from all those times your learning was > decelerated, just to allow for johnny football star to meet status quo. > > The anger from seeing Johnny pull his head of his jock just long enough to > see daddy hand him a 150k VP position. > > As mastercard sais.. priceless. > > > And no, I'm not bitter.. > > > -- > > Shawn Solomon Senior State Networks Engineer > Indiana Telecommunications Network & IHETS INDnet > 317.263.8875 www.ind.netfx: 317.263.8831 > > > > > BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Germann;Eric FN:Eric Germann ORG:CCTec TEL;WORK;VOICE:(419) 968-2640 TEL;WORK;FAX:(603) 825-5893 ADR;WORK:;;17780 Middle Point Road;Van Wert;OH;45891;United States of America LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:17780 Middle Point Road=0D=0AVan Wert, OH 45891=0D=0AUnited States of Americ= a URL: URL:http://www.cctec.com EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] REV:20010529T013421Z END:VCARD
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
> >programs. It could be a mix between the CCIE, > Net+, etc. Because I know > >my Comp Engineering program doesn't touch on > anything related at all to > >networking, and never even mentions the idea of > security. So why not > >create a focused area for this? This is a two cent view from a graduate student.I have learned a lot of operational issues from this list (though not this discussion :) ) . The curriculum you suggest is something called *body shaping* where you teach even history students to do latest stuff required by the companies.My view is a strong dose on mathematics + data structures + working knowledge in one language + (his field: networks,antenna or power electronics) is enough for exploring any field.I have seen many of my seniors and my peers who have shined with these basic qualities. The current trend is highly interdiciplinary where you have to apply skill from one field to another.hence,a base degree is required to do all those stuff. The market for networks ,database or any other field is varied.Hence,there is always a question of knowledge Vs skills.If have skill ,gaining knowledge is easy but the reverse is not true.All certifications comes under knowledge and basic core qualities mentioned above comes in skill set.I never view certifications as secondary but it is an added asset while the base is always strong mathematical skill.I dont think one can pass the final cisco certification without this basic qualification. I can learn something ,If you guys get back to your technical discussion.Really,I could not have comprehended many of your discussions without a base knowledge from my bachelor degree.So,get back to active discussion for us to learn. - Senthil = Ayyasamy Senthilkumar M.S.(Computer Networking) UMKC,MO. - An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. --Niels Bohr. __ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 09:35:22PM -0500, Blake Fithen wrote: > Usually what you say is helpful. I have to disagree with > you here though. A few things I learned in a CIS degree program > which apply to networking: Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, there are schools which have Networking programs..For instance, New York Institute of Technology has an AAS in Telecommunications Technology and a BS in Telecommunications Management. Classes include multiple Voice & Data classes, as well as Wireless Networking, Traffic Management, Network Management, LAN/WAN/MAN, Telecom Law/Policy, as well as a slew of Electronics and CompSci classes... All very useful for foundations, and pretty interesting...At least I found it useful and worth the money... Jeff
RE: list problems?
Shawn, The claims that you make here are exactly why I went 100K in the hole at a private university chosen partially because they did not have a strong athletic program. And no, I did not have a rich daddy to pay for it. In my opinion, one of the best things you can do for your children is to provide a private education for them. Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Shawn Solomon Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 9:07 PM To: Paul Vixie Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: list problems? no way... The option where you come out into "life" 35k in the hole, no experience, and four years behind your "collegues" is obviously better. And its hard to put a value on.. that bitterness you learned from spending the "best years of your life" with a bunch of rich, drunken dumbasses. The tolerence you gained from all those times your learning was decelerated, just to allow for johnny football star to meet status quo. The anger from seeing Johnny pull his head of his jock just long enough to see daddy hand him a 150k VP position. As mastercard sais.. priceless. And no, I'm not bitter.. -- Shawn Solomon Senior State Networks Engineer Indiana Telecommunications Network & IHETS INDnet 317.263.8875 www.ind.netfx: 317.263.8831 On 22 May 2002, Paul Vixie wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leo Bicknell) writes: > > > If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, or run a > > theoretical group you are going to need the math and English > > backgrounds that college provides. ... > > So what you're saying is, if I hadn't dropped out of high school > during my 17th trip around Sol, I wouldn't've gotten stuck in this > dead end job? > > Probably I wouldn't have that honorary MSCS degree either. > Wouldn't've wrote all that code, nor those RFC's, nor started those > various companies. > > Wouldn't've found my various mentors nor been a mentor to any of the > folks who count me as having been one? > > Is that how a college degree would have improved my career by age 39? > > Sounds like a bad deal to me. > -- > Paul Vixie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > President, PAIX.Net Inc. >
Re: list problems?
no way... The option where you come out into "life" 35k in the hole, no experience, and four years behind your "collegues" is obviously better. And its hard to put a value on.. that bitterness you learned from spending the "best years of your life" with a bunch of rich, drunken dumbasses. The tolerence you gained from all those times your learning was decelerated, just to allow for johnny football star to meet status quo. The anger from seeing Johnny pull his head of his jock just long enough to see daddy hand him a 150k VP position. As mastercard sais.. priceless. And no, I'm not bitter.. -- Shawn Solomon Senior State Networks Engineer Indiana Telecommunications Network & IHETS INDnet 317.263.8875 www.ind.netfx: 317.263.8831 On 22 May 2002, Paul Vixie wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leo Bicknell) writes: > > > If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, or run a > > theoretical group you are going to need the math and English > > backgrounds that college provides. ... > > So what you're saying is, if I hadn't dropped out of high school during > my 17th trip around Sol, I wouldn't've gotten stuck in this dead end job? > > Probably I wouldn't have that honorary MSCS degree either. Wouldn't've > wrote all that code, nor those RFC's, nor started those various companies. > > Wouldn't've found my various mentors nor been a mentor to any of the folks > who count me as having been one? > > Is that how a college degree would have improved my career by age 39? > > Sounds like a bad deal to me. > -- > Paul Vixie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > President, PAIX.Net Inc. >
RE: PAIX (was Re: Interconnects)
Ralph, Your false assumption is that any of these folks would sign a MLPA at a new or existing peering point, where such an agreement did not already exist. The major reason most of these guys are on the AADS MLPA is that they don't want to Unsign it. In other words, it's a done deal, a fact on the ground, not something they care to revise - something historic, not current. Even if there was an MLPA at PAIX, introduced tomorrow, there is vanishingly small chance that anyone would sign up. For that matter, in many ways MLPAs are counterintuitive to the very idea of peering, because there is no mechanism to ensure that both partners in any given relationship are peers, in the sense of size, network, traffic balance, etc. That is why most folks prefer BLPAs these days - it allows you to be much pickier about who you peer with, and ensure they are a proper counterpart to your network. - Daniel Golding > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On > Behalf Of Ralph Doncaster > Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 10:29 AM > To: Majdi S. Abbas > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: PAIX (was Re: Interconnects) > > > > > traffic. If you're going to have to negotiate bilateral > agreements to > > cover the bulk of your peering traffic, why not > consistantly negotiate > > bilateral agreements? > > Randy (Group Telecom) snubbed me when I asked to peer at > TorIX. Group Telecom is on the AADS MLPA. AT&T Canada has a > tough policy re peering as well, and is on the AADS MLPA. > I'm sure there are others among the AADS MLPA signatories > that would refuse bilateral peering if I approached them. > > -Ralph > >
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: >Valdis is from VT, so I hope he's listening. Why >couldn't we as a networking community sit down and come up with a degree >program that goes from BS to PhD? Sure it can touch on basic programming >and basic processor design, but it would be more heavily weighted towards >utilizing technologies on the market and creating solutions to the common >programs. It could be a mix between the CCIE, Net+, etc. Because I know >my Comp Engineering program doesn't touch on anything related at all to >networking, and never even mentions the idea of security. So why not >create a focused area for this? cf Internet Engineering Curriculum Repository http://www.caida.org/outreach/iec/ MEng Internetworking http://www.dal.ca/~eine/index.html cheers Bram
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote: > > >From the number of personal replies I got about these topics, it seems > > like many people are interested in sharing information about how to do > > routing on a budget, or how to avoid getting shot in the foot with your > > Cisco box. > > Routing on a budget? Dude, you can buy a 7200 for $2 grand. Why bother > with a linux box? Heh, at least use FreeBSD :) Before the dot com implosion, they weren't nearly that inexpensive. The average corporate user will also need smartnet (what's that on a 7200, a K or a few per year?) for support, warranty, and software updates. Some people just don't appreciate being nickled and dimed by cisco and forced to either buy much more router than they need, or risk ending up with another cisco boat anchor router when the platform they chose can no longer do the job in the limited memory config supported. I have a consulting customer who, against my strong recommendation, bought a non-cisco router to multihome with. It's PC based, runs Linux, and with the exception of the gated BGP issue that bit everyone running gated a few months ago, has worked just fine. It's not as easy to work with in most cases, but there are some definite advantages, and some things that Linux actually makes easier. They'd initially bought a 2621 when multihoming was just a thought, and by the time it was a reality, 64mb on a 2621 couldn't handle full routes. The C&W/PSI depeering (which did affect this customer, as they were single homed to C&W at the time and did regular business with networks single homed to PSI) was proof that without full routes, you're not really multihomed. -- -- Jon Lewis *[EMAIL PROTECTED]*| I route System Administrator| therefore you are Atlantic Net| _ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_
RE: Certification or College degrees?
