Resources for Certification?

[Gentleman_Sandwich]

Well here it is, I am planning on going into IT infrastructure.  I was wondering if any of you wonderful people out there have any suggestions for excellent study resources/books for things such as CompTIA certifications across the board, as well as Windows/Microsoft professional certifications? Also are there any other certifications that I should think about as well? For clarification this is for the United States, I'm thinking there might be different certifications in different countries.

 

 

Also any fun books to read for me to learn the workings of processors and other such things?  I think it would just be fun and interesting to learn that.  I'm talking down to buses and things like that. :lol:

[Prodigydeadeye]

I got my A+ certification as a sophomore in high school. CompTIA is definitely something to look into but it all depends on exactly what you want to do. The website I got the certification from gives you a lot of videos and labs to complete as well as working in virtual machines. I didn't need to use any other books/resources outside of their program. I was going to get my Network+ certification this past year, but I was an exchange student instead and didn't have the time to take the course. This is the website my school partnered with for the class. I really enjoyed their teaching methods. http://www.testout.com/ you might also find this video interesting:

 

[Prodigydeadeye]

I am sorry no one else helped you! Let me know if you would like any more information or have any questions!

[Gentleman_Sandwich]

I am sorry no one else helped you! Let me know if you would like any more information or have any questions!

Well thank you for your response!  I will wait patiently and see if anything else pops up out of nowhere though! You have a good day/evening/night whatever it happens to be where you are, I don't feel like figuring out the time difference from here to Japan right now.  I should probably be in bed right now! Getting close to 2:30 here! Just kinda killing time now...

[pbenologa]

Well here it is, I am planning on going into IT infrastructure.  I was wondering if any of you wonderful people out there have any suggestions for excellent study resources/books for things such as CompTIA certifications across the board, as well as Windows/Microsoft professional certifications? Also are there any other certifications that I should think about as well? For clarification this is for the United States, I'm thinking there might be different certifications in different countries.

 

 

Also any fun books to read for me to learn the workings of processors and other such things?  I think it would just be fun and interesting to learn that.  I'm talking down to buses and things like that. :lol:

CCNA certifications? Or rather, Cisco Certifications. That is if you want a computer networking career track.

[Rhotis]

Look into WGU.  It is an online college with IT degrees.  Their degrees look to be designed around industry certs.  The thing about it though from what I can tell is you can save a ton of money off cert classes plus the test price by enrolling there.  Tuition is cheap and covers the cert training plus the tests.  On the plus side if you go through the entire thing you get a degree as well though no clue how valued a degree from this place would be.  Might be worth looking into.  

[EChondo]

As Prodigy has said, there are all kinds of certifications for different fields within IT.

 

CompTIA has a really nice roadmap for different certifications and fields: http://certification.comptia.org/ExploreCareers/careerpaths/career_roadmap.aspx

 

Click on the different colored buttons below the roadmap to allow those certifications to be seen, there are more by using the arrows to the left.

 

I can't really suggest what to get unless you can provide what you are interested in. If you are interested in basic IT then getting your CompTIA A+ is your best bet, then getting the CompTIA Cloud Essentials, PDI+ and Project+, but that is if you aren't really interested for a specific field within IT, like Networking or Security for example.

[Leonard]

Well here it is, I am planning on going into IT infrastructure.  I was wondering if any of you wonderful people out there have any suggestions for excellent study resources/books for things such as CompTIA certifications across the board, as well as Windows/Microsoft professional certifications? Also are there any other certifications that I should think about as well? For clarification this is for the United States, I'm thinking there might be different certifications in different countries.

 

 

Also any fun books to read for me to learn the workings of processors and other such things?  I think it would just be fun and interesting to learn that.  I'm talking down to buses and things like that. :lol:

Lynda.com has many great tutorials. When i did mine i got some CDs from a guy who did it before me from CompTIA.com they are very good to. They had at that time an interactive exam for your certification.

[doubley_m]

CBTNuggets is an option if you can afford the cost, they do have a 7-day trial so you could see if you would actually benefit from the videos, I have used many of Keith Barker's Cisco Security track videos and found them to be very helpful, but naturally they are an accessory and usually you can't rely solely on them to prepare you for certification.

 

Personally I use a combination of books (Make sure you check out reviews to see if they're any good), videos and labbing, mainly using VMs/GNS3 and when I have it, real hardware.

 

As mentioned before, a CompTIA A+ would be a good starting point as a foundation but then you just need to decide what you want to focus on If it's infrastructure I'd advise Cisco CCNA/CCNP (Could specialize in Voice/Security/R&S if you want) and Microsoft Server 2008/2012 MCSA/MCSE (If you're starting from scratch just skip 2008)

 

Anyway, that's my 2 cents! All the best with your career mate, it's not all that bad

[Poppadopolous]

My networking teachers do not recommend the CompTIA A+ exam anymore.

Simply because everyone they ask only recognize the certification as working with and troubleshooting PC hardware when really it's expanded to cover basic networking tasks as well as security foundations.

They recommend instead you go for Cisco and Microsoft exams. You should always expand your knowledge beyond a vendor-specific curriculum of course, even if they cover all the principles behind it. All I ever hear anymore in networking is Cisco Cisco Cisco I forget there's other things. That's their goal though.

[Filippus]

Yea, there's Cisco, Microsoft, HP and CompTIA A+ etc. Where I go HP is the new certification, they went from Cisco to HP because Cisco required extra operation after school. And it's two years here working on certification and vast majority of classes here. The only schools that I know of that got HP certification in Sweden is mine where I go and the Royal Institute of Technology

Nothing wrong with a CSNA if you're doing University or College, and HP & Cisco are focused on the same workfield so it doesn't matter much more than adapting for others that are done with school after Gymnasium 

 

I live in Sweden and in Gymnasium starting second year after summer. 

In the description of the video Prodigy linked there's a book they recommended.