I’ve got some time, let’s talk about certifications.

TL;DR: Certs are great stepping stones for your career.

When I started my tech career, I had no clue what certs were All I knew were degrees & diplomas. Kept my eye on that?? About 4 years into my career, while at Dell…

My manager suggested I look at the A+, to help round out my Helpdesk Admin skills. I looked it up, seemed straightforward, booked the exam, studied for it, noticed I had gaps in Windows in general. All cool. Sat for the exam and thought, hey this ain’t too bad. Passed.

Let’s do more. I went back to my manager and told him about the pass. A few months later, I saw an increase to my hourly by a couple of hours. My boss told me I levelled up. YOU MEAN I JUST LEVEL UP AND GET MORE MONEY?!! Not quite…but he suggested looking into the CCNA.

I did this thing called Cisco Net Academy which launched me into CCENT and CCNA. You mean networking is MORE THAN JUST PLUGGING IN CABLES INTO BOXES!?! Yea you can control packets and shit ??. It was pure fun to be able to mess around with routing and switching…

Okay so while working, learning this stuff, going to school, and prepping for my two exams ICND1 (CCENT) + ICND2 (needed to get full CCNA) Both exams were booked on the same day. I planned to get my CCNA that day ??. That totally did not work, failed ICND1, passed ICND2 ?? .

Fast forward, to 2012, I’ve already picked up my CCNP, worked in a few DCs, messed around with multiple sites and their branch routing and VPN. Applies for several new networking focused jobs. I had interviews with a few companies, got one offer for a place that seemed ok…

I took it, why not! But, I learned quickly that band-aids on-top of band-aids is never a good thing. Also, this spot at just didn’t want to move technology forward. Just keep lights on. Anyway, I left and ended up at a rather large company…

It was Dell, again, but purely on the vendor side. Doing professional services. I was a consultant responsible for advising, designing and implementing for end-users on storage, virtualization and networking in the DC. It was very cool stuff ?? It was time for certs again…

I managed to focus in on the VCP5, vSphere was sooo hot (??) back in the 2010s. But something went off in my brain. Why is Networking so complicated for virtualization? This burning question led me to some of the complex networking in the DC world. NX-OS has entered the chat.

It was time to revisit Cisco certs and pursue the CCIE DC. I had built a justification internally on why Dell should pay for my 2x $1600 lunch + associated travel costs. They bit, and after two expensive lunches I was finally certified. What next?!? This didn’t satiate me.

Right when I finished up my exam, the noise around Software Defined Networking because so much louder. I had to find out about wtf this NSX thing was… What it was: the answer to my DC virtualization networking woes. Knocked out VCP-NV first, then VCAP-NV NSX == ?? Why?

NSX was a game changer providing network routing, switching and firewalling right at the hypervisor layer. BIG NETWORKING WAS MEGA MAD. What magic NSX was, even solving the Disaster recovery problem, because of VXLAN. (MAC in UDP) Was fun for 3-4 years Then….Kubernetes…

Entered the chat… And, one of the best ways for me to dig into a technology and its importance: CERTIFICATION. I went after the CKA and CKAD and became a 4/10 with Kubernetes (previously was a 0/10) But you know the things that helped the most? All those networking certs..

Kubernetes did a fantastic job of hiding all the networking complexities But you know what set me up for better understanding Kubernetes? The experiences working in a DC, working with SANs, and VPNs, messing with capacity planning. Networking the cloud with on-prem…

All of these helped me follow the packets in Kubernetes. You see, Kubernetes highly depends on networking, storage, and virtualization. I was able to better my understand of these through experiences and setting foundations using certs.

Humblebrag:

• A+
• CCENT
• CCNA
• CCNP R/S
• CCDA - CCDP
• VCP5-DCV
• CCNA DC
• CCIE DC
• VCP-NV
• VCAP6-NV (VCIX-NV)
• AWS CCP
• GCP - ACE
• GCP - PCA
• CKA
• CKAD
• KCNA

The way I learn best is by structure paired with a certification goal. I’ve stopped going after certs.

I’m at point that certifications could help, but, experiences and relaying this back to the community is far more important to me. Feedback is important to me. If you are starting out in tech, focus on where you want to go, find relevant certs and study/practice.

Whichever path you pick, certifications will always be useful. They add value to your profile, and demonstrate your technical expertise and commitment to your professional and career growth. They did for me.

Best of luck on your tech journey! ??