The Official IT Thread

[Bcotton5]

CCNP switch up next, I low key hope I don't get that CCNA cyber ops scholarship because it will derail my CCNP switch another 3 months

Good luck. I like SWITCH more than ROUTE, but TSHOOT was the best exam I ever took. DESIGN was the easiest

CCDA and CCDP is design right? There's a guy at my job that has CCDE

 

[Bcotton5]

Also on the lookout for a couple of 3750 or whatever layer 3 switches , the model doesn't matter

If you guys see any good deals on ebay or whatever let me know.

People at my job saying they found 3750 switches for $40 online

Just got 2 3750s for 70 lol , I think that's all the hardware I'm buying I'm gonna do all the route Labs in GNS3

I'll still get a old 5 or 10 dollar wireless router so I can telnet/ssh into them

 

[King_sorrow]

Switch isn't buggy as fuck though, a few of the labs didn't even work

 

[your flyness]

CCNP switch up next, I low key hope I don't get that CCNA cyber ops scholarship because it will derail my CCNP switch another 3 months

Good luck. I like SWITCH more than ROUTE, but TSHOOT was the best exam I ever took. DESIGN was the easiest

CCDA and CCDP is design right? There's a guy at my job that has CCDE

Yea CCDP. Im still thinking if I should jump into the IE track. I know I can clear the wriiten, just need to be sure I can do the lab, especially with how much it cost

 

[Bcotton5]

Switch isn't buggy as fuck though, a few of the labs didn't even work

That's what I heard, someone at my job failed it because the commands wouldn't take in the sim

 

[King Erauno]

CCNP switch up next, I low key hope I don't get that CCNA cyber ops scholarship because it will derail my CCNP switch another 3 months

Good luck. I like SWITCH more than ROUTE, but TSHOOT was the best exam I ever took. DESIGN was the easiest

CCDA and CCDP is design right? There's a guy at my job that has CCDE

that DE is no joke. i know a dude who got 4 CCIE's and DE and he teaches the DE class. no thanks lol

 

[King Erauno]

CCNP switch up next, I low key hope I don't get that CCNA cyber ops scholarship because it will derail my CCNP switch another 3 months

Good luck. I like SWITCH more than ROUTE, but TSHOOT was the best exam I ever took. DESIGN was the easiest

CCDA and CCDP is design right? There's a guy at my job that has CCDE

Yea CCDP. Im still thinking if I should jump into the IE track. I know I can clear the wriiten, just need to be sure I can do the lab, especially with how much it cost

what track? you invest in any of the practice companies? ine.com and ipexpert.com has some good material

 

[Sorrow_god]

Job market out here in michigan is dead as fuck, Not sure if its because of the fall or what but man.

 

[leftcoastkev]

CCNP switch up next, I low key hope I don't get that CCNA cyber ops scholarship because it will derail my CCNP switch another 3 months

Good luck. I like SWITCH more than ROUTE, but TSHOOT was the best exam I ever took. DESIGN was the easiest

CCDA and CCDP is design right? There's a guy at my job that has CCDE

Yea CCDP. Im still thinking if I should jump into the IE track. I know I can clear the wriiten, just need to be sure I can do the lab, especially with how much it cost

My best advice for the I.E. is to prepare for a big monetary investment if u don't live near RTP or San Jose....study a lil bit, then take the lab....if u fail u fail.

But doing it that way you'll learn HOW to study for the lab. If not you may spend too much time studying everything like I did and forget critical fundamentals because you have a head full of details. If I could do it over I would have studied for 2 months tops, took the lab,and failed on purpose the first time...instead of busting my brain for like 8 months+ studying everything....and failed the first go anyway..

The lab tests aren't ridiculously hard but they are extremely layered. Meaning, u get something working then you get something else working on top of that...which breaks previous things you had working...so u have to keep rechecking and know what effects what in which way.

But at any rate, go for it...money is definitely there once u got it.