> Stephen Sprunk > Thus spake "Nigel Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off > > obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the > > core technologies. > > If you're looking to write software, sure. A CompSci degree > won't help you > in the slightest at operating networks. Usually what you say is helpful. I have to disagree with you here though. A few things I learned in a CIS degree program which apply to networking: bits/bytes/megabytes queueing/stacks/buffers/ring buffers data structures undirected/directed graphs - routing shortest path (Dijkstra's) algorithm = OSPF spanning tree algorithm ping :) scheme - command line compilers bash/csh/tcsh/X - all useful in network management. telnet patience I could go on... Plus, when you are in the labs, and if you have the slightest bit of geek curiosity, the mind wanders and you inevitably have to find out how everything is connected. Luckily the curiosity blossomed from there. -- blake
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Personally, in the technical industries I have observed that is a person's logical thought process is far more important than formal education. Also, if you've been fed a master's degree worth of knowledge in computer science and then sit on it, you will be outpaced quite rapidly by many high school kids who are dedicated to computers because it's his or her hobby. It's sad but when I was taking college classes, I had no respect for the head of the computer science department who held a masters degree because he could not follow a conversation I would have with him about any modern technology emerging in the industry. Nor did he have a solid grasp on modern operating systems. I thought this was a unique case at the college I had attended (shortly) but I have found that many others have experienced the same thing at various universities around the country. Never having finished college (being frustrated I could not learn what I wanted to), yet having started a successful business at the age of 19 (which I later sold to my partners $$) and now working as the head of engineering for a mid sized ISP, I find that no formal training can replace logical thinking. I realize that a piece of paper can open doors and many employers look for one, but skill and personal commitment accounts for much of what you can accomplish in life. I never fear not having a job because I can always create my own again if need be. It's sad but 90% of the consultants in this industry don't know what they are doing at all and people still pay them top dollar. That's always something I can fall back being that I actually DO have a clue. Again, the computer industry is unlike many others where if you have the skill and logical thought process, you can make the buck. I ignore most people's educational achievements and certifications and would rather speak with them or see them in action. Most educated people in the computer industry that I have met disappoint me especially a large cross section of college graduates who have majored in computer science. The ones that I hold high regard for are the ones that have pressed through their education and continue to self educate themselves. Just to give another example, the programmer that wrote our management system for our customers isn't even old enough to have graduated from college and is taking a break. He tutored a person who is in a masters degree program for computer science and needed help with programming. He's also ahead of much of the industry because he's been programming with .NET for quite a while now and we already have very awesome applications written by him in .NET when the rest of the industry is still wondering how to get into it. I hold him in very high regard. This is just my $0.07. In no way do I recommend you base your life on my advice or experiences. ;) Feedback is welcome, but I prefer it to be off-list only because I wish to have useful technical discussions on NANOG. I just had to comment on this as I'm sure many others have as well. :) At 09:37 PM 5/22/2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >The base pre-req for this is that the person is educated to tertiary level >skills in Maths. Or, are evidently bloody good for other reasons. > >Lets not forget that some of the people who write the systems are actually >just smarter than me, and thats why they find it simpler and I find it hard. > >Anyway, I echo Randy. I think that you should go for people who have >fundamentals like an understanding of analysis, synthesis (of ideas) and >processes like introspection. And who have graph theory, numerical analysis, >statistics... > >-George > > > > > if i was to take a newbie, i would much rather hire someone who has > > taken algorithms and data structures, queuing, ... than someone who > > has spent their time studying for whatever juniper and cisco call > > their vendor certifications. > > > > one can teach a monkey how to hack a router, as is demonstrated on > > a daily basis. but a little computer science goes a much longer > > way. > > > > randy >-- >George Michaelson | APNIC >Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]| PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064 >Phone: +61 7 3858 3100 | Australia > Fax: +61 7 3858 3199 | http://www.apnic.net Vinny Abello Network Engineer Server Management [EMAIL PROTECTED] (973)300-9211 x 125 (973)940-6125 (Direct) Tellurian Networks - The Ultimate Internet Connection http://www.tellurian.com (888)TELLURIAN
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 16:40:27 -0400, Kristian P. Jackson wrote: >New England) focus their BCS studies on programing. Completely >unrelated to the area of anything network related. This may not be >the case everywhere. >Maybe the industry leaders should assist the education scene in >developing a degree program for future network engineers that beter >prepares them for this field. It doesn't help the industry if a >bunch of programers are running around acting like network >engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more >qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is >in order? I am currently studying a BSc degree in merry old England. I have just finished my second year (well I'm part way through the exams). When I applied to do my degree I found two universities whose course were anything related to Networking. Mine is called Computing (Networks and Communications). I think we've pretty much been the guinea pigs for the course and guess what, they didn't get it right first time. Our first year entailed the following modules: Business & Professional Skills The Business & Professional Environment Programming Mathematics for Computing Systems Analysis & Design Principals of Computing Technologies Not a single one of these modules made any effort to be network related. The first two were similar and involved basic GCSE level literature stuff along with spending a whole semester pretending to run a company that made paint stripper out of pigeon excrement. Programming was a very basic grounding in C++ Maths was again GCSE level with a bit of Matrices thrown in for the Visualisation students. Systems Analysis and Design involved theorising about making computerised versions of a couple of forms for an obscure activities holiday company whilst Principals of Computing Technologies tought us how to write assembler for the 8085 chip. In year two we have done the following: Networking Technologies Unix Networking and Administration Unix, Linux and X Web Based Systems Software Development: Concepts and Methods Databases Here we are getting there, but it isn't exactly serious stuff and is the kind of thing you learn by spending your spare time fiddling about with stuff. Networking tech involved mostly installing Windows 95 systems to do peer2peer stuff and client server stuff. One experiment involved a basic Novell server install and another involved a basic Cisco router configuration. Unix Net & Admin is how to add/remove accounts, file permissions and giving an adapter an ip address. Unix Linux and X is literally bash shell scripting on a server with a weird configuration. Web Based Systems, ahh yes. First semester was html and javascript. They got as far as form tags and input checking. Second semester involved being given some perl code for connecting to a database and integrating it (putting a website in front of it). SDCM is all about how Billy Bojo and Frank Redneck came up with X theory about Y. I think about 80% of our course a) didn't see the point in the subject b) didn't understand any of the teachers (it was a rarety that they could speak English anywhere near properly) and c) have failed this subject. Databases was mysql. That was fairly useful in that it went into a fair bit of depth about the commands. Third year (next year) we are all on placements yet the uni still charges £1000 for tuition fees. I don't know what we're supposed to be doing in the fourth year because all trace of our course description has been eradicated from the website. It would appear, however that the people who started their course this year have it better than us in that they are doing all the networking stuff we did this year in the first year. A list of next years networking degree is here: http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cms/ug/courses.html I would provide a link to the actual course but I can't be bothered looking at their javascript. If its anything like the uni network, it'll be hours of fun (took them and Novell two months to realise that all the serious login problems were due to all the computers trying to use a server that had been removed). Oh well, I hope noone from the CIS or CMS departments read this list or I might end up not coming back next year. That is just an example of how little a degree in networks might actually mean. I worked 7 months nightshift at an ISP and learned far more relevant stuff than the two years on a networking degree have taught me. Several times I have considered giving it up and looking around for industry certifications but I keep hoping that the next year will be better...though that depends on whether I can find a placement that doesn't just involve writing websites. If anyone around here knows of a decent networking related company that might offer an at least half decent placement then do let me know. It seems this kind of placement is rather sparse this year. -- O- cw, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 23/05/2002 "Part man, part monkey. Baby that's
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 16:40:27 -0400, Kristian P. Jackson wrote: >New England) focus their BCS studies on programing. Completely >unrelated to the area of anything network related. This may not be >the case everywhere. >Maybe the industry leaders should assist the education scene in >developing a degree program for future network engineers that beter >prepares them for this field. It doesn't help the industry if a >bunch of programers are running around acting like network >engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more >qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is >in order? I am currently studying a BSc degree in merry old England. I have just finished my second year (well I'm part way through the exams). When I applied to do my degree I found two universities whose course were anything related to Networking. Mine is called Computing (Networks and Communications). I think we've pretty much been the guinea pigs for the course and guess what, they didn't get it right first time. Our first year entailed the following modules: Business & Professional Skills The Business & Professional Environment Programming Mathematics for Computing Systems Analysis & Design Principals of Computing Technologies Not a single one of these modules made any effort to be network related. The first two were similar and involved basic GCSE level literature stuff along with spending a whole semester pretending to run a company that made paint stripper out of pigeon excrement. Programming was a very basic grounding in C++ Maths was again GCSE level with a bit of Matrices thrown in for the Visualisation students. Systems Analysis and Design involved theorising about making computerised versions of a couple of forms for an obscure activities holiday company whilst Principals of Computing Technologies tought us how to write assembler for the 8085 chip. In year two we have done the following: Networking Technologies Unix Networking and Administration Unix, Linux and X Web Based Systems Software Development: Concepts and Methods Databases Here we are getting there, but it isn't exactly serious stuff and is the kind of thing you learn by spending your spare time fiddling about with stuff. Networking tech involved mostly installing Windows 95 systems to do peer2peer stuff and client server stuff. One experiment involved a basic Novell server install and another involved a basic Cisco router configuration. Unix Net & Admin is how to add/remove accounts, file permissions and giving an adapter an ip address. Unix Linux and X is literally bash shell scripting on a server with a weird configuration. Web Based Systems, ahh yes. First semester was html and javascript. They got as far as form tags and input checking. Second semester involved being given some perl code for connecting to a database and integrating it (putting a website in front of it). SDCM is all about how Billy Bojo and Frank Redneck came up with X theory about Y. I think about 80% of our course a) didn't see the point in the subject b) didn't understand any of the teachers (it was a rarety that they could speak English anywhere near properly) and c) have failed this subject. Databases was mysql. That was fairly useful in that it went into a fair bit of depth about the commands. Third year (next year) we are all on placements yet the uni still charges £1000 for tuition fees. I don't know what we're supposed to be doing in the fourth year because all trace of our course description has been eradicated from the website. It would appear, however that the people who started their course this year have it better than us in that they are doing all the networking stuff we did this year in the first year. A list of next years networking degree is here: http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cms/ug/courses.html I would provide a link to the actual course but I can't be bothered looking at their javascript. If its anything like the uni network, it'll be hours of fun (took them and Novell two months to realise that all the serious login problems were due to all the computers trying to use a server that had been removed). Oh well, I hope noone from the CIS or CMS departments read this list or I might end up not coming back next year. That is just an example of how little a degree in networks might actually mean. I worked 7 months nightshift at an ISP and learned far more relevant stuff than the two years on a networking degree have taught me. Several times I have considered giving it up and looking around for industry certifications but I keep hoping that the next year will be better...though that depends on whether I can find a placement that doesn't just involve writing websites. If anyone around here knows of a decent networking related company that might offer an at least half decent placement then do let me know. It seems this kind of placement is rather sparse this year. -- O- cw, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 23/05/2002 "Part man, part monkey. Baby that's
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 18:56:49 EDT, Andrew Dorsett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > never be required to build one. This would be the perfect curriculum. I know >Valdis is from VT, so I hope he's listening. Why I just work at VT - my BS is in mathematics, with a physics minor, Clarkson University '84. (OK, to be *really* technical, it's a math degree because there wasn't a separate CS program/degree till '86, but as a result I got zinged with a lot more calculus and related than the average CS major) > my Comp Engineering program doesn't touch on anything related at all to > networking, and never even mentions the idea of security. So why not > create a focused area for this? Stop by and talk to me or Randy Marchany about security - he taught a grad-level class on it this semester. The biggest problem we're facing in getting a full-fledged academic program going is that most of the people who have a clue are the CIRT team, and we're all network operations and sysadmin types - Randy's the only one of us who does much teaching and lecturing. We get hit with a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. We can't scare up enough warm bodies(*) to teach more than one or two grad-level courses a year in security. Meanwhile, the number of grad students who have enough free course slots to *take* more than one or two classes is limited, since all of the current "focused areas" have prerequisite lists of classes. And creating a new "focused area" is a challenge - it sort of presupposes having 2 or 3 PhD-level professors to teach the classes, and given that VT is currently trying to trim it's budget by $25M, it's unclear who'd pay for THAT... /Valdis (*) For some reason, the number of people who will teach a grad-level course for free is quite limited - *I* certainly won't do it for free ;) msg02110/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Certification or College degrees?
The base pre-req for this is that the person is educated to tertiary level skills in Maths. Or, are evidently bloody good for other reasons. Lets not forget that some of the people who write the systems are actually just smarter than me, and thats why they find it simpler and I find it hard. Anyway, I echo Randy. I think that you should go for people who have fundamentals like an understanding of analysis, synthesis (of ideas) and processes like introspection. And who have graph theory, numerical analysis, statistics... -George > > if i was to take a newbie, i would much rather hire someone who has > taken algorithms and data structures, queuing, ... than someone who > has spent their time studying for whatever juniper and cisco call > their vendor certifications. > > one can teach a monkey how to hack a router, as is demonstrated on > a daily basis. but a little computer science goes a much longer > way. > > randy -- George Michaelson | APNIC Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]| PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064 Phone: +61 7 3858 3100 | Australia Fax: +61 7 3858 3199 | http://www.apnic.net
Re: Certification or College degrees?
To start, I know a lot of people with no certifications, degrees or diplomas that can dance circles around their desired loves of networking or unix administration. They live, work and earn every penny they receive. I hold them in high esteem and thank them constantly for help they give to me. They do not need to take the tests to know about things or be known for things they have done. Living in a profession that has a large majority of male counterparts, being a female has been a bit tough. Having those pieces of paper has helped me to open a few doors. Once those doors are opened technical questions, a bit of experience and the ability to smile and laugh have kept those doors opened. The papers have helped to introduce myself, show that I may actually have the basics. Without them I am not sure I would be where I am now. Getting them were more of yearning for learning than a "look I have this" statement. My current manager smiled when I asked him not to tell my counter parts what I have. Certs/Degrees/Diplomas sometimes cause tension between staff that have them and staff that do not have them until everyone gets to know the person, and how they work. To me experience means a lot more. You may think this is strange but the more "bugs" I find the more I smile for it gives me a great opportunity to learn. To learn something that is not in the books, where it takes a feel for the device to fix it. Though the heart does pump a bit faster in these situations due to it being a production device and not a lab device. Earn the Certs, Diplomas, Degrees for yourself and not the position. The position is the partical application of what you like to do. A good HR person looks at your personality to make sure you fit the team, if you can answer the technical questions you do not need always need the paper. Kim Oh.. I should add. My first Cert was out written out of spite. A male co-worker seemed high and mighty when he passed. So I wrote it to keep him quiet. I must thank him one day. :)
Re: Certification or College degrees?
> now. It's not due to there lack of skill or knowledge, it's ^ > there limited skill set. ^ Wood thatt inklude speling skilz? ;-) --- Andy Grosser [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 17:56:24 PDT, Sharif Torpis said: > Don't forget to tell all the kids that smoking doesn't cause cancer > either. A CompSci degree will help one inordinately to operate a > network. It is sad that so few in this field realize this. Graph Theory. Routing Protocols. 'Nuff Said. ;) msg02106/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: list problems?
