Good on you for looking to grow yourself as a professional! The best folks I've worked with are still working on professional development, even 10-20 years in to their profession.

Programming languages can be thought of as tools. Python, say, is a screwdriver. You can learn everything there is about screwdrivers, but this only gets you so far.

To build something you need a good blueprint. For this you can study objected oriented design (OOD) and programming (OOP). Once you have the basics, take a look at design patterns like the Gang of Four. This book is a good resource to learn about much of the above

What parts do you specify for your blueprint? How do they go together? Study up on abstract data types (ADTs) and algorithms that manipulate those data types. This is the definitive book on algorithms, it does take some work to get through it, but it is worth the work. (Side note, this is the book Google expects you to master before interviewing)

How do you run your code? You may want to study general operating system concepts if you want to know how your code interacts with the system on which it is running. Want to go even deeper with code performance? Take a look at computer architecture Another topic that should be covered is computer networking, as many applications these days don't work without a network.

What are some good practices to follow while writing your code? Two books that are widely recommended are Code Complete and Pragmatic Programmer. Though they cover a very wide range (everything from organizational hacks to unit testing to user design) of topics, it wouldn't hurt to check out Code Complete at the least, as it gives great tips on organizing functions and classes, modules and programs.

All these techniques and technologies are just bits and pieces you put together with your programming language. You'll likely need to learn about other tools, other languages, debuggers and linters and optimizers, the list is endless. What helps light the path ahead is finding a mentor, someone that is well steeped in the craft, and is willing to show you how they work. This is best done in person, watching someone design and code. Also spend some time reading the code of others (GitHub is a great place for this) and interacting with them on public mailing lists and IRC channels. I hang out on Hacker News to hear about the latest tools and technologies (many posts to /r/programming come from Hacker News). See if there are any local programming clubs or talks that you can join, it'd be a great forum to find yourself a mentor.

Lots of stuff here, happy to answer questions, but hope it's enough to get you started. Oh, yeah, the books, they're expensive but hopefully you can get your boss to buy them for you. It's in his/her best interest, as well as yours!

> Could you please go more in-depth on what you mean by seeing how the components work in harmony and understanding the needs of the different ones?

The absurdly short and easy for me response is:

https://www.amazon.com/Network-Warrior-Everything-Need-Wasnt/dp/1449387861

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165

The longer and more useful response would best be shared in a pub, assisted by frothy adult beverages of wisdom.

But, I'll give it a shot using the restrictive written word as a medium.

The CCNA certification will teach you the fundamentals of network design & configuration.
The MTA or MCSA certifications will teach you the fundamentals of Windows client and server design & configuration.

But what they don't tell you is when is a Catalyst 2960-series switch the right tool for a task, and what is something beefier like a Nexus 3K or 5K series device the more appropriate tool.

The driving factors behind appropriateness is in the details of the requirements.

Client devices (if we ignore WiFi) seldom have redundant network connections.
So laptops & desktops do not require redundant Layer-1/2 connectivity.
But all servers have, or should be equipped with redundant NICs, capable of some form of teaming configuration to form an active/active, or active/passive redundant team. The LAN solution must be compatible with this.

Then traffic volume. Client devices do not generally require frequent, sustained high volume network flows. Most client systems burst occasionally while they open a file, then settle back down to idle-chatter as they check e-mail every minute or so.

Some servers, like a DNS server receive never-ending, continuous bursts of small packet exchanges. Ass-loads of them. From thousands of source-addresses. Just a dozen packets in the conversation, which is then broken down and ended - conversation over.

Other servers, like a Hadoop cluster-member will chuck along fairly-quietly for short to medium periods of time, then engage in massive, sustained bursts of replication traffic or query exchanges.

Small, short conversations do not require extensive network buffering capability, and are not generally latency-sensitive. So general-purpose LAN hardware might be an appropriate tool for the job.

But very heavy workloads, or loads that ARE latency-sensitive (High Performance Computing, for example) might demand specialized network hardware designed for such activities.

-----

Beyond the network, one must understand the application workloads.
Some applications or systems might make ass-loads of DNS lookups.
A DNS query is not a complicated, or network-capacity intensive workload.
But if you know the application will be doing it, and will benefit from low-latency access to a DNS server, deploying an additional DNS server very close to the application might make a lot of sense.