 

[traestar]

Praying that these next two convos are job opportunities

 

[valdez21]

Just picked up

3 Cisco 2811 Routers

All routers have: 2x WIC-1DSU-T1-V2

(512D/128F

C2800NM-ADVENTERPRISEK9-M), Version 15.1(4)M4

And

3 Cisco WS-C3560-48TS - 48 ports Layer 3 switch - C3560-IPSERVICESK9-M), Version 15.0(2)SE2

From where ?ebay?

Locally. And finally getting moved to the Noc transport team permanently with a nice little pay increase. Only thing though is they dont deal with Cisco to much and more of Alcatel and Nokia routers

Locally meaning Craigslist? And yeah my work I'm doing the juniper srx firewalls lol

That can take you far.

im gonna take the JNCIA probably next weekend lord willing , but yea its great experience Im gonna learn F5 Load balancers pretty soon too at work

Good luck. I like SRX, their interface, and mgmt platform.

F5 is pretty cool. Them and Citrix are pretty much where it's at on the enterprise side. They made Cisco give up trying to fight the L4-7 load balancer battle (except for ITD on the Nexus which they're pushing heavy (L3-4 SLB only)). Once you have the firewall experience the SLB concepts come easy (LBs have state tables just like FWs but LBs have state tables + redirects to the real servers).....it's a natural progression...just add on to what u already know...

SRX zones (or whatever partitioning method e.g., Cisco ASA contexts), separating the app servers from the database servers......and putting the app servers behind the load balancers in each zone is how most companies I've dealt with do it.

Learn all u can from where ever you are.

Yea the srx's are what im doing right now to start just writing policies/ACLs to allow traffic because of the implicit default deny

It's good experience but it feels like it's all so much to learn like it will take me forever to get good at everything

It comes in time. Nobody knows everything...and any body who tries to act like they do are b-s-ing you.

As far as policy writing, unless you're in a small company, the systems engineers or application developers can usually help you out... as far as mapping the applications to the specific protocol/port numbers (tcp/1234), etc. Other wise you have to learn how the apps communicate to allow them through the firewalls. Use a sniffer/wireshark if you have to (with your company's approval).

.....or just allow any/any and get fired, lol j/k on that.

Studying for the cert while you're learning the platform like you're doing is a good thing.

While writing policies, you need the requirements for the business, applications, etc. Allow what's needed, deny everything else. Start learning how to read packets. Just did a checkpoint to ASA migration and those helped a lot.

In the process of learning F5s now, just to put on resume.

 

[Bcotton5]

Just picked up

3 Cisco 2811 Routers

All routers have: 2x WIC-1DSU-T1-V2

(512D/128F

C2800NM-ADVENTERPRISEK9-M), Version 15.1(4)M4

And

3 Cisco WS-C3560-48TS - 48 ports Layer 3 switch - C3560-IPSERVICESK9-M), Version 15.0(2)SE2

From where ?ebay?

Locally. And finally getting moved to the Noc transport team permanently with a nice little pay increase. Only thing though is they dont deal with Cisco to much and more of Alcatel and Nokia routers

Locally meaning Craigslist? And yeah my work I'm doing the juniper srx firewalls lol

That can take you far.

im gonna take the JNCIA probably next weekend lord willing , but yea its great experience Im gonna learn F5 Load balancers pretty soon too at work

Good luck. I like SRX, their interface, and mgmt platform.

F5 is pretty cool. Them and Citrix are pretty much where it's at on the enterprise side. They made Cisco give up trying to fight the L4-7 load balancer battle (except for ITD on the Nexus which they're pushing heavy (L3-4 SLB only)). Once you have the firewall experience the SLB concepts come easy (LBs have state tables just like FWs but LBs have state tables + redirects to the real servers).....it's a natural progression...just add on to what u already know...

SRX zones (or whatever partitioning method e.g., Cisco ASA contexts), separating the app servers from the database servers......and putting the app servers behind the load balancers in each zone is how most companies I've dealt with do it.

Learn all u can from where ever you are.

Yea the srx's are what im doing right now to start just writing policies/ACLs to allow traffic because of the implicit default deny

It's good experience but it feels like it's all so much to learn like it will take me forever to get good at everything

It comes in time. Nobody knows everything...and any body who tries to act like they do are b-s-ing you.

