Current IT Certs and Progress

Over the course of a little over 2 years now I've been obtaining IT certifications. Mainly because I was interested in filling in certain knowledge gaps but knowing you have a certain IT certifications is a pretty good feeling. I started off with A+ since I figured it would be the easiest for me (which it was) and give me a chance to see how I feel about self studying and taking tests. From there I knew that there was some networking knowledge that I didn't know to much about or had much experience such as Novell IPX/SPX protocols and things such as Token Ring. I was also doing consulting work for the company I was working for so I seen quite a few older networking topologies being implemented still so that had me curious. The next logical step was Network+, which was a little harder but really didn't give me the feeling as if I had a higher level of expertise with the subject from obtaining this certification.

I moved to a new company where I was doing all in house work in a complete Microsoft/Cisco environment. I was working under a manager that handled all the SQL systems so I was kind of moving towards that way. I was handled quite a bit of Windows XP and 2003 servers so my next logical action was to take some MCP certs and who knows, maybe get a little bit crazy and go for the mysterious MCSE! I'll have to admit the knowledge required to past a MCP exam is quite the step up from CompTIA certs (A+, Network+). However Microsoft has to have the worst testing formats. Not only are the majority of their questions meant to trick you and trip you up if you don't read carefully, at the very least each question is a PARAGRAPH long! Again that's the short easy questions, most of their questions are about 2-4 paragraphs. That's the main reason why you get 4 hours to take one of their exams compared to other vendors usual 60-90 min. time frame.

I'll mention briefly that I'm recently Cisco certified...wahooooo, BUT it's only the CCENT the basic of the basics of Cisco certifications. Not that this exam was easy by any means honestly I think there testing format is just right. No long winded questions plus their straight-forward but they test you to make sure you know your stuff. I'm going to attempt to take the second half ICND2 at the end of this month (May 2009) or early next month (June 2009). I spent one month studying for the CCENT (April 2009). I'm putting in much more time per day for the ICND2 because it is the meat and potatoes of the CCNA. Being that I learned most of the basic networking info throughout highschool and the years of experience is paying off tremendously in obtaining my goal. Honestly I wouldn't of rushed this cert in a 2-2.5 month time frame but I'm out of a job at the moment and I need revenue coming in ASAP! I promise for my next Cisco certs I'm going to take my time and buy a lot more material for studying though.

So a quick recap of IT certs I have so far...A+, Network+, Microsoft Certified Professional with Windows XP/2003 (2 certs), CCENT, and oh yea I took some ITIL training when I had off time at one of my previous contracts but I haven't tooking the test....yet.