From the outside, the whole of the information technology discipline can appear mysterious. Referring to Information technology summons a variety of visions starting from poorly illuminated cubicle farms to young men and women roller skating through incredibly well furnished chill areas that feel more like a coffee shop than the usual workplace. Both of those are real, and illustrations of both can be seen. However, there happens to be quite a bit of difference.

As one example, network engineers are the folks who keep the world wide web working. Irrespective of if it is a web page, audio calls, or emails, network engineers are accountable for keeping the information flowing. These folks work with all the hardware associated with the world-wide-web together with the software that deals with it all.

At entry to mid level, network engineers are found in any workspace with medium sized to extensive data networks - banks, airlines, universities and colleges, etc.. They will have career titles including network administrator, network operations center (NOC) engineer, or unified communications engineer. At more advanced levels, they often work as consultants and are generally referred to as implementation engineers or network architects.

Most engineers end up with a computer science Bachelors along with a Masters degree. However, that is simply the beginning. Subsequent to college schooling, a good number of network engineers then work toward various accreditation programs.

These certifications vary from straight-forward study workshops accompanied by a test to monstrous accreditations that can take months and months of study and cost 1000's of dollars. The Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert Certification is oftentimes recognized as the PhD of network engineering. Currently there is a accreditation that will be harder to attain as compared to the CCIE, the brand new Cisco Network Architect Certification, yet it's so new that not a soul has received it yet.

The test to get a CCIE is a multi phase procedure. Firstly, there is a difficult written exam that must be passed to take the lab examination. The lab evaluation is provided in 2 stages. In session one, the applicant has to fabricate and configure a very high end internet backbone under time constraint. If it turns out they have been successful, the prospect departs for the day. Within hours, test proctors corrupt that freshly built machine in each and every creative possible way. The following day, the applicant goes back and has a limited stretch of time to repair each and every newly produced problem.

Concerning compensation, accreditations with no experience means little. Although, with experience, these kinds of accreditations can mean significant boosts in take home salary. The CCIE can provide an additional thirty five thousand a year for an experienced network engineer.

Here is an interesting write up on CCIE Salary versus the lower level CCNP Salary.