-----

> There is one other school I have been considering. <AAS @ Green River>

I roll my eyes at the inclusion of CompTIA A+ material in a college curriculum.
That just strikes me as such a trade-school topic.
It's not bad material, but its like learning to change automotive oil as part of a mechanical engineering curriculum.

I see two Linux classes and two Network classes, so those things make me happy.
But I don't get a sense that this degree will transfer well.
I see things that should make you employable though.

The A+ cert won't get you a guaranteed job.
But the A+ and Sec+, combined with that array of associated educational topics should prepare you to hold your own in a reasonable interview.
Nothing is guaranteed, but that should be adequate.

-----

> How do you feel about a Business Degree with an (M)IS major vs a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology (maybe with a business minor)?

No objection from me on these degrees. Some of them do a better job of making sure you can see & speak-to the bigger picture, or higher altitude view of why these IT systems are important to the business.

IMO: Project Management is NOT an early-career role, but Systems Analysts, as players on a project team is certainly something early-career staff can perform.


> Do you think having a BBA would be detrimental for a career in technology?

Nope. knowledge trumps education.

> I hear some people say that MIS degrees aren't technical enough, or that they have a hard time finding a job after graduation.

Well, an MIS degree probably isn't technical enough for some job roles or position descriptions.
But an MIS degree with a CompSci minor might do the trick, for some roles.

But let's be honest, an MIS degree, all by itself is not the right degree for a position like "Lead Enterprise Architect for Mobile Application Development".

But an MIS degree, plus 9 years of experience developing software might be the right combination of education & experience for that role.

Let's also look at MIS v/s CS and IS/IT objectively, analytically.


Every single student in a college or university damned well knows that a CompSci degree is a fast-path to stable employment.
It's not quite a golden ticket for fame & fortune, but its among the most in-demand and immediately employable degrees available.

Employers & recruiters / placement agencies are actively searching for graduates that can survive a basic interview without drooling on themselves or sexually assaulting the recruiter.

There is a fixed and steady pipeline for CompSci graduates.

But CS includes a lot of big scary math, some of the biggest math requirements for any undergraduate degree track. And this scares away a lot of applicants.

A pecking order of "CompSci-light" degree options forms up, with these students all trying to get a degree that qualifies them to attend the Technology career fair, but protects them from evil math.

InfoTech, with it's focus on the nuts & bolts of operating systems, databases, networks & security proudly in a top-level tier beneath CompSci, and Computer Engineering. We rub elbows with Software Engineering grads who swear SoftEng is better, & more useful than CompSci.

InfoSystems, is watered-down InfoTech with more database and business-focus, and fewer nuts & bolts courses.

Management Info Systems is even more watered down technology material, with even more emphasis on business administration & data.


IS & MIS ARE useful degrees, and those roles ARE truly beneficial to the organization.
But the pipeline is smaller for those degrees within the Technology Career Fair.

But here is the fun fact for IS and MIS degrees:
They can attend the non-technology career fair if they want to.

IS & MIS might not have been highly in-demand at the technology career fair, but you have a whole different recruiting team with a completely different variety of slots to fill at the non-tech fair. IS & MIS starts looking much better & more attractive in this environment where they are actually hiring more project managers & analysts as opposed to developers & engineers.

-----

Some colleges, especially community colleges might only have a single career fair, but the concept still applies. MIS is valid for both technology and non-technical (less-technical) positions.

I looked at the FreeCodeCamp curriculum, it looks good for an entry level javascript developer, so since you already started it, you might as well finish it (since, like I said, everybody implicitly expects you to know at least one of python/js/perl as well as HTML+CSS).

2 hours per day is a bit too little IMO - but I understand that it's hard to find time when you have a demanding job and a family that needs time and attention. Just study as much as you can, 2h being the mininum (do keep in mind that CS students, your competition, will be studying at least 8h/day for at least 4 years with tons of homework and more advanced material). So you should probably focus on studying more in the weekends (just typing and thinking about this, I'm actually lucky I started when I was a kid, with all my bills paid for!)

Anyways. You should focus on getting a job first - do keep doing the FreeCodeCamp, as many hours in the day and weekends as you can. Explain to your significant other, if you haven't already done so, your plan - that you're studying hard to upgrade your career, that it might take some time away from them but it will pay off in the long run, etc. Ideally you should be studying at least 4h/day, so try to keep close to that, study more on weekends if necessary. Check this guy for reference on his plan and what he's studying (and note that he's studying full-time - a luxury, I know, but just to put your 2h/day into perspective). This guide is helpful too. Note that you don't need to know all that to get an entry-level development job, but keep that plan in mind for the long run (as you progress your career).

