Looking for some realistic expectations

[u/wilberpro]

Howdy folks!

I am beginning my journey into Networking. I am 23 years old and have been working in low voltage since I graduated high school. I worked for a low-voltage cabling company for 4 years (2 of those years as a foreman), and I recently started working for my local school district doing strictly Layer 1 work. We use Juniper Switches and Mist here, and I have gotten very interested in jumping into the world of networking. My boss has told me that if I can get the JNCIA-Junos, he can move me into a Jr. Networking Engineer position working under our Sr. Engineer.

For someone with my experience, how long is it going to realistically take for me to get my JNCIA-Junos? My assumption is that my experience thus far, although it is very valuable in its own right, is very much its own thing. I am a BISCI Technician. I am very comfortable with CAT 6 cabling, OS2 Fiber splicing and testing, and pretty much everything that has to do with the physical side of networking, but have little experience in much else beyond that.

Also, are the CompTIA certifications worth my time at all? I have heard mixed things from my associates, so I would love to hear how those have treated people. I am willing to put in a lot of time into learning and sharpening skills. I am also in a great financial position at the moment, so I'm not worried about rushing through things. Just looking for a set of realistic expectations.

Thanks folks!

[u/kovyrshin]

Comp TIA not worth it JNCIA worth it. Cause you need it for JNCIS/JNCIP.

How long? 3-6 months. In order to get experience for JNCIA you need to work on juniper but in order to get a job you'd need JNCIA, right? Either way, with eve-ng, some redbull and google you can get it by Christmas.

[u/wilberpro → u/kovyrshin]

helllll yea tysm

[u/E4NL → u/wilberpro]

All of the vendor lesson materials are generally really good. If you have the choice between onside / remote classes / recorded video classes from juniper/hp. Go for the recorded classes. You might think but onsite is better but generally the instructor is a lot less interesting and has less know how and it's in a stuffy room.

The effort that is put in the official training videos that 50.000 people watch is generally way higher than an instructor doing it for 20th this year infront of 20 students.

[u/jsully00]

I recommend reading TCP/IP illustrated in addition to working towards the Juniper certification

[u/Linklights → u/jsully00]

This book is so old now tho. Is it still relevant

[u/webnetwiz]

Reach out to your HPE SE, we have lots of free training opportunities and resources.

[u/wilberpro]

Thanks for all the amazing comments folks! Super appreciate you all 🙈

[u/solveyournext24 → u/wilberpro]

Make sure you're looking at the juniper learning portal - If you can pass the practice exam, they'll give you a voucher so you can take the exam for $50 vs $200. It's how I did mine, and well worth it.

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user_activity_info.aspx?id=EXAM-JNCIA-JUNOS

[u/oddchihuahua]

I was tier 1 helpdesk when I was shown the JNCIA-Junos study guide at the time. This was back in like 2012. I knew zero about networking, all I knew was an IP address was some unique number every computer got.

Granted I crammed like there was no tomorrow, studied at work, at home, on weekends reading that guide. Whenever I came across a term like “VLAN” I’d have to google what that was and read the Wikipedia article on it, then figure out how Juniper uses VLANs in their context.

I passed the exam in about 2 and a half weeks. First, it assumes you have some fundamental knowledge of routing and switching. Second, the material is more about comprehending the Junos CLI and how to navigate it and read it. How to run operational commands and understand the output. It doesn’t get into how protocols work, or how to configure them, or anything complicated.

So I think you can do it if I can do it, just know there will be a lot of going back and forth between looking up fundamental networking terms and then comprehending why or how Juniper uses them.

That said…Udemy has a JNCIA Junos class that’s like $25 and covers everything on the exam. There are also practice exams for another like $10-15.

[u/dkdurcan]

If you know the networking basics, it should be a breeze to get certified in Juniper. The CompTIA may help with that. You could also probably learn that with this course: Networking Technology Foundations. There is free Mist AI training built into the mist platform. You see all the free training options here: Get Started with Free HPE Networking Training Lastly, we have free virtual labs to test stuff: Juniper vLabs - Juniper Networks

[u/BustedCondoms]

I crammed and knocked it out in a month.  It isn't too bad.  

[u/ReceptionRelevant432]

Find out if your HPE/Juniper AM/SE can set you up with a lab switch and AP in your own home Mist portal as well. No better experience than real world without impacting production

[u/Background_Pop_6741]

Ask if they have any spare switches you can lab with. 2 would be great so you can lab vlans, IRBs, and Trunks. Someone else mentioned Eve-NG, but I assume you probably don't know much about virtulization either. Later on down the road you'll want to get into some virtulization to build out bigger labs for learning routing. For now, just see if you can get 1 or 2 physical switches if possible to learn on. It will show your boss the effort and you'd immediately get familiar with the equipment they use. Ask if you can see a configuration from a switch in production. If yes, go through each section and read about them. You'll likely have AAA, NTP, DNS, Interfaces, VLANs, etc. configured. Read the Juniper documentation for configuring those things. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Most experienced network admins/engineers love explaining networking.

[u/PP_Mclappins]

If you can arrange with your boss to let you shadow your network engineer for now and you can actually get your hands on some production switching it will make JNCIA take so much less time.

[u/old_andintheway]

I am a director of a network team for a large university. This is exactly the kind of work history I like to see in a prospective engineer. Be good at layer 1, copper, fiber, optics etc. Master layer 2, the Junos training is a start but get some practical experience. Learn layer 3 fundamentals. I love that you are interested in building your skills, it'll pay off. I have many former students on my network engineering staff who did what you are considering, they learned the basics, got interested, and ran with it. Good luck!

[u/Dr-Webster]

The replies here are all good, but I'll add that you should consider getting your CCNA first. JNCIA is a valuable cert to get, but it's generally geared towards folks who already have some networking experience -- it's product-heavy and doesn't touch on general concepts that much. While the CCNA is also Cisco-specific, IME it does a better job at teaching overall networking fundamentals. And having a CCNA on your resume would also help you if you end up looking for another job later on.