Chapter 7

Making Your Own Way

In This Chapter

  • Learning networking skills on your own
  • Setting up your own networking lab
  • Helping others in nonprofit organizations
  • Assisting others at work

You walk to the beat of a different drummer. Perhaps college, vocational or technical school is not for you, and those expensive training boot camps are out of reach. Fear not: You can find plenty of opportunities to gain skills and experience to parlay into a full-time networking job.

You bought this book because you're a self-starter. If you're going to dive in and learn networking with the hands-on techniques discussed in this chapter, you're a self-starter on steroids — the best kind! By their very nature, most technology workers are curious and driven to learn, and you shouldn't be surprised to discover that many networking professionals — even those well established in their careers — employ one or more approaches discussed in this chapter. For them, what they do in their day job is not enough. They want more — and they get more by using one of the means discussed here.

Put these ideas to work, and you'll be well on your way to becoming a hacker. We mean hacker in the traditional, positive sense: a hobbyist, a tinkerer, someone who wants to get inside the technology to learn how it works and make it better.

Image We cite several books in this chapter. Dozens of titles in the Dummies series can help smart people like you learn more about almost any networking technology.

Informal Education in Networking

With a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer and a decent Internet connection, the world is your oyster! Search your way to knowledge on just about any networking topic you want. Here are a few specific ideas:

  • Product websites: Search on a networking topic (firewall products, for example) and visit the vendors' sites. View their product demos and download their whitepapers. You might be able to sign up for a webinar, in which experts describe and demonstrate products and how they are used for business.
  • Tech magazines and their websites: Here you'll find articles on new and changing technologies as well as product evaluations and bake-offs. These articles are another great way to learn from the experts.
  • Vendor seminars: Many vendors and integrators do live seminars that often include demos by technology experts. Sometimes existing customers attend to learn more, and you can learn from their experience.
  • Product evaluations: Most vendors provide a way to let companies try out their products on-site. For software products, trying out products is usually as simple as downloading the product and obtaining an evaluation license key from a sales representative. For hardware products, the process is a little more complicated; your company will need to sign an agreement promising to purchase or return the equipment at the end of the evaluation period.
  • Networking club meetings: Birds of a feather flock together, and this includes technologists and networking professionals. Find out where they meet and attend a few different meetings. Often they'll have speakers who will describe and demonstrate tools and techniques. You'll find helpful people who will answer your questions and help you learn more.

Chapter 21 lists ten networking books that will help to expand your knowledge.

Image One of our favorite sites for technical hobbyists is www.hackaday.com. This site publishes a rich variety of do-it-yourself computer and electronics projects.

Setting Up Your Own Lab

Hardware and software are becoming so inexpensive that many networking professionals have set up labs in their homes, under their desk at work, or online at Amazon Web Services (AWS) (http://aws.amazon.com) or Microsoft Azure (http://Azure.Microsoft.Com). Depending on your own working and learning situation, you can use this setup to experiment with new ideas, as your primary source of learning, or to try out things that will get you in trouble if you did so on production systems!

Equipment

The equipment you'll want depends on what you want to learn. However, the following basic equipment is required for most anything you'll be doing:

  • Firewall: Whatever you're doing, you will want to segregate it from your home or work network. But if you want to air gap your lab by isolating it from the Internet and work or home network, you'll need a firewall only if that's the subject you're learning.
  • Switch: Chances are you'll be connecting things. A network switch is like duct tape.
  • Access point: Unless all your tinkering will involve Ethernet, you'll want a wireless access point, particularly if you'll be using mobile devices. Consider not broadcasting your SSID.
  • Computers: Whether you're tinkering with server or desktop operating systems, and whether you're virtualizing, you need at least one computer to run this stuff, right?

Figure 7-1 depicts a typical networking lab setup.

Image We'll say it again: A firewall is indispensable when experimenting with systems and networking technologies, and keeping your experiments separate from home or work networks.

Image

Figure 7-1: A typical networking lab setup.

Image You need to obtain permission to set up your own lab at work, even if it's firewalled or air-gapped (isolated).

Operating systems

A lab without operating systems is like a bicycle without wheels. Okay, corny metaphor aside, you'll need operating systems for storing data, scanning, sniffing, and just about everything else you'll want to do in your networking lab.

Windows

If the subject of your work involves Windows desktop or Windows servers, you'll need to purchase these licenses from Microsoft or an authorized reseller. Because so many organizations that you may want to work for use Microsoft products, including Active Directory, SharePoint, Exchange, and SQL Server, you'll need enough licenses to cover all the products that you install in your learning and testing network.

