Expert..What is that? Networking..Security…VOIP.. Who proclaims?
I have been in this industry my whole life and I still find it very strange for people to call themselves experts. Ten years ago finding someone to proclaim they are an expert were very far and few between. 15 years ago, claiming that you knew routing wasn’t even cool. Desktop technician was the way to go. After Desktop, knowing how to configure a server had you thinking McDonald’s was beneath you. So why is it today, all you have to do is search for expert and you get half the networking industry?
Searching for a security candidate provides you with individuals that mostly know security from an application standpoint. Knowing how to configure a firewall makes you less of a security engineer as it is to know how to spell security. If you do not know how to decipher an ethereal trace or to expose typical threats on a a user’s pc, without the use of tools and scripts, then what makes you a security expert?
To know how to configure a router is far easier than to know the in’s and out’s of routing protocols. Why would you consider yourself and expert if you know BGP, but cannot articulate when and why to use RIP? Isn’t being an expert knowing when to use a certain technology and tool? I blame that on Cisco, but only a little bit. I mostly blame the industry. Again to properly hone your skill set and evolve with technology, but know the basics is what is missing in networking.
If you qualify yourself as a VOIP expert, then I take my hat off to you. Voice over IP is a hybrid of Telecom and IP. Knowing Voice over IP is very demanding because if you do not know the ins and out of TDM technology, you will not know how it is supposed to work in the IP world. Being able to bypass tolls have more to do with how to design a Voice network and less to do with how to get Voice to properly work in a IP environment. The routing is more complex and is disguised in complex and confusing Dial plans, and the rules you configure are enough to allocate a whole server to perform. Yet, there are certified experts in the market who can configure a call manager and run a Voice probe.
An expert is a term that goes hand in hand with perfection. No one can ever obtain this title, but only the good ones pursue because the chase is worth it.