As far as policy writing, unless you're in a small company, the systems engineers or application developers can usually help you out... as far as mapping the applications to the specific protocol/port numbers (tcp/1234), etc. Other wise you have to learn how the apps communicate to allow them through the firewalls. Use a sniffer/wireshark if you have to (with your company's approval).

.....or just allow any/any and get fired, lol j/k on that.

Studying for the cert while you're learning the platform like you're doing is a good thing.

While writing policies, you need the requirements for the business, applications, etc. Allow what's needed, deny everything else. Start learning how to read packets. Just did a checkpoint to ASA migration and those helped a lot.

In the process of learning F5s now, just to put on resume.

Yea that's pretty much my day to day

 

[konceptjones]

Job market out here in michigan is dead as fuck, Not sure if its because of the fall or what but man.

that's precisely the reason I packed my family up and moved to Phoenix. Had a spot in Ann Arbor I used to work at trying to re-hire me as a tech. VP and head of HR both welcomed me back with open arms. The manager didn't know they were bringing me back and posted the job up. VP called me up like "Koncept... we over 1000 resumes for that job. Guys with PHd's, Master's, and an arms length of certifications. We can't really give you the job like we originally were going to..."

had to bounce after that. Recruiters regularly used to tell me they would get hundreds of resumes for any given job. Shit was too much.

 

[konceptjones]

One of my clients just offered me a full time job as a SAS architect. Actually, he's willing to train me as a SAS architect. Now, I've been with dude for a couple of years and I've always known he's done SAS shit, but I only concerned myself with the infrastructure and network it ran on 'cause that's what I was responsible for. We talk, I give him my salary range and he's like "I can accomodate that, but you won't start that high. I'll give you some milestones to hit and I'll increase your salary based on that." Being curious, I look around to see what kind of money there is in SAS consulting...

Needless to say I accepted the offer. I start on Friday 'cause my contract with him through Upwork hits the two year mark on Thursday and he can officially hire me after that (Upwork/Odesk clients are restricted from hiring freelancers for two years to the day your contract starts)

 

[konceptjones]

Just picked up

3 Cisco 2811 Routers

All routers have: 2x WIC-1DSU-T1-V2

(512D/128F

C2800NM-ADVENTERPRISEK9-M), Version 15.1(4)M4

And

3 Cisco WS-C3560-48TS - 48 ports Layer 3 switch - C3560-IPSERVICESK9-M), Version 15.0(2)SE2

From where ?ebay?

Locally. And finally getting moved to the Noc transport team permanently with a nice little pay increase. Only thing though is they dont deal with Cisco to much and more of Alcatel and Nokia routers

Locally meaning Craigslist? And yeah my work I'm doing the juniper srx firewalls lol

That can take you far.

im gonna take the JNCIA probably next weekend lord willing , but yea its great experience Im gonna learn F5 Load balancers pretty soon too at work

Good luck. I like SRX, their interface, and mgmt platform.

F5 is pretty cool. Them and Citrix are pretty much where it's at on the enterprise side. They made Cisco give up trying to fight the L4-7 load balancer battle (except for ITD on the Nexus which they're pushing heavy (L3-4 SLB only)). Once you have the firewall experience the SLB concepts come easy (LBs have state tables just like FWs but LBs have state tables + redirects to the real servers).....it's a natural progression...just add on to what u already know...

SRX zones (or whatever partitioning method e.g., Cisco ASA contexts), separating the app servers from the database servers......and putting the app servers behind the load balancers in each zone is how most companies I've dealt with do it.

Learn all u can from where ever you are.

Yea the srx's are what im doing right now to start just writing policies/ACLs to allow traffic because of the implicit default deny

It's good experience but it feels like it's all so much to learn like it will take me forever to get good at everything

It comes in time. Nobody knows everything...and any body who tries to act like they do are b-s-ing you.

As far as policy writing, unless you're in a small company, the systems engineers or application developers can usually help you out... as far as mapping the applications to the specific protocol/port numbers (tcp/1234), etc. Other wise you have to learn how the apps communicate to allow them through the firewalls. Use a sniffer/wireshark if you have to (with your company's approval).