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 08:20:08PM -0400, Leo Bicknell wrote: > > What I firmly believe is that a college graduate is more likely to > be sucessful and be promoted, particularly before they are 30. If > I had to advise someone coming out of high school, I would tell > them their best odds are to go to college. But it's all an odds > game, sometimes you hit on 12 and bust, sometimes you hit on 19 > and win. All that matters it that you have the knowledge. It doesn't matter if you got it from school or from experience, just that you got it. If you don't want to learn, all the college in the world isn't going to help you. But if you love to learn new things, not going to college is not going to stop you either. Personally I think I've learned more over the last 4 years than any school is capable of teaching, but thats just me. Projecting your personal prejustices about what learning style works best upon others is neither smart nor productive. Can we all just leave it at that, and try to get back to something operational? -- Richard A Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 18:29:52 -0500, Stephen Sprunk wrote: > >Thus spake "Nigel Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off >>obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the >>core technologies. > >If you're looking to write software, sure. A CompSci degree won't >help you >in the slightest at operating networks. Don't forget to tell all the kids that smoking doesn't cause cancer either. A CompSci degree will help one inordinately to operate a network. It is sad that so few in this field realize this. Regards, Sharif
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 18:29:52 -0500, Stephen Sprunk wrote: > >Thus spake "Nigel Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off >>obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the >>core technologies. > >If you're looking to write software, sure. A CompSci degree won't >help you >in the slightest at operating networks. Don't forget to tell all the kids that smoking doesn't cause cancer either. A CompSci degree will help one inordinately to operate a network. It is sad that so few in this field realize this. Regards, Sharif
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 18:29:52 -0500, Stephen Sprunk wrote: > >Degrees are, in essence, a certificate that you are capable of >learning >things by rote and regurgitating them later, possibly applying a >small >amount of thought (but not too much). In most industries, that's a >highly >valuable thing to know, and businesses hire college grads with the >assumption they'll spend the first year doing little but training >them to do >useful work. > >The IT industry does not have the patience or luxury of hiring a >completely >cluess college grad, sending them to the dozens of required classes, >giving >them a mentor to help them with their first year of work, etc. >People want >someone who can solve the problem today, period. Certifications are >a crude >but often effective means for non-technical people to determine if >technical >people meet their needs. > >S If that is what you or anyone else got from obtaining a degree then you were shortchanged and are probably (understandably) bitter. But you have noone to blame but yourself either. Every consumer should count their change. Your description of learning things by rote and regurgitation is the method practiced by so many folks following your employer's certification system. That is why the system and the certified individuals are looked down upon so often. Anyone that received a cert this way was similarly shortchanged. Maybe individuals should think of degrees and certifications as tools used for the purpose of advancing through life/world/career. They are certainly not the only tools. You can have replacements or alternatives. You can (and should) supplement your toolset at different points in your life. Choose your tools carefully, use the right one(s) at the apropos time and good luck in life and career. I personally would want to accumulate as many tools as possible to give me a wide array of knowledge and options to address any particular problem/circumstance. Regards, Sharif
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 18:29:52 -0500, Stephen Sprunk wrote: > >Degrees are, in essence, a certificate that you are capable of >learning >things by rote and regurgitating them later, possibly applying a >small >amount of thought (but not too much). In most industries, that's a >highly >valuable thing to know, and businesses hire college grads with the >assumption they'll spend the first year doing little but training >them to do >useful work. > >The IT industry does not have the patience or luxury of hiring a >completely >cluess college grad, sending them to the dozens of required classes, >giving >them a mentor to help them with their first year of work, etc. >People want >someone who can solve the problem today, period. Certifications are >a crude >but often effective means for non-technical people to determine if >technical >people meet their needs. > >S If that is what you or anyone else got from obtaining a degree then you were shortchanged and are probably (understandably) bitter. But you have noone to blame but yourself either. Every consumer should count their change. Your description of learning things by rote and regurgitation is the method practiced by so many folks following your employer's certification system. That is why the system and the certified individuals are looked down upon so often. Anyone that received a cert this way was similarly shortchanged. Maybe individuals should think of degrees and certifications as tools used for the purpose of advancing through life/world/career. They are certainly not the only tools. You can have replacements or alternatives. You can (and should) supplement your toolset at different points in your life. Choose your tools carefully, use the right one(s) at the apropos time and good luck in life and career. I personally would want to accumulate as many tools as possible to give me a wide array of knowledge and options to address any particular problem/circumstance. Regards, Sharif
Re: list problems?
In a message written on Wed, May 22, 2002 at 05:00:27PM -0700, Paul Vixie wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leo Bicknell) writes: > > If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, or run a > > theoretical group you are going to need the math and English > > backgrounds that college provides. ... > > So what you're saying is, if I hadn't dropped out of high school during > my 17th trip around Sol, I wouldn't've gotten stuck in this dead end job? I said college provides those skills. I did not say college was the only way to get those skills. The converse is true as well, having those skills doesn't guarantee success. > Is that how a college degree would have improved my career by age 39? It is possible had you gone to college you would have done far more. It is also possible you would have done far less. It may have not made a difference. What I firmly believe is that a college graduate is more likely to be sucessful and be promoted, particularly before they are 30. If I had to advise someone coming out of high school, I would tell them their best odds are to go to college. But it's all an odds game, sometimes you hit on 12 and bust, sometimes you hit on 19 and win. -- Leo Bicknell - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ Read TMBG List - [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.tmbg.org
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
At 01:36 PM 5/22/2002 -0500, Paul A Flores wrote: >If your resume shows more than 4 jobs in the last 3 years (and you didn't >get laid off), what does THAT stay about your ability to 'stick with' >something? That you worked on the Internet in the late 90s? (Had to post to see if I could overtake Iljitsch van Beijnum. :-) >Paul A Flores -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Certification or College degrees?
If I have learned anything at all during the course of this recession is that you have to be diverse. Organizations are looking for individuals with a wide range of skills. This includes CCIE's. I know a few who aren't working right now. It's not due to there lack of skill or knowledge, it's there limited skill set. The story of the Cisco CCIE's will be the same as the IBM/SNA mainframe gurus. Great in their day, useless in the future. --- Nigel Clarke Network Security Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
education == ??
I think the real meaning in this thread might simply be that some people are extremely argumentative, no matter how much education they've received. Can we move on now? -- J.D. Falk "...eternity is defined by impatience." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Laura Kasischke
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Thus spake "Stephen Kowalchuk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Certification in the IT industry has become a nightmare > because people who are less than clueful have abused it in > the hiring and compensation processes. Picture yourself as a job-seeker three years ago. Every recruiter you call hangs up on you because you don't have a CCNA. What's the obvious conclusion? CCNA == job. Try getting an accounting job without being a CPA; it's possible in some states, but it's not easy. > And industry certification is the worst of these offenders. > Cisco, Microsoft and Novell (among others) have effectively > created long-standing revenue streams out of the ridiculous > complexity of their products. Some of that complexity is > justified, without question. And some of it is deliberate to > drive the need for "certified" professionals. Perhaps Microsoft or Novell has done that, I can't speak to their practices. Cisco only created its certification programs at the request of customers. I've also never seen any evidence whatsoever that Cisco intentionally makes it products difficult to learn or use. If they end up that way, it's usually budgetary or time constraints. > A vicious cycle -- these "professionals" pay exhorbitant fees > for 3-day or 5-day drench sessions where they come away > with 1% retention and must be hired shortly thereafter to > actually use anything they retained. Their expectation: high > pay rates and a career track. Seems like they're getting suckered by the training community (not Cisco, which doesn't do training). > The smart will get smarter, and the not-so-smart will get the > shaft. Either way, the IT industry will milk it til there is no > money in it, then move on. The cerificate-holder will be left > with a lot of paper and marginally less social legitimacy out > of it. I think P.T. Barnum had something to say about that. > (1) the tendency for private companies to create their > products in ways that bastardize open standards and > create complex, proprietary systems in order to keep up > barriers to competition; What is one person's barrier to competition is another's first-to-market advantage or value-add. Standards committees are slow and the results often suck. If you built a router that only implemented RFCs in "Standard" status, you'd be about 10 years in the past on features, wouldn't interoperate with anyone on the market, and probably wouldn't sell a single unit. Is that the other vendors' fault? > If I were a Microsoft bridge builder, I know how to build > bridges using Microsoft concrete and Microsoft cable, but > unless it's all the same stuff I cannot apply my bridge- > building skills to non-Microsoft venues. It's interesting to note which industries use interchangeable products that provide uniform functionality vs. which use highly specialized proprietary systems. It's also interesting to observe the economic impacts to customers in each industry type. If you want uniform products across all vendors, that means you're going to get the lowest common denominator, and most of the "gotta have" features your favorite vendor has implemented will go away. Your entire business model might evaporate if it's based on one of these non-standard features. > The narrow scope of industry certification will be its undoing, > unless one can create industry certifications that exemplify > industry-wide best practices. That's the goal of the higher-level Cisco certs. The lower-level ones are purely skills-based. S
Re: list problems?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leo Bicknell) writes: > If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, or run a > theoretical group you are going to need the math and English > backgrounds that college provides. ... So what you're saying is, if I hadn't dropped out of high school during my 17th trip around Sol, I wouldn't've gotten stuck in this dead end job? Probably I wouldn't have that honorary MSCS degree either. Wouldn't've wrote all that code, nor those RFC's, nor started those various companies. Wouldn't've found my various mentors nor been a mentor to any of the folks who count me as having been one? Is that how a college degree would have improved my career by age 39? Sounds like a bad deal to me. -- Paul Vixie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> President, PAIX.Net Inc.