Once you finish the FreeCodeCamp, or even before (I would say, once you finish "Basic Algorithm Scripting"), try doing some local interviews if you can do it without jeopardizing your current job just to get a feel of how interviews work. You won't be trying to get a job (but hey, if you do, awesome), this is just to get your feet wet on interviewing (which is a skill in itself). Since you're not shooting to get a job right now, you won't be as nervous, which is the state of mind you want to be in. If you're relaxed you can talk better, think better, make jokes, be more presentable, which is great - this will put you in the right mood for your future interviews. Try finding people online that can do mock interviews with you in the area you will be focusing on (web/javascript/frontend initially).

Once you're past the basic HTML/CSS part and you start studying JavaScript, I suggest you look into Python as well at the same time. It is a very simple language, quick to learn, and will double your opportunities for employment. As you study both at the same time, you might notice that you like one or the other better - if that happens, focus more on the one you like better, this will accelerate your learning and get you ready for a job faster in your chosen language.

At one point you'll finish HTML/CSS and JavaScript+Python (finish as in be comfortable with them - you'll see that you'll still learn new things as years go by, it will take a few years for you to "master" them). After you're comfortable with JavaScript and Python (and hopefully gainfully employed in development), start studying that book (where you'll learn a GREAT deal about many important things, it will be a dense read, and you will come out of it knowing assembly and C) and then you can focus on algorithms and exercising your thinking with algorithmic puzzles and how computer networks work, operating systems and everything that is generally on this list.

Then after studying all that and with 2-4 years of experience under your belt (and still studying 4h/day), you can start thinking about the next level in your career and preparing for it (larger companies, mid to senior positions, etc) - add a couple more years of experience and you'll be ready to interview for large Valley companies (Google, Apple, FB, etc).

If you plan to self-study all the way through and never join an University, you can look into full-fledged CS courses online and follow that to get a complete theoretical background on CS (that all your colleagues will eventually have and expect of you, at some point in the future).

A lot of recommendations for TCP/IP Illustrated. It's a great book, but it's more concerned with host TCP/IP stacks, rather than actual network hardware. In my opinion: Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols, another excellent textbook which has very little intersection with the TCP/IP Illustrated series covers more relevant information for a hands-on network administrator. Steven's has a developers mindset approach, so if you're working with a host TCP/IP stack (as a developer, or tuning as a systems administrator) it might actually be more handy, but if you don't dabble much as a developer (if gethostbyname() or sockaddr_t means nothing to you then this isn't the book for you). As someone who has read many of these books and worked as a network admin for the past 7+ years, the theory and knowledge gleaned by the book is incredibly useful but not essential for a network administrator.

The aforementioned link to the book I mentioned in my opinion is wonderful and definitely worth reading. Furthermore, original RFCs make for great reading when the time is right. Also, buff up on network security and cryptography, for which I would recommend: Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World; probably the best introductory book on this matter.

Once you've mastered the basics of being a network administrator, then you should broaden your scope and maybe revisit TCP/IP Illustrated and maybe Unix Network Programming and other great books on the topic. I would also recommend picking up programming languages and the like, writing your own tools, maybe reimplementing traceroute to get an understanding of low-level network programming (and of course the traceroute algorithm). I should also mention, for a systems admin, it's essential you learn how to automate/program. Don't trust the tools that you're given, at best they're mediocre, at worst they don't work or come with support. You will need to be able to readily provide the support that you won't get from vendors, and it's always going to be an uphill battle. Less so with network administration, but it happens quite a bit as well.

Anyway, that's my advice. But when I read TCP/IP Illustrated as the essential book for a Network Administrator, it reminds me of people suggesting The Art of Computer Programming to a novice programmer. Those books are more advanced than you expect.

Umm, I think Python is a good language to start with. It's forgiving and low on boilerplate code. I haven't read it but Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw is supposed to be decent (and it's free online). I didn't like Learning Python published by O'Reilly. I'd just read reviews on Amazon if Learn Python the Hard Way isn't working for you. Whichever you end up with, I recommend typing all examples from the book into the computer by hand. Something about doing this really helps make things stick in your head. You'll also make the occasional typo and have to debug your program which is something we programmers spend more time doing than any of us care to admit.