.....or just allow any/any and get fired, lol j/k on that.

Studying for the cert while you're learning the platform like you're doing is a good thing.

While writing policies, you need the requirements for the business, applications, etc. Allow what's needed, deny everything else. Start learning how to read packets. Just did a checkpoint to ASA migration and those helped a lot.

In the process of learning F5s now, just to put on resume.

I HATE firewall migrations. One company I was at went from Cisco to Checkpoint. Shit was hell 'cause that company has offices all over the globe and s2s tunnels back to corp at every site plus each one had their own unique rules and whatnot.

I'm currently almost done with a migration from Sonicwall to Fortinet with one of my clients. That client is an MSP and the migration is for one of their larger clients with 40+ remote sites so it's the same shit all over again except adding tunnels between sites 'cause certain sites have PBX's on site that run phones for other locations.

Shit is fuckin tedious.

 

[traestar]

One of my clients just offered me a full time job as a SAS architect. Actually, he's willing to train me as a SAS architect. Now, I've been with dude for a couple of years and I've always known he's done SAS shit, but I only concerned myself with the infrastructure and network it ran on 'cause that's what I was responsible for. We talk, I give him my salary range and he's like "I can accomodate that, but you won't start that high. I'll give you some milestones to hit and I'll increase your salary based on that." Being curious, I look around to see what kind of money there is in SAS consulting...

Needless to say I accepted the offer. I start on Friday 'cause my contract with him through Upwork hits the two year mark on Thursday and he can officially hire me after that (Upwork/Odesk clients are restricted from hiring freelancers for two years to the day your contract starts)

Damn, that's wassup! I would love to work with SAS

 

[konceptjones]

One of my clients just offered me a full time job as a SAS architect. Actually, he's willing to train me as a SAS architect. Now, I've been with dude for a couple of years and I've always known he's done SAS shit, but I only concerned myself with the infrastructure and network it ran on 'cause that's what I was responsible for. We talk, I give him my salary range and he's like "I can accomodate that, but you won't start that high. I'll give you some milestones to hit and I'll increase your salary based on that." Being curious, I look around to see what kind of money there is in SAS consulting...

Needless to say I accepted the offer. I start on Friday 'cause my contract with him through Upwork hits the two year mark on Thursday and he can officially hire me after that (Upwork/Odesk clients are restricted from hiring freelancers for two years to the day your contract starts)

Damn, that's wassup! I would love to work with SAS

See this is that bullshit...

Dude hit me up today like "Um... Koncept... We're going to have to delay your start for a couple of months. You're going to need mentoring to get you up to speed in addition to the training. I'm too busy to do it right now, and I'm bringing in another SAS architect and when he's familiar with the business I'll have him in a position to mentor you and you can start.

Fucked up part to that???

I let go of a high dollar contract to hire gig last week in order to come to work for this muhfucka. In fact, I used him as a reference for the position and the day he called me last week was the day before my interview for the other gig.

My brother-in-law is a lawyer that specializes in labor law. He says I might have a pretty strong case for a lawsuit on my hands 'cause of this fuckery.

 

[traestar]

One of my clients just offered me a full time job as a SAS architect. Actually, he's willing to train me as a SAS architect. Now, I've been with dude for a couple of years and I've always known he's done SAS shit, but I only concerned myself with the infrastructure and network it ran on 'cause that's what I was responsible for. We talk, I give him my salary range and he's like "I can accomodate that, but you won't start that high. I'll give you some milestones to hit and I'll increase your salary based on that." Being curious, I look around to see what kind of money there is in SAS consulting...

Needless to say I accepted the offer. I start on Friday 'cause my contract with him through Upwork hits the two year mark on Thursday and he can officially hire me after that (Upwork/Odesk clients are restricted from hiring freelancers for two years to the day your contract starts)

Damn, that's wassup! I would love to work with SAS

See this is that bullshit...