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Computer science does enforce critical thinking skills, which are a very necessary part of any successful engineer's toolbox. Bri On Wed, 22 May 2002, Mathew Lodge wrote: > > Nigel, > > I think you are confusing software engineers with network engineers. As a > rule of thumb, software / applications writers rarely understand how > networks really work, in the same way that network engineers rarely > understand how software / applications really work. > > IMHO, there is no mandatory reason a network engineer has to know a > programming language, in the same way there's no mandatory reason that a > top software engineer has to be able to configure a Cisco router. People > who grok both worlds are critical for companies that are writing software > that touches networks, and in general such people are versatile and > valuable. But the real trick is getting a team of all three types to > complement each other, not hiring a single skill / mindset. > > You also seem not to like Cisco for some reason. Perhaps this is why you > have never looked at the curriculum for CCIE. It does require you to know > the Cisco CLI, but that is to show you can correctly implement the > solutions you devise -- a very practical consideration for someone > purporting to be a network engineer. Knowing how to devise those solutions > is the major focus of CCIE, not memorizing the Cisco CLI. You could equally > translate the learned knowledge to, say, Juniper CLI. Finally, trying to > paint re-certification in a very fast-moving industry as some kind of > conspiracy is a real stretch. > > The title of this thread is part of the problem: "certification or > degrees", as if they are mutually exclusive. > > Cheers, > > Mathew > > > > > At 06:37 PM 5/22/2002 -0400, Nigel Clarke wrote: > > >IMO: > > > >Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off > >obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the > >core technologies. > > > >Why would you devote your career to learning a vendor's > >command line or IOS? > > > >Cisco has done an excellent job @ brainwashing the IT > >community. The have (unfortunately) set the standard for > >"Network Engineers". > > > >What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in > >Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most > >circles it would be the latter. > > > >Cisco's certification program has effected the entire IT > >community. Their CCIE's are required to recertify every few > >years, thus forcing them to stay true to the Cisco lifestyle. > > > >I've met some CCIE's who don't know any programming languages > >or any experience with Unix. It's clear that they are one > >dimensional and unfocused. > > > >Why study the same thing over and over? Do you really have X > >amount of years experience, or do you have 1 years experience > >X times? > > > >Think about it. If you have been in the field for over 5 > >years and someone new to the industry by way of certification > >can handle your work load, that is a serious problem. > > > >If anything certs should be used as a stepping stone or > >advancement to new technologies or areas. > > > >Then again, the question of CERTS vs. DEGREES might apply > >differently to someone without any experience. I guess it > >really depends on what your looking for. > >--- > > > >Nigel Clarke > >Network Security Engineer > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Nigel, I think you are confusing software engineers with network engineers. As a rule of thumb, software / applications writers rarely understand how networks really work, in the same way that network engineers rarely understand how software / applications really work. IMHO, there is no mandatory reason a network engineer has to know a programming language, in the same way there's no mandatory reason that a top software engineer has to be able to configure a Cisco router. People who grok both worlds are critical for companies that are writing software that touches networks, and in general such people are versatile and valuable. But the real trick is getting a team of all three types to complement each other, not hiring a single skill / mindset. You also seem not to like Cisco for some reason. Perhaps this is why you have never looked at the curriculum for CCIE. It does require you to know the Cisco CLI, but that is to show you can correctly implement the solutions you devise -- a very practical consideration for someone purporting to be a network engineer. Knowing how to devise those solutions is the major focus of CCIE, not memorizing the Cisco CLI. You could equally translate the learned knowledge to, say, Juniper CLI. Finally, trying to paint re-certification in a very fast-moving industry as some kind of conspiracy is a real stretch. The title of this thread is part of the problem: "certification or degrees", as if they are mutually exclusive. Cheers, Mathew At 06:37 PM 5/22/2002 -0400, Nigel Clarke wrote: >IMO: > >Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off >obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the >core technologies. > >Why would you devote your career to learning a vendor's >command line or IOS? > >Cisco has done an excellent job @ brainwashing the IT >community. The have (unfortunately) set the standard for >"Network Engineers". > >What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in >Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most >circles it would be the latter. > >Cisco's certification program has effected the entire IT >community. Their CCIE's are required to recertify every few >years, thus forcing them to stay true to the Cisco lifestyle. > >I've met some CCIE's who don't know any programming languages >or any experience with Unix. It's clear that they are one >dimensional and unfocused. > >Why study the same thing over and over? Do you really have X >amount of years experience, or do you have 1 years experience >X times? > >Think about it. If you have been in the field for over 5 >years and someone new to the industry by way of certification >can handle your work load, that is a serious problem. > >If anything certs should be used as a stepping stone or >advancement to new technologies or areas. > >Then again, the question of CERTS vs. DEGREES might apply >differently to someone without any experience. I guess it >really depends on what your looking for. >--- > >Nigel Clarke >Network Security Engineer >[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Leo Bicknell wrote: > So, do you need a degree to get a job? Absolutely not. Can you > make the same money initially without a degree, most likely. > However, I suspect you'll find more often than not without one in > 5 years you'll have gotten your 10% raise and still be a grunt, > while your coworkers who had that preparation will have been moved > up to roles with more responsibility, and significantly more money. Interesting. My personal experience, the experience of various people I know, and stuff I think I've read somewhere, tend to show the opposite. Coming out of high school in 1995 with every opportunity to go to college, but feeling burned out enough on school that I thought it was best to wait a year or two, the tech jobs available to somebody with no experience and no college education tended to be of the very low paying variety. I found a job at a company that had interesting stuff to do but no money to pay somebody who already knew how to do it, so for probably about what I would have been making at McDonald's I started learning how to run office LANs for my employer and their clients, do some fairly simple programming, and other things of that sort. I've moved up considerably, both financially and technically, since then, but it took a few years for my salary to reach and pass what my college educated friends were making in their first post-college jobs. It seems pretty obvious to me that for somebody without work experience, there's no question that a college degree is worth a considerable amount of money. At this point, it's been several years since my lack of a degree seemed to be an issue. That said, I certainly wouldn't tell anybody who didn't have a clear idea of what they wanted to do instead, and why it couldn't wait, not to go to college. A lot of my non-college educated friends didn't do all that well; not starting out, and not several years down the line. A college degree may not be absolutely essential, but in most cases it probably helps. As for me, it's been a couple years since I was last job hunting. Maybe I'm in for a rude awakening. I went on from that first job to spending most of what might otherwise have been my college years building and running the network of a growing local ISP, and learning an incredible amount in the process. I'm pretty sure I learned far more about how the Internet works doing that than I would have had I spent 1995-99 in college, and it looks to me now as if the sorts of learning experiences I had during that time wouldn't have been nearly as available four years later after the Internet had become a big business, or now during the economic crash. I made the right choice for me at the time, and then I was quite lucky. -Steve Steve Gibbard [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Thus spake "Nigel Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off > obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the > core technologies. If you're looking to write software, sure. A CompSci degree won't help you in the slightest at operating networks. > Why would you devote your career to learning a vendor's > command line or IOS? You don't. You devote your career to learning networking. IOS is a base skill which is necessary (today) to utilize that knowledge and, more importantly, get a job. A person with lots of knowledge and no skills is a liberal arts major, not an engineer. > Cisco has done an excellent job @ brainwashing the IT > community. The have (unfortunately) set the standard for > "Network Engineers". > > What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in > Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most > circles it would be the latter. In the academic community, the former. In the professional community, the latter. Academic respect doesn't pay the bills. > Cisco's certification program has effected the entire IT > community. Their CCIE's are required to recertify every few > years, thus forcing them to stay true to the Cisco lifestyle. No, they're required to stay knowledgeable with current technical advances in the field. That's hardly unreasonable. > I've met some CCIE's who don't know any programming > languages or any experience with Unix. It's clear that they > are one dimensional and unfocused. Unfocused? People with a single skill set are usually considered "highly focused". Now, I find that folks with Unix experience tend to make better networkers, but it's hardly a required skill. > Why study the same thing over and over? Do you really have X > amount of years experience, or do you have 1 years experience > X times? > > Think about it. If you have been in the field for over 5 > years and someone new to the industry by way of certification > can handle your work load, that is a serious problem. That's not a problem with the certification; that's a problem with your lack of initiative. I don't think I've ever done the same thing for five months, much less five years. > Then again, the question of CERTS vs. DEGREES might apply > differently to someone without any experience. I guess it > really depends on what your looking for. Degrees are, in essence, a certificate that you are capable of learning things by rote and regurgitating them later, possibly applying a small amount of thought (but not too much). In most industries, that's a highly valuable thing to know, and businesses hire college grads with the assumption they'll spend the first year doing little but training them to do useful work. The IT industry does not have the patience or luxury of hiring a completely cluess college grad, sending them to the dozens of required classes, giving them a mentor to help them with their first year of work, etc. People want someone who can solve the problem today, period. Certifications are a crude but often effective means for non-technical people to determine if technical people meet their needs. S
Re: Certification or College degrees?
In a message written on Wed, May 22, 2002 at 06:37:35PM -0400, Nigel Clarke wrote: > Why would you devote your career to learning a vendor's > command line or IOS? Selling your soul to a vendor is not always a bad decision. It happens in all industries as well. If the vendor is popular, there will always be people willing to pay for detailed experience with that vendor, or for esoteric knowledge about that vendor. > Cisco has done an excellent job @ brainwashing the IT > community. The have (unfortunately) set the standard for > "Network Engineers". I'm biased, see .sig, but having been through the process, and seen what other vendors (eg, Microsoft, Novell) do with their programs I do believe that Cisco wants their certifications to mean something. No, that doesn't mean everyone who is certified is an expert. It does mean the odds that someone with a Cisco certification knows something are probably an order of magnitude better than a Microsoft certified person. > What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in > Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most > circles it would be the latter. What I really want to address is that you don't get something like a CCIE for the "respect". Believe me, I don't get any for having it. When I got it, I was a consultant. The reality was if I had a CCIE my employer could bill me at a significantly higher rate, some of which they passed on to me. Why did people pay these rates? The answer was simple, they had better odds of getting someone good. These people would go through 4-5 "Network Engineers", get frustrated because they really and truly didn't know anything, they would then pay for a CCIE and, more often than not, be happy. I really don't think Cisco is better or worse than other industries. Are all ASE Certified Master Mechanics people you want working on your car? No. Are there some non-certified mechanics who could run circles around the certified ones? Of course. That said, your odds are much better that your car will run again if you have a certified mechanic. Many have said business is simply risk management, and certifications are a way of managing that risk. -- Leo Bicknell - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ Read TMBG List - [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.tmbg.org
Re: Certification or College degrees?
if i was to take a newbie, i would much rather hire someone who has taken algorithms and data structures, queuing, ... than someone who has spent their time studying for whatever juniper and cisco call their vendor certifications. one can teach a monkey how to hack a router, as is demonstrated on a daily basis. but a little computer science goes a much longer way. randy
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Brian wrote: > I see ucsd extension offers a communication engineering cert, which altho > a cert is not vendor specific. Seems to deal with typical hi level EE > stuff, and offers a shot to get into their masters program. Exactly! It is high level EE stuff. That's not the same thing. It's the engineering method of making a round peg fit in a triangular hole. Andrew --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.andrewsworld.net/ ICQ: 2895251 Cisco Certified Network Associate "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself."
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Hi all, I've read this thread with quite a bit of interest, I must admit. I must say that after reading it all, I see alot of ... misguided perceptions. Certifications, of any kind, be it university degrees, or other generic certifications, or even the product specific ones, are just a way to ascertain material knowledge. Nothing, nothing more. By no means are they any good at ascertaining the persons ability to implement knowledge (no matter what Cisco says about its hands on lab test). Like any other program, they are built around a specific structure. That doesn't predict the ability of a person to implement knowledge in new situations, adapt it to his/her needs, and find a solution to a new problem. If the original question that started this thread meant to ask which is better for getting a job, then I don't know, it depends on who's hiring. Ideally though, a persons resume is built upon a few factors. You have the core knowledge, which is - as some put it here - just data you accumulate. Unless you practice with it, it stays fresh in your mind for a few months tops, and then fades (remember those university mid terms ?). For knowledge to be useful, one needs to apply it. Thus, a resume should mainly point out, apart from the "what you read from books" part, and what toys you played with (be it routers, servers, and so on) how you have implemented that knowledge, and where. This is, the "experience" part. This includes references from former employers, whom you can call, and other pertinent stuff. One of the qualities I look for most in people, is the ability to learn and adapt, self motivation and independence. Of course there are other personality issues taken into consideration, but this is off topic. For the degree vs. certification bit, I'd say I treat them with the same suspicion. The ability to learn from books and take tests is not really a good predictor of a successful network engineer, or a successful anything for that matter. IT environment tends to be very flexible and fast paced. Technologies and products change at a fast pace, and at this point, only the ability to learn and adapt, and I mean, learn by yourself, not have me push you from behind, this predicts, IMHO, much better, the chance of being able to hire someone that will last more than a short while. Learning never stops. It's a never ending process, and that's the beauty of it. Patting yourself on the back while looking at your resume, where you see that you have X Y and Z diplomas will do no one any good. I have nothing against college degrees, or vendor based (or independant based) certifications. People should learn, and for all I care, as much as they can. What matters, in the end, is their ability to implement what they have learned. So, experience and abilities based on character and intelect are the most important job ingredients you'll ever have. That doesn't mean knowledge is not important. The IT business is not medicine, or engineering of structures. The reason those require certifications up front is because they deal with human lives. And yet, most doctors I know are incompetent, despite the fact they passed their exams, and have their doctors license. my 2 cents, --Ariel -- Ariel Biener e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP(6.5.8) public key http://www.tau.ac.il/~ariel/pgp.html
Re: Certification or College degrees?
I see ucsd extension offers a communication engineering cert, which altho a cert is not vendor specific. Seems to deal with typical hi level EE stuff, and offers a shot to get into their masters program. Bri On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andrew Dorsett wrote: > > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Nigel Clarke wrote: > > > What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in > > Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most > > One of my arguments is that this doesn't exist but at a FEW schools > around the world and only at the MS level. I've been looking for a > network engineering program because personally I don't see myself being > required to design a processor, as long as I know how it behaves and > operates. Sure some believe its required to know how to build a processor and I >think its really cool > (Yes I do know) but to some this is not important because they will > never be required to build one. This would be the perfect curriculum. I know >Valdis is from VT, so I hope he's listening. Why > couldn't we as a networking community sit down and come up with a degree > program that goes from BS to PhD? Sure it can touch on basic programming > and basic processor design, but it would be more heavily weighted towards > utilizing technologies on the market and creating solutions to the common > programs. It could be a mix between the CCIE, Net+, etc. Because I know > my Comp Engineering program doesn't touch on anything related at all to > networking, and never even mentions the idea of security. So why not > create a focused area for this? > > - Andrew > --- > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > http://www.andrewsworld.net/ > ICQ: 2895251 > Cisco Certified Network Associate > > "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them >yourself." > >
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Kristian P. Jackson wrote: > running around acting like network engineers, just as a bunch of network > engineers are no more qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network > engineering is in order? EXACTLY my conceptSo why can't we find some university and develop this so I can transfer into a program I enjoy - Andrew --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.andrewsworld.net/ ICQ: 2895251 Cisco Certified Network Associate "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself."
Re: Certification or College degrees?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Nigel Clarke wrote: > What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in > Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most One of my arguments is that this doesn't exist but at a FEW schools around the world and only at the MS level. I've been looking for a network engineering program because personally I don't see myself being required to design a processor, as long as I know how it behaves and operates. Sure some believe its required to know how to build a processor and I think its really cool (Yes I do know) but to some this is not important because they will never be required to build one. This would be the perfect curriculum. I know Valdis is from VT, so I hope he's listening. Why couldn't we as a networking community sit down and come up with a degree program that goes from BS to PhD? Sure it can touch on basic programming and basic processor design, but it would be more heavily weighted towards utilizing technologies on the market and creating solutions to the common programs. It could be a mix between the CCIE, Net+, etc. Because I know my Comp Engineering program doesn't touch on anything related at all to networking, and never even mentions the idea of security. So why not create a focused area for this? - Andrew --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.andrewsworld.net/ ICQ: 2895251 Cisco Certified Network Associate "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself."
