Help on what course's to take

[Tyler]

I am looking to change my route a little bit in the IT industry and i am looking for some help or guidence...

Was looking at the following courses
MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician
MCITP: Enterprise Administrator
MCTs: Exchange Server 2007/8

Has anyone taken these courses?
Does anyone know if they are worth it as this course is going to cost around the 2.5k including all 15 exams and teaching...

Also is this area a good area to get into or is it going to be i get qulified then find it hard to find a job??

I have been in the IT industry for nearly 6 years now and have worked my up from not even knowing how to send an email. I am a qulified carpenter, so this is completly different line of work. Any advise or guidence would be greatful..

[Steve_PPP]

Not done any of them personally as learnt on the job (currently Infrastructure Manager for a uk charity).

All depends on what you want to do in the role. Enterprise Support Technician is very different to an Enterprise Admin role or Exchange admin

Also, Exchange 2007 is completely dead in the water. Most companies seem to have stuck with Exchange 2003 and are now making the jump directly to 2010. No point taking a qualification in something thats being phased out, so if you want to do the Exchange course make sure its 2010.

In terms of job prospects, hard to say really. A lot of companies have made experienced staff redundant over the past few years so you could be up against people who've been around longer. But you might get lucky and walk into the first job you apply for.

Personally if I was recruiting I would take more of an interest in your experience/role over the last 6 years, than of the course you had done. What sort of stuff are you doing now?

[Tyler]

Yeah the reasons for the broad choices was to get more under my belt....

At the moment i am a applications analyst for Ricoh. Have been doing this for a little while now just over 2 years. Was a 1st and second line support member for 4 years before that.

I work with all sorts of systems, Oracle, toad, Unix, Filemaker pro, Zylab, Planet Press, Docuware etc. But also used Active Directory and User manager.. So if things go wrong with applications i have a look and attempt to fix, or giving users access to shared folders etc in Active Directory... But i also still do a little bit of 1st line help every now and again..

[Dave]

Weird, i basically was the same as you.

Carpenter from school, then redundancy and getting into IT.

As above experience will probably outweigh qualifications, but anything you can get is advantageous. Virtualisation seems to be all the rage at the moment so might be worth looking into that area.

Unfortunately working for a local government authority and working on the telephony side of things i don't get much chance at training as what i do is quite specialised. Would love to get all the courses i need, but that would probably keep me out of the office for a couple of months.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

[Steve_PPP]

Virtualisation is a big thing the moment for sure (mainly VMware), but a lot of larger companies have already made the jump. Skills in SANs/storage platforms will link into this well. Most companies will not have the amount of in-house skills (and confidence) to manage a large-scale VMware migration, so will look for a partner to work with on this. Plenty of cash in consultancy in this area at the moment if you are at the top of your game, but shedloads of travelling to client sites too....

Tyler - from your background i would have thought it makes more sense to try and stay in the applications field - the jump to systems/infrastructure side is a pretty big one. Maybe there's more DBA skills (SQL?) or something like that to learn?

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by Dave

Weird, i basically was the same as you.

Carpenter from school, then redundancy and getting into IT.

As above experience will probably outweigh qualifications, but anything you can get is advantageous. Virtualisation seems to be all the rage at the moment so might be worth looking into that area.

Unfortunately working for a local government authority and working on the telephony side of things i don't get much chance at training as what i do is quite specialised. Would love to get all the courses i need, but that would probably keep me out of the office for a couple of months.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

Yeah that sounds good to me mate... I do still do carpentry but on the weekends etc...

My head is just bouncing from one wall to the next.... Arrrrrrr...

Originally Posted by Steve_PPP

Virtualisation is a big thing the moment for sure (mainly VMware), but a lot of larger companies have already made the jump. Skills in SANs/storage platforms will link into this well. Most companies will not have the amount of in-house skills (and confidence) to manage a large-scale VMware migration, so will look for a partner to work with on this. Plenty of cash in consultancy in this area at the moment if you are at the top of your game, but shedloads of travelling to client sites too....

Tyler - from your background i would have thought it makes more sense to try and stay in the applications field - the jump to systems/infrastructure side is a pretty big one. Maybe there's more DBA skills (SQL?) or something like that to learn?

That is also a good idea Steve, didn't really think of that, but the only thing is that i have only really been a applications analyst for about 2 years, so my knowledge is not that great, and to be fair it is hard, but for example we use Oracle but that is highly customised to our spec, so to the outside world it is useless I have a bit more desktop knowledge etc as was in the helpdesk for 4 years, i just like to reolve things to do with computers etc....

But you have just thrown another ball in my court as that does make the most sense to look at SQL..

I just need someone that i can go to and sit down and have a one to one with, but i dont think there is anywhere i can go, as the people who i go to do the course with they are looking at commision rather then helping...