Another Cert Thread!

[agent0range]

Hey,

Sorry to bore you all with another certs thread but here goes!

A little background info:

I took and completed a BTEC Level 3 National Diploma for I.T Practioners 5 years ago as well as my CCNA cert. (I remember a very limited amount from my CCNA to say the least.)

Since then I was out of I.T until a few months ago when I decided it was time to take a career change. I have landed myself very nice entry job. I am now an IT Support Technician for a company that host live events. I mainly focus on desktop support but I am doing other stuff as well, here is a little list of some but not all of the kind of things I am doing so far:

Desktop Support - The normal I guess, Helping out with printer issues, updating software and drivers, mapping drives when users need to use a different PC, configuring settings for them in outlook and helping out any connection issues they have with the network etc...

I am doing a bit of other stuff which I enjoy a bit more like creating and disabling users in active directory, adding them to group, creating there outlook addresses with exchange. I am updating our phone system with new users. changing tapes for the backups. Doing full PC rebuilds where necessary including adding them to the domain, putting them in our antivirus system and configuring all the user settings etc. Also I occasionally get to a tiny (and I mean tiny) bit of patching in the server room if we move phone lines around or stuff like that.

Sorry I feel I have kind of not even got to the point of all this yet. Basically I am wondering what sort of certs would be beneficial for me to try and gain over the next year or so to go along with all the experience I am getting to try and move higher in or out of my current organisation. I mean I feel as though something like A+ would not really be worth my investment as from what I can understand the experience I will have gained in the next year or so should comfortably be enough to persuade any potential employer that my level of knowledge is at least on par if not higher than an A+. Perhaps I am wrong though? Maybe it would be worth the money and time investment? I guess that is why I am here. Are there any better certs you would recommend me aiming for. I am looking to eventually move into a System admin or network admin type of role.

Too long didn't read version:
Got a desktop support job, want to progress into system/network admin role, which certs should I be aiming for,



Thanks and sorry for the essay!

 

[mudpuppet]

Tom's has a great set of articles talking about certs based on your ideal career path. Here is one such example: http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/it-certifications-for-managers,1-2207.html I'm personally interested in the security side of IT. I already have my A+ cert and grabbed that before I landed my current job as a support specialist. I hear a lot of people as well say the A+ isn't worth while, but last I heard they've added a lot of information on mobile devices to reflect phones and tablets as they are making a splash in the work place. With CompTIAs certs, you only need to retake the highest level cert to stay current. My A+ would come up for recert next year, but if I get the Security+ cert in a few months, the A+ will refresh, and in 3 years I'll only have to test on the highest level cert (the security+). Unless things have changed and I'm unaware of them, this is how CompTIA should roll.

Past that, again I would look to the articles for example of different career paths and which certs it would recommend. With Security, I'm hearing a lot of talk about CISSP. The current two sysadmins here, though, I don't think have much in the way of certs and I think have worked for the company before a lot of the certifications were around and have grown with their roles over the last 15 years. I don't work much with account creation because of work politics, but it's something I hope to pick up in the coming months for the experience if nothing else.

If all else fails, grabbing a study guide for the A+ will have useful information in it, even if you don't spend the $300+ for the exam/cert. Just my thoughts from being in a similar boat as you.

EDIT: Some topics to look in to: SQL Database, Networking (CCNA cert), Active Directory, PowerShell, Exchange Servers