Re: Certification or College degrees?
IMO: Certifications are a waste of time. You'd be better off obtaining a Computer Science degree and focusing on the core technologies. Why would you devote your career to learning a vendor's command line or IOS? Cisco has done an excellent job @ brainwashing the IT community. The have (unfortunately) set the standard for "Network Engineers". What do you think is more respected, a masters degree in Networking Engineering or a CCIE. In most circles it would be the latter. Cisco's certification program has effected the entire IT community. Their CCIE's are required to recertify every few years, thus forcing them to stay true to the Cisco lifestyle. I've met some CCIE's who don't know any programming languages or any experience with Unix. It's clear that they are one dimensional and unfocused. Why study the same thing over and over? Do you really have X amount of years experience, or do you have 1 years experience X times? Think about it. If you have been in the field for over 5 years and someone new to the industry by way of certification can handle your work load, that is a serious problem. If anything certs should be used as a stepping stone or advancement to new technologies or areas. Then again, the question of CERTS vs. DEGREES might apply differently to someone without any experience. I guess it really depends on what your looking for. --- Nigel Clarke Network Security Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: list problems?
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Irving writes: > This PC and Internet revolution was founded by men with Advanced >Degree's from Prominent Ivy League Colleges... Well remember that the Internet revolution wasn't Bill's -- he's a follower. Now if he'd finished his Harvard degree in Applied Math, then, maybe... Harvard was an ARPANET site when he was there -- some of the more senior students used it Craig
Re: list problems?
Yeah! This PC and Internet revolution was founded by men with Advanced Degree's from Prominent Ivy League Colleges... Like Bill Gates... Oh No, wait... :O [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Leo Bicknell wrote: > > If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, manager >or run a > > theoretical group you are going to need the math and English > > backgrounds that college provides. Yeah, Einstein wouldn't have made it anywhere, without his background in Mathematics that he got from a Prominent Ivy League... Oh.. Shoot, did it again. :\ IMHO: Recruiters who need degree's to identify competence can be replaced with a 5 dollar an hour secretary, and a black marker pen. "Yes, No.. Eenie Meenie Minie Moe, the one with the most prominent degree... is the one with which we will go... dressed up right, in a light shirt and dark tie... after all, we sure don't want the other kind of guy." I mean, after all look at Vixie.. his shirt has so much starch... and you can't get him to take his Tie offor unbutton his dark suit Oh, Crud not again ! :D Ok.. Well, wait maybe Richard Stallman.. I... er... :P
Who posts to the nanog list -- The top 59 players (Was not: Re: list problems?)
Hi all, Somewhat related to the previous subject, but bringing it much closer to the operational aspects of the nanog e-mail list, I present this data It only took a few commands to build a count of articles posted to the nanog list over the last 17 months (Jan 2001 to the present day). I sorted them based upon the total count of messages (highest first). I only included the first 59 names. If the e-mail shows up with wrapped lines, then you can find the same information at http://www.mahtin.com/nanog-count.txt which should be easy to read in an unwrapped manner. Note that as some people posting using different real-names in the SMTP headers, there are minor errors in this list. ( "bmanning" missed counting some of "Bill Manning" or "bill manning" posted messages and "Richard A. Steenbergen" and "Richard A Steenbergen" are really the same person). I can't help it if people change their e-mail setups. ;-) Enjoy the data. Martin - # E-MAIL NAME COUNT 2001-01 2001-02 2001-03 2001-04 2001-05 2001-06 2001-07 2001-08 2001-09 2001-10 2001-11 2001-12 2002-01 2002-02 2002-03 2002-04 2002-05 1 Sean Donelan534 68 34 17 44 16 51 24 20 91 36 38 27 6 13 24 17 8 2 Roeland Meyer 371 44 13 51 37 64 - 38 63 61 - - - - - - - - 3 Valdis.Kletnieks231 14 9 20 6 23 12 15 29 18 22 8 7 7 10 6 10 15 4 Randy Bush 214 18 14 10 6 10 21 6 28 33 13 14 11 9 6 4 5 6 5 John Fraizer205 18 32 19 31 26 8 10 24 37 - - - - - - - - 6 E.B. Dreger 147 - - - - 12 15 1 8 19 22 5 5 11 1 9 12 27 7 Paul Vixie 128 13 8 1 - 9 7 1 4 12 22 9 - 1 5 4 16 16 8 Shawn McMahon 127 15 16 34 14 48 - - - - - - - - - - - - 9 Richard A. Steenbergen 127 17 8 5 26 23 40 8 - - - - - - - - - - 10 Dan Hollis 127 6 2 4 14 29 4 8 6 10 5 3 1 8 4 1 1 21 11 David Schwartz 122 - 2 32 13 22 12 4 10 8 3 1 - 1 4 3 3 4 12 Greg A. Woods 115 20 14 16 21 8 18 2 5 1 3 - - - - - - 7 13 Scott Francis 113 - 1 25 4 16 2 8 3 4 3 2 6 2 4 1 3 29 14 bmanning108 15 5 3 9 14 2 4 6 14 4 7 - 6 3 4 8 4 15 Sean M. Doran 106 - - - 9 15 7 - 24 25 6 3 - 1 2 8 5 1 16 Stephen J. Wilcox 105 3 6 10 3 11 3 10 3 10 - - - 1 10 9 6 20 17 Daniel Golding 101 1 5 3 1 7 8 11 6 15 7 9 5 3 4 3 9 4 18 Leo Bicknell100 3 3 - 1 - 9 5 28 23 12 4 2 2 1 2 1 4 19 Hank Nussbacher 100 12 14 10 7 2 6 5 4 14 8 4 3 1 - 3 2 5 20 Patrick Greenwell98 7 7 30 2 2 1 1 17 10 4 8 7 2 - - - - 21 Alex Rubenstein 98 1 7 2 2 9 16 7 3 18 4 8 - 3 5 2 3 8 22 Vadim Antonov94 3 1 12 - 2 - - 25 22 6 3 1 - 13 3 1 2 23 Bill Woodcock93 9 8 3 5 11 5 10
Re: Certification or College degrees?
Speaking as someone who is currently in a degree program in information science for a major university -- Certification in the IT industry has become a nightmare because people who are less than clueful have abused it in the hiring and compensation processes. While it would be absurd to hire a professional engineer (say, to build a skyscraper or a bridge) without verifiable professional credentials, and there are significant social penalties for people attempting to pass themselves off as professional engineers (or doctors, or lawyers, etc.), there are no such penalities for IT personnel. And industry certification is the worst of these offenders. Cisco, Microsoft and Novell (among others) have effectively created long-standing revenue streams out of the ridiculous complexity of their products. Some of that complexity is justified, without question. And some of it is deliberate to drive the need for "certified" professionals. A vicious cycle -- these "professionals" pay exhorbitant fees for 3-day or 5-day drench sessions where they come away with 1% retention and must be hired shortly thereafter to actually use anything they retained. Their expectation: high pay rates and a career track. In reality, the people who pay for these certifications are the end users of the products. The companies who send people to be trained, or expend more money for salaries. However, they are typically buying a pig in a poke. They could no better evaluate what certifications are necessary, and in what contexts, than I could evaluate the quality of an engineer to build my bridge or skyscraper. Thus, the IT industry is incentized to produce more certification programs which produce marginally less utility; the smart business is less incentized to pay for it, and the less-smart business is apt to pay for it a couple times, til they get stung enough that they decide it's not worth it and outsource; and the certificate-holder is less-inclined to pad his or her resume with useless paper. The system is broken. Like a drunk bobbing down a blind alley, businesses will bounce back and forth between outsourcing the kitchen sink and bringing it back in-house, all in an effort to cut the cost of IT as a corporate resource and maximize its "value" which (contrary to the folks that like to assign metrics to everything) is foggy at best. The smart will get smarter, and the not-so-smart will get the shaft. Either way, the IT industry will milk it til there is no money in it, then move on. The cerificate-holder will be left with a lot of paper and marginally less social legitimacy out of it. I mean, I was a Merit Scholar Finalist in high school. Who the hell cares. Unlike a university education, which has a certain amount of staying power, the value of industry certifications is fleeting. Unfortunately, there are two forces at work that will keep industry certification in this state: (1) the tendency for private companies to create their products in ways that bastardize open standards and create complex, proprietary systems in order to keep up barriers to competition; (2) the tendency for proprietary systems to have relatively short lifecycles, and for standards and practices to consolidate as time progresses. The value afforded a university education is in its universality. A bridge engineer can build bridges out of concrete or cable, depending on what's called for. If I were a Microsoft bridge builder, I know how to build bridges using Microsoft concrete and Microsoft cable, but unless it's all the same stuff I cannot apply my bridge-building skills to non-Microsoft venues. The narrow scope of industry certification will be its undoing, unless one can create industry certifications that exemplify industry-wide best practices. >From my extremely limited perspective, it looks like Cisco does this, but I have never taken a Cisco class so I cannot comment with authority. Anyone? Richard A Steenbergen wrote: > > Certifications exist to help those without the knowledge ...