I think it is important to try to think of something you want to make and have it in mind while you are learning the language. It can be any software but I recommend a video game. They are really good for this because you can just think up a simple concept or implement your own version of an existing game. Having a goal makes it so you are constantly solving the problems you will encounter while trying to reach that goal which is the most important part of programming (more so than learning the syntax of the language). This is actually the highest rated Python book on Amazon and is all about gamedev with Python.

After you've learned Python to the point where you are comfortable (no need to master it), learn other languages to grow as a programmer. Once you've gotten a couple languages under your belt it's actually really easy to learn even more languages (unless it's a very odd language like Haskell, Lisp, or Brainfuck). The problem solving skills you've acquired often work in any language and you learn some new techniques as you learn new languages.

• Accelerated C++ is the go-to these days for C++.
  
• The C Programming Language is often recommended for learning C but it's pricey and there are dozens of good books on C to choose from.
  
• Head First Java gets recommended a lot for learning Java.
  
• C# In Depth is very highly rated and happens to be written by the guy with the largest score on StackOverflow (a kind of Q&A for programmers).
  
• The D Programming Language I really enjoyed.
  
• Programming Ruby 1.9 is often recommended but it felt more like a reference manual to me. There are higher rated books on Amazon.
  
  

I've seen other users on this sub saying that the LPI certs are either next to worthless to nice to see someone have but not something that guarantees a job. Still, I'm working on getting the LPIC-1 regardless. It's a good refresher to help keep my skills sharp while I look for work (and fill in some gaps in my knowledge), it most definitely carries more weight in the industry than the Linux System Administration cert I got from my local community college, and well, it's relatively cheap. I've not much better to do at the moment, so it can't hurt.

I've seen it said here (and heard from others in the business) that the RHEL cert is definitely the cert to get if you're interested in being a system administrator, but that it's also cert that's geared towards someone that's already got some hands-on experience in an enterprise setting and not really for beginners. I've also seen it said by some on this subreddit that, like the LPI certs, the RHEL cert is nice to see but they still don't care if you have it. I guess it's up to you if you want to plunge headfirst into it. Immersion seems to be the traditional Linux/open source way, but I say do what works for you--if you want to build up to it over time, then do that. If not, grab a VM and CentOS and have at.

Really, if it's one thing I've learned while going to school and looking for work, it's that requirements game is pretty much a crapshoot. Some companies want those certs and degrees, some don't care and want experience, some want a mix of those and experience, and some will only care if someone in the company knows/likes you (and even then it still might not happen for you). I say, grab the LPIC (which as /u/sudoatx said, it's actually three industry certs now) while volunteering somewhere (I'm getting a volunteership set up right now with my college's IT department, they've got some Linux boxes jammed away in there) to get the best of both worlds.

As for studying, the LPI website has links to free study materials geared specifically to prep you for their test. That doorstop /u/mynamewastakenagain mentioned is definitely really good, I have it on extended loan from my college library (working for them has it's perks ;)). I've also found the Linux Bible to be quite good, although I don't know of it's reputation in these parts.