Image Microsoft offers free evaluation of many of its server products. Information is available at www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/. If you are a student with verifiable student credentials, you can get large discounts on Microsoft products at www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/students/deals/default.aspx.

Mac OSX

With so many Macs in use in organizations, you'll want to consider getting a Mac. You know you want one of those hipster machines.

Image If you can't or won't get a Mac, remember that OSX is Unix underneath. Depending on what you'll be doing in your lab, one of the free versions of Unix might work for you.

A copy of MacBook For Dummies, 5th Edition, by Mark L. Chambers or Macs For Dummies, 13th Edition, by Edward C. Baig will help you get started on Macs in your lab.

Linux

The quintessential hobbyists' operating system, Linux is powerful, versatile, and free! You can choose from many useful flavors, such as Ubuntu, Kali Linux, Centos, and Arch Linux.

Consider picking up a copy of Linux For Dummies, 9th Edition, by Richard Blum to learn more about Linux.

Image Linux is legendary for breathing new life into older hardware. Before discarding that laptop or desktop system because it suffers under newer releases of Windows, try loading Linux on it. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Virtualization

Packing one or more running operating systems into a single server, or even a desktop or laptop, is all the rage. Whether you want to learn more about virtualization or use virtualization to make the most of your lab budget, virtualization is a great way to build and manage your lab and to reduce the number of plug strips you need to buy.

Our favorite virtualization system is Oracle VirtualBox. It's free, and within it you can run various operating systems and even virtual network devices, all in your personal virtual networking lab inside your desktop or laptop system. You can obtain VirtualBox at www.virtualbox.org.

You can obtain virtual network appliances from several sources, such as

The book Virtualization Essentials (Sybex) will provide you a lot of information on using virtualization to its fullest in your lab.

Volunteering

Many nonprofit groups need to use computing technology for recordkeeping and other tasks. Typically, they have no employees who understand technology like you do, and chances are they would appreciate your help. You just might meet the IT manager of a local company who is also volunteering at the local nonprofit.

You might be able to help by setting up

  • Computers and printers
  • Internet connectivity
  • Wireless networking, including guest access
  • Corporate email

Image If you're asked to build a website for the organization, realize that you need a lot of security expertise to keep the site from being compromised.

Following are some organizations that might want your help:

  • Smaller private schools
  • Libraries
  • Churches
  • Retirement homes
  • Service clubs

If you're just starting out in your networking career, consider being a networking volunteer's apprentice: Offer to help a networking professional who already helps out with computers and networks in a nonprofit organization. You'll be surprised at what you can learn. And someday, you might be that senior person who mentors an apprentice.

Working on the Side

The inside joke in the technology business is that every IT worker does consulting on the side. Well it's not a joke, but the truth. Except for employees who are overworked to the point that sleep is their only other interest, many IT workers help nonprofits or small businesses for a modest hourly rate. You can charge by the hour or by the job, or you can barter.

Providing your skill at a reduced rate is a great way to get work experience if you're just starting out. However, don't take on anything that is way beyond your understanding. Otherwise, you could make matters worse for the organization you're trying to help. Worst case: You could end up paying someone to fix your goof, and that would be an expensive way to learn from your mistakes.

Image If you work on the side, find answers to the following:

  • Do you need to have a business license?
  • Should you form a corporation or limited liability company (LLC)?
  • Should you obtain liability insurance to cover your side work?
  • Does your employer have any conditions regarding the side work?

On-the-Job Training

Many people advance in their careers by taking on additional responsibilities, tasks, skills, and knowledge. Most employers appreciate workers who want to continue learning and doing more. These are the same employees who also think up better ways of doing things, therefore saving the company money or helping it make its products or services better or less expensive to produce.

Most senior technologists appreciate requests for mentorship or offers of assistance from junior staffers. Perhaps it strokes their ego, but usually they'll recall when they were starting out and how they struggled to learn more about networking.

You can start by talking with your manager or with one or more senior staffers. Explain that you want to learn more about networking and that you are offering to help on your own time. Most IT departments are short staffed and will readily accept additional help from people with aspirations to grow their careers.

Image Make sure you are meeting all your present work obligations (on time and with the required quality) before asking for more responsibilities. Regardless of how well you do where you are volunteering or mentoring, failing to meet your present work obligations and responsibilities will derail your efforts to move in the direction you want with your career and current employer.

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