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
Also sounds a lot like Texas A&M University's Telecommunications Engineering Technology degree. (Yes, it says Engineering Technology. No, it's not a two year associates degree.) It's currently rich on voice communications networks, but is picking up tremendously on data communications. http://etidweb.tamu.edu/telecomm/tel_index.html On Wed, 22 May 2002, Pistone, Mike wrote: > > Not to toot the horn of my Alma Mater too much, but Ohio University's > Communication Systems Management program (www.csm.ohiou.edu) is also along > the lines of a network engineering degree. It also focus on other aspects > of the industry (regulation, comm theory, security, etc) but they all sort > of flow together. They were just getting into more hands on networking labs > when I graduated, I am sure they have greatly improved since then. > > Mike > > > -Original Message- > From: John Kristoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:52 PM > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? > > > > On Wed, 22 May 2002 16:40:27 -0400 > "Kristian P. Jackson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > network engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more > > qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is in > > order? > > We actually have that - or something close to it. We are slowly > building a bigger networking lab with router-ish stuff for students to > learn from. In fact, I'll be handing off full BGP table for them to see > and play with in the lab. If you want to help us educate, we'll gladly > accept any donations, particularly gear, we can get. :-) > > http://www.cs.depaul.edu/programs/2002/BachelorNT2002.asp > http://ipdweb.cs.depaul.edu/programs/lan/index.html > http://condor.depaul.edu/~jkristof/tdc375/ > http://condor.depaul.edu/~jkristof/2001Spr365/ > > John -- /-> Marius Strom | Always carry a short length of fibre-optic cable. Professional Geek | If you get lost, then you can drop it on the System/Network Admin | ground, wait 10 minutes, and ask the backhoe http://www.marius.org/ | operator how to get back to civilization. \-| Alan Frame |-->
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
Not to toot the horn of my Alma Mater too much, but Ohio University's Communication Systems Management program (www.csm.ohiou.edu) is also along the lines of a network engineering degree. It also focus on other aspects of the industry (regulation, comm theory, security, etc) but they all sort of flow together. They were just getting into more hands on networking labs when I graduated, I am sure they have greatly improved since then. Mike -Original Message- From: John Kristoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:52 PM Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? On Wed, 22 May 2002 16:40:27 -0400 "Kristian P. Jackson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > network engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more > qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is in > order? We actually have that - or something close to it. We are slowly building a bigger networking lab with router-ish stuff for students to learn from. In fact, I'll be handing off full BGP table for them to see and play with in the lab. If you want to help us educate, we'll gladly accept any donations, particularly gear, we can get. :-) http://www.cs.depaul.edu/programs/2002/BachelorNT2002.asp http://ipdweb.cs.depaul.edu/programs/lan/index.html http://condor.depaul.edu/~jkristof/tdc375/ http://condor.depaul.edu/~jkristof/2001Spr365/ John
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002 16:40:27 -0400 "Kristian P. Jackson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > network engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more > qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is in > order? We actually have that - or something close to it. We are slowly building a bigger networking lab with router-ish stuff for students to learn from. In fact, I'll be handing off full BGP table for them to see and play with in the lab. If you want to help us educate, we'll gladly accept any donations, particularly gear, we can get. :-) http://www.cs.depaul.edu/programs/2002/BachelorNT2002.asp http://ipdweb.cs.depaul.edu/programs/lan/index.html http://condor.depaul.edu/~jkristof/tdc375/ http://condor.depaul.edu/~jkristof/2001Spr365/ John
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
It's easy, just replace your ICU with a RSP8 :) Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jeff Workman Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 1:38 PM To: Christopher J. Wolff; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? Stoned koalas drooled eucalyptus spit in awe as Christopher J. Wolff exclaimed: > I take my new volvo to the local equivalent of "Joe's Garage" for > regular (3000 mile) service. Joe is not volvo certified, but they do > let me watch over their shoulder to make sure everything is perfect. > The service is a fraction of the cost. If there was a mistake in > service, they only ask for their cost for the parts to rectify the > mistake (This is the 6th car that I've taken to "Joe's Garage".) > However I do take the car to Volvo for the 3 mile service interval > (which, in fact, contains no service, only diagnostics). If Volvo finds > a problem, I'll take it back to Joe's Garage for the actual repair. How do I configure my Volvo for BGP? *ducks* -Jeff -- Jeff Workman | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.pimpworks.org
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
Stoned koalas drooled eucalyptus spit in awe as Christopher J. Wolff exclaimed: > I take my new volvo to the local equivalent of "Joe's Garage" for > regular (3000 mile) service. Joe is not volvo certified, but they do > let me watch over their shoulder to make sure everything is perfect. > The service is a fraction of the cost. If there was a mistake in > service, they only ask for their cost for the parts to rectify the > mistake (This is the 6th car that I've taken to "Joe's Garage".) > However I do take the car to Volvo for the 3 mile service interval > (which, in fact, contains no service, only diagnostics). If Volvo finds > a problem, I'll take it back to Joe's Garage for the actual repair. How do I configure my Volvo for BGP? *ducks* -Jeff -- Jeff Workman | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.pimpworks.org
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
My two cents: >From what I have found most colleges in the area of the world that I am in (New England) focus their BCS studies on programing. Completely unrelated to the area of anything network related. This may not be the case everywhere. Maybe the industry leaders should assist the education scene in developing a degree program for future network engineers that beter prepares them for this field. It doesn't help the industry if a bunch of programers are running around acting like network engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is in order? Kristian P. Jackson, CCNP
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
Alan, Thank you for the objective response. It seems that there is room for multiple perspectives on this topic. I take my new volvo to the local equivalent of "Joe's Garage" for regular (3000 mile) service. Joe is not volvo certified, but they do let me watch over their shoulder to make sure everything is perfect. The service is a fraction of the cost. If there was a mistake in service, they only ask for their cost for the parts to rectify the mistake (This is the 6th car that I've taken to "Joe's Garage".) However I do take the car to Volvo for the 3 mile service interval (which, in fact, contains no service, only diagnostics). If Volvo finds a problem, I'll take it back to Joe's Garage for the actual repair. I see your perspective on the HR department. HR probably deals with dozens of applicants and the certification is an easy pass/fail evaluation method. However, IMHO, there are probably many expertly qualified candidates that have no paper but are more qualified than the paper CCNA. Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Rowland, Alan D Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 12:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? While the effectiveness of degree requirements may be argued, they are efficient. When your HR department gets hundreds or thousands of applications, they need some way to find the wheat. The net sector is young and was mostly immune to traditional business practices. Not all traditional business practices are bad (see dot.bomb). Lack of business acumen means the days of six figure income and significant stock options because there were 10 job openings for every geek who could RTFM are over. Even though the "job market is coming back" there's still 20 'techies' in Birkenstocks and Star Wars t-shirts for every (decent) job hiring. Everything else being equal (which is often the case) a cert or degree is a great tie-breaker. Welcome to the traditional job market fellow geeks. Remember all the jokes about Sanitation Engineers? ;) Put another way, when you take that expensive car of yours in for service (you do have one if you're successful in this industry, right? ;) ), do you go to Joe's Garage (apologies to all named Joe) or a dealer/service center with "certified" mechanics? Just my 2¢. The delete key is your friend. Best regards, _ Alan Rowland (BS in Business and Management, UofM, 1990 "no warranty expressed or implied, use at your own risk, may be terminated at any time without notice" -Original Message- From: Christopher J. Wolff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 11:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? I would add to that statement: Requiring a technology certification is equally as obsurd. I've been told I could pass the Emperor-Level CCIE test; however, I do not believe it will add more value for my customers. Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com Andrew Dorsett said: *jumping on my soap box* I have to say that the idea of requiring a degree for the IT industry is obsurd.
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Rowland, Alan D wrote: > Put another way, when you take that expensive car of yours in for service > (you do have one if you're successful in this industry, right? ;) ), do you > go to Joe's Garage (apologies to all named Joe) or a dealer/service center > with "certified" mechanics? I hope everyone knows by now to avoid dealer service centers. They are the biggest and shadiest scam operations ever. Personally, I go to the garage with the best reputation -- not the one with the most certifications. Certifications != honest or even competent -Dan -- [-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
Hey now, leave joe's garage out of this and stick to church oriented activities. While your at it have a donut. On Wed, 22 May 2002, Rowland, Alan D wrote: > > While the effectiveness of degree requirements may be argued, they are > efficient. When your HR department gets hundreds or thousands of > applications, they need some way to find the wheat. > > The net sector is young and was mostly immune to traditional business > practices. Not all traditional business practices are bad (see dot.bomb). > Lack of business acumen means the days of six figure income and significant > stock options because there were 10 job openings for every geek who could > RTFM are over. Even though the "job market is coming back" there's still 20 > 'techies' in Birkenstocks and Star Wars t-shirts for every (decent) job > hiring. Everything else being equal (which is often the case) a cert or > degree is a great tie-breaker. > > Welcome to the traditional job market fellow geeks. Remember all the jokes > about Sanitation Engineers? ;) > > Put another way, when you take that expensive car of yours in for service > (you do have one if you're successful in this industry, right? ;) ), do you > go to Joe's Garage (apologies to all named Joe) or a dealer/service center > with "certified" mechanics? > > Just my 2¢. The delete key is your friend. > > Best regards, > _ > Alan Rowland > (BS in Business and Management, UofM, 1990 > "no warranty expressed or implied, use at > your own risk, may be terminated at any > time without notice" > > > > > > -Original Message- > From: Christopher J. Wolff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 11:16 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? > > > > I would add to that statement: Requiring a technology certification is > equally as obsurd. I've been told I could pass the Emperor-Level CCIE > test; however, I do not believe it will add more value for my customers. > > Regards, > Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO > Broadband Laboratories > http://www.bblabs.com > > > Andrew Dorsett said: > *jumping on my soap box* > I have to say that the idea of requiring a degree for the IT industry is > obsurd. >
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
While the effectiveness of degree requirements may be argued, they are efficient. When your HR department gets hundreds or thousands of applications, they need some way to find the wheat. The net sector is young and was mostly immune to traditional business practices. Not all traditional business practices are bad (see dot.bomb). Lack of business acumen means the days of six figure income and significant stock options because there were 10 job openings for every geek who could RTFM are over. Even though the "job market is coming back" there's still 20 'techies' in Birkenstocks and Star Wars t-shirts for every (decent) job hiring. Everything else being equal (which is often the case) a cert or degree is a great tie-breaker. Welcome to the traditional job market fellow geeks. Remember all the jokes about Sanitation Engineers? ;) Put another way, when you take that expensive car of yours in for service (you do have one if you're successful in this industry, right? ;) ), do you go to Joe's Garage (apologies to all named Joe) or a dealer/service center with "certified" mechanics? Just my 2¢. The delete key is your friend. Best regards, _ Alan Rowland (BS in Business and Management, UofM, 1990 "no warranty expressed or implied, use at your own risk, may be terminated at any time without notice" -Original Message- From: Christopher J. Wolff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 11:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? I would add to that statement: Requiring a technology certification is equally as obsurd. I've been told I could pass the Emperor-Level CCIE test; however, I do not believe it will add more value for my customers. Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com Andrew Dorsett said: *jumping on my soap box* I have to say that the idea of requiring a degree for the IT industry is obsurd.
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
I once dared to require candidates to submit written answers to three essay questions (200 to 300 words), along with their applications. The questions were about the technical subject, but the purpose in asking was to see if they could spell, and write in complete sentences. We did a formal analysis of the job beforehand, and decided that the ability to _write English_ was foremost, even ahead of the specific technical skills the job also required. This person dealt with a large community of people via email. (DNS top-level hostmaster for a large company.) We got a good guy. He's still there. When I see a resume with more degrees than a thermometer, but even minor spelling, punctuation, or other such errors, I throw it out. Meticulous attention to detail matters a lot in this business.
Re: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 11:16:24AM -0700, Christopher J. Wolff wrote: > > I would add to that statement: Requiring a technology certification is > equally as obsurd. I think you mean "absurd", a word you should have heard a lot by now. > I've been told I could pass the Emperor-Level CCIE test; Emperor-Level CCIE? I don't even know where to go with that one. > however, I do not believe it will add more value for my customers. Certifications exist to help those without the knowledge to verify for themselves decide if you have clue or if you are just bullshitting. Yes I have seen people with CCIEs who could barely route their way out of a paper bag, and I have seen people with no certifications who are more useful than 100 CCIEs put together. But as a whole, the system works fairly well, or companies would not put weight in Cisco certifications. They can also do a good job telling us the difference between someone who runs an actual network, vs say a hosting company located in a closet next to a legacy Global Crossing access pop in Tucson AZ, where they have a DS3 yet claim to have a national OC192 network, and who steals graphics from reputable companies like GX, EXDS, and CSCO. http://www.bblabs.com/highspeed.htm http://www.bblabs.com/data_center_picture.html http://www.bblabs.com/dedicated_server.htm -- Richard A Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
RE: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
What you have to remember is that having a degree or certification allows the non-clue full out in the 'real' world to easily tell the difference between you and say, the world's smartest garbage man. Of course, the upside to that is, you will only wind up working in places with a high enough clue level to understand your value, hence you will be happier... Anyplace that is going to exclude you for a lack of paper, wouldn't appreciate you for your talents anyway. (in my experience)... As far as 'degrees mean you are capable of 'sticking with' something', I would think that a look at someone's employment history for the last 10 years or so would indicate that MUCH better than 4 years of sitting through outdated lectures... If your resume shows more than 4 jobs in the last 3 years (and you didn't get laid off), what does THAT stay about your ability to 'stick with' something? Yours in Networking, Paul A Flores > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Christopher J. Wolff > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 13:16 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems? > > > > I would add to that statement: Requiring a technology > certification is > equally as obsurd. I've been told I could pass the Emperor-Level CCIE > test; however, I do not believe it will add more value for my > customers. > > Regards, > Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO > Broadband Laboratories > http://www.bblabs.com > > > Andrew Dorsett said: > *jumping on my soap box* > I have to say that the idea of requiring a degree for the IT > industry is > obsurd. >
Re: list problems?
A degree may be completely unnecessary to be a "Network Engineer", or other similar position. The problem is that those positions are "Entry Level" in the networking industry. You probably don't need a degree to work in a NOC. Heck, and many places NOC staff have more in common with McDonald's fry cooks than with network engineers. The real question is, do you want to progress in your job? If you ever want to become a team leader, or a manger, or run a theoretical group you are going to need the math and English backgrounds that college provides. You may also need a deeper knowledge of hardware and software to understand a vendors limits, and work with them on appropriate solutions. You will need to be able to work on large projects, involving many people to do complex tasks, all part of what college can help you learn. So, do you need a degree to get a job? Absolutely not. Can you make the same money initially without a degree, most likely. However, I suspect you'll find more often than not without one in 5 years you'll have gotten your 10% raise and still be a grunt, while your coworkers who had that preparation will have been moved up to roles with more responsibility, and significantly more money. -- Leo Bicknell - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ Read TMBG List - [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.tmbg.org
Re: Economics of Support Costs (was: Cisco quality)
> Indulge me in an analogy: Let's say I own a bakery. Some punk throws a > rock through my window. Well, now I have to either pay someone to fix > Larry Diffey - Armchair Economist With apologies to Bastiat and Hazlitt? :) Bradley
Certification or College degrees? Was: RE: list problems?
I would add to that statement: Requiring a technology certification is equally as obsurd. I've been told I could pass the Emperor-Level CCIE test; however, I do not believe it will add more value for my customers. Regards, Christopher J. Wolff, VP CIO Broadband Laboratories http://www.bblabs.com Andrew Dorsett said: *jumping on my soap box* I have to say that the idea of requiring a degree for the IT industry is obsurd.