Dude hit me up today like "Um... Koncept... We're going to have to delay your start for a couple of months. You're going to need mentoring to get you up to speed in addition to the training. I'm too busy to do it right now, and I'm bringing in another SAS architect and when he's familiar with the business I'll have him in a position to mentor you and you can start.

Fucked up part to that???

I let go of a high dollar contract to hire gig last week in order to come to work for this muhfucka. In fact, I used him as a reference for the position and the day he called me last week was the day before my interview for the other gig.

My brother-in-law is a lawyer that specializes in labor law. He says I might have a pretty strong case for a lawsuit on my hands 'cause of this fuckery.

@konceptjones

What in the world?

Yea you may have something with that, I'm definitely not an expert of labor law or freelancer law. Probably unrelated, but NYC just passed the Freelance Isn't Free Act requiring written contracts for gigs and filing complaints if that client does not pay or is late paying:https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/10/27/freelanceisntfreepassed/

Unless you work for yourself, freelancing and/or consulting could be tough. People try to get over all the time, and if it's a company, they want to bring people who could "hit the ground running" and not require training or mentorship.

I have a question tho, was the high dollar CTH gig and this SAS gig remote work? I ask this because you could've probably been able to do both.

 

[konceptjones]

One of my clients just offered me a full time job as a SAS architect. Actually, he's willing to train me as a SAS architect. Now, I've been with dude for a couple of years and I've always known he's done SAS shit, but I only concerned myself with the infrastructure and network it ran on 'cause that's what I was responsible for. We talk, I give him my salary range and he's like "I can accomodate that, but you won't start that high. I'll give you some milestones to hit and I'll increase your salary based on that." Being curious, I look around to see what kind of money there is in SAS consulting...

Needless to say I accepted the offer. I start on Friday 'cause my contract with him through Upwork hits the two year mark on Thursday and he can officially hire me after that (Upwork/Odesk clients are restricted from hiring freelancers for two years to the day your contract starts)

Damn, that's wassup! I would love to work with SAS

See this is that bullshit...

Dude hit me up today like "Um... Koncept... We're going to have to delay your start for a couple of months. You're going to need mentoring to get you up to speed in addition to the training. I'm too busy to do it right now, and I'm bringing in another SAS architect and when he's familiar with the business I'll have him in a position to mentor you and you can start.

Fucked up part to that???

I let go of a high dollar contract to hire gig last week in order to come to work for this muhfucka. In fact, I used him as a reference for the position and the day he called me last week was the day before my interview for the other gig.

My brother-in-law is a lawyer that specializes in labor law. He says I might have a pretty strong case for a lawsuit on my hands 'cause of this fuckery.

@konceptjones

What in the world?

Yea you may have something with that, I'm definitely not an expert of labor law or freelancer law. Probably unrelated, but NYC just passed the Freelance Isn't Free Act requiring written contracts for gigs and filing complaints if that client does not pay or is late paying:https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/10/27/freelanceisntfreepassed/

Unless you work for yourself, freelancing and/or consulting could be tough. People try to get over all the time, and if it's a company, they want to bring people who could "hit the ground running" and not require training or mentorship.

I have a question tho, was the high dollar CTH gig and this SAS gig remote work? I ask this because you could've probably been able to do both.

So the way this ends is on a positive note...

Monday after ole dude pulled the okey-doke on me I called up the contract company to see if they could get me back in front of their client for the high paying gig. Turned out they were extending an offer to a cat for that position. I explained what happened and the acct rep put the call in anyways. The client decided to hear me out 'cause I had one of the strongest security resumes. They set up the first 30min call for yesterday. I jumped on and he had 4 other cats on the line. We go through the interview, then the other cats started hittin me with technical questions left and right. Stumbled on a few but hit all the rest of em. The call ran a full hour and the manager told me he was gonna hit up the contract company this morning with his notes and if everything is tight they schedule the next interview.

They called me this morning; they're going to skip the second interview and just hire me off the strength of the one interview. The acct manager told me dude said I was the single best interview they had out of all the candidates. The answers I gave floored the whole team and the fact that I've singlehandedly taken a similar project from idea to implementation was pretty much everything they needed to hear.