Re: Cisco quality
Thus spake "Rob Healey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > If C brand worked properly as shipped how would Cisco support > services and other consultancys survive? > > It's a MUCH bigger market in consulting services and > Rent-a-Expert than the initial hardware/firmware sales. According to Cisco's last financial results call, services account for 17% of revenue. That's not quite a rounding error, but to say Cisco intentionally ships bad hw/sw to collect on services (or for others to do so) is way off the mark. There are lots of services still necessary even when the sw/hw works as advertised. Training, Planning, Design, Implementation, Operations, etc. just like any other industry. Needing an architect and civil engineer to build a skyscraper isn't a fault of the steel mill. S
Re: Re: list problems?
To be honest, I recall that particular language and it made me wonder if it was an AUP violation. I don't know that I'd equate enforcing an AUP with censorship. We are, after all, professionals and it shouldn't be difficult to maintain a certain level of decorum. Speaking for myself, my choice of words at home can be considerably different from what I'd choose to use at work or when dealing with other professionals in a public forum. The sort of language that I sometimes use at home or with friends is not acceptable here at work so I would presume that it wouldn't be acceptable when communicating in an open professional forum. Just my $.005 after taxes, John On Wed, 22 May 2002, Ralph Doncaster ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote: > > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Jeffrey Meltzer wrote: > > > > > > I've gotten at least 5 messages from you on this list today... > > > > Yeah, maybe NANOG implemented WFQ... > > Further tests seem to indicate that every message posted to the list is > read/approved by a human. > http://ns.istop.com/~ralph/censored.txt > > -Ralph > > > >
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Scott Granados wrote: > the other hand I can think of some good reasons why someone might not > have a degree but still be totally qualified. *jumping on my soap box* I have to say that the idea of requiring a degree for the IT industry is obsurd. Sure it is an easy way to discount the ones that are too stupid to perform the job, but there are a lot of very qualified people in the pool that don't have degrees. For instance, I do network engineering, design and troubleshooting for a lot of people (including being a Level-3 with VT's 4help staff) but I don't have a degree YET..In fact I'm failing several classes that aren't related to Comp Engineering. So why should I be judged over my abilities to find the forces on objects instead of my abilities to troubleshoot a network that is having problems? Here's my current problem...I had a very good offer for a co-op at the same place where I had an internship for last summer and MORE than proved my abilities. But because it was a government position they asked for my transcript and then "selectively lost" my co-op forms. So why should I be judged on my GPA (which is still higher than most of the engineers at Virginia Tech) instead of my past experience level? I know several degree holding people who couldn't code or troubleshoot a network if they tried, and that is what they studied in college. And lastly, why should I be required to hold a degree in a field that isn't even the same as what I do for a livingA computer engineer/scientist only learns in college how to code software or design hardware. Not how to maintain a network or configure a router. That is what the career certs are for, they should be designed into college curriculums and then maybe I would enjoy my college experience.. *stepping down* BTW I'm looking for a summer job, it seems nobody wants networking internsI've had 10 full-time offers but nothing for summer onlyAnd yes companies are hiring left and right for IT people and the industry is picking back up. - Andrew --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.andrewsworld.net/ ICQ: 2895251 Cisco Certified Network Associate Development Assistant: Netpath/Stratonet, Inc. (http://www.netpath.net/) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself."
Economics of Support Costs (was: Cisco quality)
Rob Wrote: If C brand worked properly as shipped how would Cisco support services and other consultancys survive? It's a MUCH bigger market in consulting services and Rent-a-Expert than the initial hardware/firmware sales. If Cisco shipped mostly working product then thousands of high paying jobs would be lost and probably a billion or more support dollars would never make the rounds in the economy. Microsoft and Cisco do the tech industry a HUGE favor by shipping misfunctional equipment/software to which consulting services and professional services can then step in and hawk their wares/bodys/solutions. If Cisco and Microsoft shipped properly working product the tech industry/economy would probably disintegrate! Once you understand the above, the technical industry starts to make a little more sense; its consulting and professional support services that drive the economy and not properly functioning gear! -Rob Indulge me in an analogy: Let's say I own a bakery. Some punk throws a rock through my window. Well, now I have to either pay someone to fix the window, leave it the way it is or try to repair it myself. Since I don't know anything about windows, and I really can't just leave it, I have to pay someone to fix it. According to Rob's school of thought, the economy has been given a boost (albeit a very minor one) because I have temporarily employed a window repair man. Sounds logical at first. Look at the slippery slope: Wouldn't it be great for the economy if everyone went around breaking windows? Of course not, because people have better things to be spending their money on than window repair. There is no return on investment for fixing a window. The point is, if so much money is being spent on support costs, it's actually a DRAIN on the economy because the money being spent on support would likely be more productive and spent more wisely by the companies that are now wasting money because of inferior hardware/software. That productivity could result in lower consumer prices which means you'd keep more of your own money. It means more money could be invested into new products and services which would in turn create more jobs and more than make up for the support jobs that would be lost by hardware/software that needed very little support. If those of us that provide support for a living weren't doing that would we be just sitting at home? Probably not. If we were not supporting, we would likely be innovating or in a different industry that was more productive because they weren't paying so stinking much to support their hardware/software. Rob says that Microsoft and Cisco are doing the tech industry a favor but they are not; they are only doing themselves a favor. This applies especially to Microsoft because people wait breathlessly for the next patch or upgrade and then act as if M$ is doing them a favor by fixing something that shouldn't have been broken to begin with. Larry Diffey - Armchair Economist
Re: list problems?
I'm not sure, someone who has a degree sometimes shows that they have the ability to stick with something long term and complete it. I realize that is an over generalization but it does show something. On the other hand I can think of some good reasons why someone might not have a degree but still be totally qualified. On Wed, 22 May 2002, Avleen Vig wrote: > > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote: > > > If you ask me, I think that this is analagous to the situation where some > > guy gets rejected at a job interview because he "doesn't have a degree", > > which is in truth just an excuse. > > Actually (without hoping to trigger a flame war), there are a lot of very > large comanies, mainly in the US (mainly in the finanial sector or > eduction sector, and occassionaly in the defense sector), who DO refuse to > hire without a degree. > > There are many good technical persons out there who don't have a degree. > There are almost many unemployeed technical persons who would make better > admins / engineers than some people I know who have degrees. > > With the current situation, I see the following: > Proportionally here are more technical people in jobs WITH degrees than > without > People with degrees have more experience, and get farther > > I believe the latter reason is because more people hire candidates with > degrees. Vicious circle. > > Not hiring people who don't hold degrees is fast becoming a policy matter. > The reasons for it are numerous. Very few (IMO) are 'good' reasons. > >
Re: Cisco quality
> For those saying Cisco is so great, it's still fucked up pretty bad. IOS > 12.1 and later doesn't allow an MTU > 1460 on L2TP, while 12.0.7(T) works > fine with a 1492 MTU that my PPPoE customers expect. Every rev I've tried > from 12.0 and up has problems with CEF when using ISL VLAN sub-interfaces, > and without CEF, mac-accounting is screwed up. > If C brand worked properly as shipped how would Cisco support services and other consultancys survive? It's a MUCH bigger market in consulting services and Rent-a-Expert than the initial hardware/firmware sales. If Cisco shipped mostly working product then thousands of high paying jobs would be lost and probably a billion or more support dollars would never make the rounds in the economy. Microsoft and Cisco do the tech industry a HUGE favor by shipping misfunctional equipment/software to which consulting services and professional services can then step in and hawk their wares/bodys/solutions. If Cisco and Microsoft shipped properly working product the tech industry/economy would probably disintegrate! Once you understand the above, the technical industry starts to make a little more sense; its consulting and professional support services that drive the economy and not properly functioning gear! -Rob
Re: list problems?
andy and others who don't have the will or technology to plonk this clue-free troll, could you at least please not feed it? thanks. randy > Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 12:22:06 -0400 (EDT) > From: Andy Dills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: Ralph Doncaster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: list problems? > > > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Ralph Doncaster wrote: blah blah blah
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > > I dunno, if you really want to have this debate, I don't see why it's > > unreasonable for the list parents to not want rampant cursing. > > In my travels to the southeast US, I found there are still people there > who consider it inappropriate for a white woman to date a black man. I > would hope that all on this list understand how illogical that is. To me > it seems just as illogical to say it's inapproprate to use one word over > another, when they both have the same meaning. Come on, I curse like George Carlin but I don't to it in front of customers. Are you telling me there is no such thing as appropriate behavior in a public forum? I understand your argument. But the point is, this is somebody elses sandbox we're playing in. Calm down and play nice, or you'll have people trying to kick you out. > > I'm not saying that the people on this list don't like you, I'm just > > saying that if you keep posting about CPU utilization when using linux for > > routing and about how cisco sucks, in a very frequent manner, it will make > > small idiosyncracies such as cursing stand out that much more. > > Lots of people don't like me, and I like it that way. Saves me a lot > nuisance from people who might think you're their friend. Speaking of logic, that's an interesting way of putting things. > >From the number of personal replies I got about these topics, it seems > like many people are interested in sharing information about how to do > routing on a budget, or how to avoid getting shot in the foot with your > Cisco box. Routing on a budget? Dude, you can buy a 7200 for $2 grand. Why bother with a linux box? Heh, at least use FreeBSD :) > I thought my posts were far more technical and relevant to > network operation than the marketing hype being spewed by some > others. However, if the consensus is my posts are off-topic, I'll happily > shut up wait to be told what are accpetable topics. I don't think they're off topic. But other people do. YMMV. HTH. Andy Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLCwww.xecu.net Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Re: list problems?
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 12:03:07PM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > > > With the current situation, I see the following: > > Proportionally here are more technical people in jobs WITH degrees than > > without > > So maybe that's my problem. I dropped out of university because I felt > completing my degree would be an endorsement of a flawed post-secondary > education system. (I completed 37 of 40 credits required for a BCS, so it > would have been only a small effort to finish) > > I only hired 2 full-time staff in my Ottawa office that held a university > degree. One I fired after 2 months, the other I fired after 3. "Sir, I think you have me confused with someone who cares". -- Richard A Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
Re: list problems?
> Lots of people don't like me, and I like it that way. Congratulations, you've added one more to your tally. Please post again when you've got something related to network operations to say. Or if you just feel like whining, take it to inet-access so we don't have to hear it. -Bill
Re: Linux routing
On Wed, 22 May 2002 09:20:41 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: > it incorrectly to a process - I seem to remember some handwaving in either > the Keifler&McKusic or Bach books about how interrupt time is charged against Argh. I knew that didn't look right... ;) Leffler, McKusic, Karels, Quarterman: "Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System" Addison-Wesley That will teach me to not cite unless I have either book or caffeine ;) msg02052/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: list problems?
> With the current situation, I see the following: > Proportionally here are more technical people in jobs WITH degrees than > without So maybe that's my problem. I dropped out of university because I felt completing my degree would be an endorsement of a flawed post-secondary education system. (I completed 37 of 40 credits required for a BCS, so it would have been only a small effort to finish) I only hired 2 full-time staff in my Ottawa office that held a university degree. One I fired after 2 months, the other I fired after 3. -Ralph
Re: list problems?
> I dunno, if you really want to have this debate, I don't see why it's > unreasonable for the list parents to not want rampant cursing. In my travels to the southeast US, I found there are still people there who consider it inappropriate for a white woman to date a black man. I would hope that all on this list understand how illogical that is. To me it seems just as illogical to say it's inapproprate to use one word over another, when they both have the same meaning. > I'm not saying that the people on this list don't like you, I'm just > saying that if you keep posting about CPU utilization when using linux for > routing and about how cisco sucks, in a very frequent manner, it will make > small idiosyncracies such as cursing stand out that much more. Lots of people don't like me, and I like it that way. Saves me a lot nuisance from people who might think you're their friend. >From the number of personal replies I got about these topics, it seems like many people are interested in sharing information about how to do routing on a budget, or how to avoid getting shot in the foot with your Cisco box. I thought my posts were far more technical and relevant to network operation than the marketing hype being spewed by some others. However, if the consensus is my posts are off-topic, I'll happily shut up wait to be told what are accpetable topics. -Ralph
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote: > If you ask me, I think that this is analagous to the situation where some > guy gets rejected at a job interview because he "doesn't have a degree", > which is in truth just an excuse. Actually (without hoping to trigger a flame war), there are a lot of very large comanies, mainly in the US (mainly in the finanial sector or eduction sector, and occassionaly in the defense sector), who DO refuse to hire without a degree. There are many good technical persons out there who don't have a degree. There are almost many unemployeed technical persons who would make better admins / engineers than some people I know who have degrees. With the current situation, I see the following: Proportionally here are more technical people in jobs WITH degrees than without People with degrees have more experience, and get farther I believe the latter reason is because more people hire candidates with degrees. Vicious circle. Not hiring people who don't hold degrees is fast becoming a policy matter. The reasons for it are numerous. Very few (IMO) are 'good' reasons.