Mid $90's on contract with six figures when I convert to a full time employee. I'm waiting on the contracts to be drawn up and sent to me right now.

About 10 minutes after I hung up the phone with them the other company called. They want to draw up a new consulting agreement with me and bump my pay up a bit to help smooth over the whole fiasco with them. I'm still doing my usual infrastructure shits, so nothing changes on that front except we won't be going through Upwork anymore.

I ain't lettin go of the high dollar gig for shit but I'mma see if I can swing both of them for a while and if it gets to be too much I'm letting the SAS company go.

 

[traestar]

One of my clients just offered me a full time job as a SAS architect. Actually, he's willing to train me as a SAS architect. Now, I've been with dude for a couple of years and I've always known he's done SAS shit, but I only concerned myself with the infrastructure and network it ran on 'cause that's what I was responsible for. We talk, I give him my salary range and he's like "I can accomodate that, but you won't start that high. I'll give you some milestones to hit and I'll increase your salary based on that." Being curious, I look around to see what kind of money there is in SAS consulting...

Needless to say I accepted the offer. I start on Friday 'cause my contract with him through Upwork hits the two year mark on Thursday and he can officially hire me after that (Upwork/Odesk clients are restricted from hiring freelancers for two years to the day your contract starts)

Damn, that's wassup! I would love to work with SAS

See this is that bullshit...

Dude hit me up today like "Um... Koncept... We're going to have to delay your start for a couple of months. You're going to need mentoring to get you up to speed in addition to the training. I'm too busy to do it right now, and I'm bringing in another SAS architect and when he's familiar with the business I'll have him in a position to mentor you and you can start.

Fucked up part to that???

I let go of a high dollar contract to hire gig last week in order to come to work for this muhfucka. In fact, I used him as a reference for the position and the day he called me last week was the day before my interview for the other gig.

My brother-in-law is a lawyer that specializes in labor law. He says I might have a pretty strong case for a lawsuit on my hands 'cause of this fuckery.

@konceptjones

What in the world?

Yea you may have something with that, I'm definitely not an expert of labor law or freelancer law. Probably unrelated, but NYC just passed the Freelance Isn't Free Act requiring written contracts for gigs and filing complaints if that client does not pay or is late paying:https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/10/27/freelanceisntfreepassed/

Unless you work for yourself, freelancing and/or consulting could be tough. People try to get over all the time, and if it's a company, they want to bring people who could "hit the ground running" and not require training or mentorship.

I have a question tho, was the high dollar CTH gig and this SAS gig remote work? I ask this because you could've probably been able to do both.

So the way this ends is on a positive note...

Monday after ole dude pulled the okey-doke on me I called up the contract company to see if they could get me back in front of their client for the high paying gig. Turned out they were extending an offer to a cat for that position. I explained what happened and the acct rep put the call in anyways. The client decided to hear me out 'cause I had one of the strongest security resumes. They set up the first 30min call for yesterday. I jumped on and he had 4 other cats on the line. We go through the interview, then the other cats started hittin me with technical questions left and right. Stumbled on a few but hit all the rest of em. The call ran a full hour and the manager told me he was gonna hit up the contract company this morning with his notes and if everything is tight they schedule the next interview.

They called me this morning; they're going to skip the second interview and just hire me off the strength of the one interview. The acct manager told me dude said I was the single best interview they had out of all the candidates. The answers I gave floored the whole team and the fact that I've singlehandedly taken a similar project from idea to implementation was pretty much everything they needed to hear.

Mid $90's on contract with six figures when I convert to a full time employee. I'm waiting on the contracts to be drawn up and sent to me right now.

About 10 minutes after I hung up the phone with them the other company called. They want to draw up a new consulting agreement with me and bump my pay up a bit to help smooth over the whole fiasco with them. I'm still doing my usual infrastructure shits, so nothing changes on that front except we won't be going through Upwork anymore.

I ain't lettin go of the high dollar gig for shit but I'mma see if I can swing both of them for a while and if it gets to be too much I'm letting the SAS company go.

Thats wassup!! Definitely do that if you have the time to do it. If you are working remotely, that makes it really possible!