RE: The business side of the coin. WAS RE: The market must be coming back
> How long has this company been in business? > Are they using open standards? > Do they have knowledgeable tech support? > ..and so on. Good startups make great partners, and a great partner will have crisp and compelling answers to these questions that CFO-types like, even before you start to ask them. Even so: you might not have needed such performance anyway, since your situation might have been risk_of_brand_name < risk_of_better_performance. (There's always a risk to choosing the "safe" alternative, but established vendors go through great lengths to make sure you don't see them.) This topic brings to mind a phrase I once read: "Truth and Technology will Triumph over Bullshit and Bureaucracy." -- PanAmSat's slogan(mantra?) as a startup, often accompanied by an image of Spot, dutifully lifting his leg to the competition (other interpretations abound)
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote: > > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Jeffrey Meltzer wrote: > > > > > > I've gotten at least 5 messages from you on this list today... > > > > Yeah, maybe NANOG implemented WFQ... > > Further tests seem to indicate that every message posted to the list is > read/approved by a human. > http://ns.istop.com/~ralph/censored.txt I dunno, if you really want to have this debate, I don't see why it's unreasonable for the list parents to not want rampant cursing. If you ask me, I think that this is analagous to the situation where some guy gets rejected at a job interview because he "doesn't have a degree", which is in truth just an excuse. I'm not saying that the people on this list don't like you, I'm just saying that if you keep posting about CPU utilization when using linux for routing and about how cisco sucks, in a very frequent manner, it will make small idiosyncracies such as cursing stand out that much more. Andy Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLCwww.xecu.net Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Re: list problems?
> It's not realtime censored (since my emails get through quite quickly, and > if Merit is actually hiring people to censor NANOG 24/7 someone needs to > reevaluate their funding), but I have seen censoring in the past which is > almost comical in nature, for example the "Sexual Harassment" filter. So there's a netnanny-like bot that looks for "bad words" and filters the posts? > Best be careful, the PC police are coming for you. If the US succeeds in assymilating Canada as the 53rd state, I could avoid the Merkans by moving to Cuba. ;-) -Ralph
Re: list problems?
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 11:14:19AM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > > Further tests seem to indicate that every message posted to the list is > read/approved by a human. > http://ns.istop.com/~ralph/censored.txt It's not realtime censored (since my emails get through quite quickly, and if Merit is actually hiring people to censor NANOG 24/7 someone needs to reevaluate their funding), but I have seen censoring in the past which is almost comical in nature, for example the "Sexual Harassment" filter. Best be careful, the PC police are coming for you. -- Richard A Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote: > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Jeffrey Meltzer wrote: > > > > I've gotten at least 5 messages from you on this list today... > > Yeah, maybe NANOG implemented WFQ... Further tests seem to indicate that every message posted to the list is read/approved by a human. http://ns.istop.com/~ralph/censored.txt -Ralph
Re: list problems?
On Wed, 22 May 2002, Jeffrey Meltzer wrote: > > I've gotten at least 5 messages from you on this list today... Yeah, maybe NANOG implemented WFQ... Andy Andy Dills 301-682-9972 Xecunet, LLCwww.xecu.net Dialup * Webhosting * E-Commerce * High-Speed Access
Re: Cisco quality
On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 01:08:08AM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > > For those saying Cisco is so great, it's still fucked up pretty bad. IOS > 12.1 and later doesn't allow an MTU > 1460 on L2TP, while 12.0.7(T) works > fine with a 1492 MTU that my PPPoE customers expect. Every rev I've tried > from 12.0 and up has problems with CEF when using ISL VLAN sub-interfaces, > and without CEF, mac-accounting is screwed up. If thats the worst Cisco bug you've got, you are the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Everyone has bugs, but Cisco has better excuses to go along with them. :) -- Richard A Steenbergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
Re: list problems?
I've gotten at least 5 messages from you on this list today... On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 10:28:06AM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > > Do the merit servers have a habit of dropping some messages? > > I sent a message this morning that never made it to the list: > > May 22 08:41:03 cpu1693 > postfix/qmgr[9876]: 6AC4D17030: from=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,size=1108, nrcpt=1 > (queue active) > May 22 08:41:04 cpu1693 > postfix/smtp[5066]: 6AC4D17030: to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >relay=mail.merit.edu[198.108.1.41], delay=1, status=sent (250 Ok: queued as > 653EA5DD9A) > > Ralph Doncaster > principal, IStop.com > div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc. >
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be comingback)
If I recall correctly, I was doing cef + netflow when I had the problems. Ralph Doncaster principal, IStop.com div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc. On Wed, 22 May 2002, Daniska Tomas wrote: > > did you do netflow switching or cef + netflow accounting that time? >
list problems?
Do the merit servers have a habit of dropping some messages? I sent a message this morning that never made it to the list: May 22 08:41:03 cpu1693 postfix/qmgr[9876]: 6AC4D17030: from=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,size=1108, nrcpt=1 (queue active) May 22 08:41:04 cpu1693 postfix/smtp[5066]: 6AC4D17030: to=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, relay=mail.merit.edu[198.108.1.41], delay=1, status=sent (250 Ok: queued as 653EA5DD9A) Ralph Doncaster principal, IStop.com div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc.
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
did you do netflow switching or cef + netflow accounting that time? -- Tomas Daniska systems engineer Tronet Computer Networks Plynarenska 5, 829 75 Bratislava, Slovakia tel: +421 2 58224111, fax: +421 2 58224199 A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. > -Original Message- > From: Ralph Doncaster [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: 22. mája 2002 16:15 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market > must be coming back) > > > > > Based on our testing it looks like it all has to do with > packet size. With > > small packets the throughput is very low. With what Cisco calls an > > "internet mix" of packet sizes throughput is much better. > When doing max > > MTU packets, the throughput is of course the best. > > The other thing I've found about traffic type is how sensitive > netflow is. I was running it for a while, then I got a co-lo customer > that had a lot of UDP traffic with small packet sizes and > rarely more than > a few packets between the same src/dest ip/port (much like DNS > queries). It was enough to flatline the box and cause it to crash. > > -Ralph > >
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
> Based on our testing it looks like it all has to do with packet size. With > small packets the throughput is very low. With what Cisco calls an > "internet mix" of packet sizes throughput is much better. When doing max > MTU packets, the throughput is of course the best. The other thing I've found about traffic type is how sensitive netflow is. I was running it for a while, then I got a co-lo customer that had a lot of UDP traffic with small packet sizes and rarely more than a few packets between the same src/dest ip/port (much like DNS queries). It was enough to flatline the box and cause it to crash. -Ralph
RE: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back)
Based on our testing it looks like it all has to do with packet size. With small packets the throughput is very low. With what Cisco calls an "internet mix" of packet sizes throughput is much better. When doing max MTU packets, the throughput is of course the best. Also remember that Cisco as well as most other vendors advertise one way traffic only. If you have traffic on the return path, that counts against their numbers. So 40 pps one way is the same to them as 20 pps both ways. Interesting thread Thanks. -Original Message- From: Gary [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 12:12 AM To: Adam Rothschild Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400 (was RE: The market must be coming back) Adam: > [...] Sort of like buying a GbE interface for a 7200 (It only get's > > 10% throughput... Why waste the money, just buy FE!). > > How did the Foundry test lab arrive at those figures, and what > substances were consumed at the time? I used a Cisco 7200 VXR with NPE-400. I used two different 7200's with the exact same results. Bidirectional throughput on 1GbE is a fraction above 10%. Unidirectional is a bit better (23%). Singl line ACL drops it to 8% (permit ip any any). FE performance doesn't start to drop below line rate until you put more than two in the box. I have a powerpoint if you'd like it, but it is not meant to slander Cisco, just to convince my customers NOT to put GbE in a 7200! It is not a GbE platform!
Re: Linux routing
On Wed, 22 May 2002 09:45:46 +0200, Peter van Dijk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > Why are you benchmarking network troughput by bzip2'ing a file in > /tmp? It makes no sense. I'm suspecting that he's trying to indirectly measure the kernel CPU usage. Most kernels don't give you the time spent in kernel mode (or bill it incorrectly to a process - I seem to remember some handwaving in either the Keifler&McKusic or Bach books about how interrupt time is charged against the current process, but it usually evens out in the end). So what you end up doing is running a cycle-sucking CPU-bound process, and seeing how much progress it makes - if in 60 seconds, the cycle sucker gets 45, then your kernel is getting the other 25% (or so the theory goes). It's not perfect, but it works as a back-of-envelope test and is probably accurate to within 5-10%... -- Valdis Kletnieks Computer Systems Senior Engineer Virginia Tech msg02035/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: Cisco quality
> For those saying Cisco is so great, it's still fucked up > pretty bad. IOS > 12.1 and later doesn't allow an MTU > 1460 on L2TP, while > 12.0.7(T) works > fine with a 1492 MTU that my PPPoE customers expect. Every > rev I've tried > from 12.0 and up has problems with CEF when using ISL VLAN > sub-interfaces, > and without CEF, mac-accounting is screwed up. > > Now if they charged 1/5th of what they do, I'd say you're getting > reasonable value for your dollar... I believe this is an operational issue list and not a flame / bash Cisco list. Instead of looking at the glass half full, look at it as half empty and look at how far IOS has come in the past two years. Sure they have some bugs and shortcomings, but if you think anyone else out there is any better at this game, drop Cisco and go with them. Or maybe the best thing to do is keep pushing your TAC case until they resolve the problem and relate your problems to open cases on the bug tracker. IMHO if you look at IOS as a whole and compare the good with the bad, it's hardly "fucked up pretty bad". -- Robert Blayzor, BOFH INOC, LLC [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your mouse has moved. Windows NT must be restarted for the change to take effect. Reboot now? [ OK ]
Re: Linux routing
You might want to try Zebra and some actual traffic, rather than an extremely CPU intensive compression program. Compressing a file, even in swap, is by no means a good way to judge the aggregate throughput and routing capabilities of a system, regardless of the OS or platform. (That is unless you were planning on bzip2'ing all of your packet flows.) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 06:34:47PM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: >> >>>I don't really trust the vmstat system time numbers. Based on some >>>suggestions I received, I ran some CPU intensive benchmarks during >>>different traffic loads, and determined how much system time was being >>>used by comparing the real and user times. The results seem to show that >>>if I want to do 50Mbps full-duplex on 2 ports (200M aggregate) that the >>>standard Linux 2.2.20 routing code won't cut it. >>> >>[snip bogus benchmark] >> >>Why are you benchmarking network troughput by bzip2'ing a file in >>/tmp? It makes no sense. >> > > interrupts are taking up CPU time, and vmstat is not accurately reporting > it. I need *something* compute intensive to infer load by seeing how many > cycles are left over. > > -Ralph > > >
Re: Linux routing
> On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 06:34:47PM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > > I don't really trust the vmstat system time numbers. Based on some > > suggestions I received, I ran some CPU intensive benchmarks during > > different traffic loads, and determined how much system time was being > > used by comparing the real and user times. The results seem to show that > > if I want to do 50Mbps full-duplex on 2 ports (200M aggregate) that the > > standard Linux 2.2.20 routing code won't cut it. > [snip bogus benchmark] > > Why are you benchmarking network troughput by bzip2'ing a file in > /tmp? It makes no sense. interrupts are taking up CPU time, and vmstat is not accurately reporting it. I need *something* compute intensive to infer load by seeing how many cycles are left over. -Ralph
'SQLsnake' Worm Blamed For Spike In Port 1433 Scans
> 'SQLsnake' Worm Blamed For Spike In Port 1433 Scans >http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176701.html > >By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes >SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., >21 May 2002, 11:04 AM CST > >A mounting trail of evidence has security experts warning that a new >Internet worm targeting Microsoft SQL servers could be on the loose. > >Since Monday, a sharp spike in remote probes of TCP port 1433, which >commonly is used by Microsoft's SQL database, has been reported by >many server administrators, according to SecurityFocus, which operates >an incident-reporting system called ARIS. --snipped for brevity, full article at url above.
Re: Linux routing
On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 06:34:47PM -0400, Ralph Doncaster wrote: > I don't really trust the vmstat system time numbers. Based on some > suggestions I received, I ran some CPU intensive benchmarks during > different traffic loads, and determined how much system time was being > used by comparing the real and user times. The results seem to show that > if I want to do 50Mbps full-duplex on 2 ports (200M aggregate) that the > standard Linux 2.2.20 routing code won't cut it. [snip bogus benchmark] Why are you benchmarking network troughput by bzip2'ing a file in /tmp? It makes no sense. Greetz, Peter -- huk ~ kek