> For those who prefer video lectures, Skiena generously provides his online. We also really like Tim Roughgarden’s course, available from Stanford’s MOOC platform Lagunita, or on Coursera. Whether you prefer Skiena’s or Roughgarden’s lecture style will be a matter of personal preference.
>
> For practice, our preferred approach is for students to solve problems on Leetcode. These tend to be interesting problems with decent accompanying solutions and discussions. They also help you test progress against questions that are commonly used in technical interviews at the more competitive software companies. We suggest solving around 100 random leetcode problems as part of your studies.
>
> Finally, we strongly recommend How to Solve It as an excellent and unique guide to general problem solving; it’s as applicable to computer science as it is to mathematics.
>
>
>
> [The Algorithm Design Manual](https://teachyourselfcs.com//skiena.jpg) [How to Solve It](https://teachyourselfcs.com//polya.jpg)> I have only one method that I recommend extensively—it’s called think before you write.
>
> — Richard Hamming
>
>
>
> ### Mathematics for Computer Science
>
> In some ways, computer science is an overgrown branch of applied mathematics. While many software engineers try—and to varying degrees succeed—at ignoring this, we encourage you to embrace it with direct study. Doing so successfully will give you an enormous competitive advantage over those who don’t.
>
> The most relevant area of math for CS is broadly called “discrete mathematics”, where “discrete” is the opposite of “continuous” and is loosely a collection of interesting applied math topics outside of calculus. Given the vague definition, it’s not meaningful to try to cover the entire breadth of “discrete mathematics”. A more realistic goal is to build a working understanding of logic, combinatorics and probability, set theory, graph theory, and a little of the number theory informing cryptography. Linear algebra is an additional worthwhile area of study, given its importance in computer graphics and machine learning.
>
> Our suggested starting point for discrete mathematics is the set of lecture notes by László Lovász. Professor Lovász did a good job of making the content approachable and intuitive, so this serves as a better starting point than more formal texts.
>
> For a more advanced treatment, we suggest Mathematics for Computer Science, the book-length lecture notes for the MIT course of the same name. That course’s video lectures are also freely available, and are our recommended video lectures for discrete math.
>
> For linear algebra, we suggest starting with the Essence of linear algebra video series, followed by Gilbert Strang’s book and video lectures.
>
>
>
> > If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
>
> — John von Neumann
>
>
>
> ### Operating Systems
>
> Operating System Concepts (the “Dinosaur book”) and Modern Operating Systems are the “classic” books on operating systems. Both have attracted criticism for their writing styles, and for being the 1000-page-long type of textbook that gets bits bolted onto it every few years to encourage purchasing of the “latest edition”.
>
> Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces is a good alternative that’s freely available online. We particularly like the structure of the book and feel that the exercises are well worth doing.
>
> After OSTEP, we encourage you to explore the design decisions of specific operating systems, through “{OS name} Internals” style books such as Lion's commentary on Unix, The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System, and Mac OS X Internals.
>
> A great way to consolidate your understanding of operating systems is to read the code of a small kernel and add features. A great choice is xv6, a port of Unix V6 to ANSI C and x86 maintained for a course at MIT. OSTEP has an appendix of potential xv6 labs full of great ideas for potential projects.
>
>
>
> [Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces](https://teachyourselfcs.com//ostep.jpeg)
>
>
>
> ### Computer Networking
>
> Given that so much of software engineering is on web servers and clients, one of the most immediately valuable areas of computer science is computer networking. Our self-taught students who methodically study networking find that they finally understand terms, concepts and protocols they’d been surrounded by for years.
>
> Our favorite book on the topic is Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach. The small projects and exercises in the book are well worth doing, and we particularly like the “Wireshark labs”, which they have generously provided online.
>
> For those who prefer video lectures, we suggest Stanford’s Introduction to Computer Networking course available on their MOOC platform Lagunita.
>
> The study of networking benefits more from projects than it does from small exercises. Some possible projects are: an HTTP server, a UDP-based chat app, a mini TCP stack, a proxy or load balancer, and a distributed hash table.
>
>
>
> > You can’t gaze in the crystal ball and see the future. What the Internet is going to be in the future is what society makes it.
>
> — Bob Kahn
>
> [Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach](https://teachyourselfcs.com//top-down.jpg)
>
>
>
> ### Databases
>
> It takes more work to self-learn about database systems than it does with most other topics. It’s a relatively new (i.e. post 1970s) field of study with strong commercial incentives for ideas to stay behind closed doors. Additionally, many potentially excellent textbook authors have preferred to join or start companies instead.
>
> Given the circumstances, we encourage self-learners to generally avoid textbooks and start with the Spring 2015 recording of CS 186, Joe Hellerstein’s databases course at Berkeley, and to progress to reading papers after.
>
> One paper particularly worth mentioning for new students is “Architecture of a Database System”, which uniquely provides a high-level view of how relational database management systems (RDBMS) work. This will serve as a useful skeleton for further study.
>
> Readings in Database Systems, better known as the databases “Red Book”, is a collection of papers compiled and edited by Peter Bailis, Joe Hellerstein and Michael Stonebreaker. For those who have progressed beyond the level of the CS 186 content, the Red Book should be your next stop.
>
> If you insist on using an introductory textbook, we suggest Database Management Systems by Ramakrishnan and Gehrke. For more advanced students, Jim Gray’s classic Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques is worthwhile, but we don’t encourage using this as a first resource.
>

> (continues in next comment)

Nand to Tetris (coursera)

the first half of the book is free. You read a chapter then you write programs that simulate hardware modules (like memory, ALU, registers, etc). It's pretty insightful for giving you a more rich understanding of how computers work. You could benefit from just the first half the book. The second half focuses more on building assemblers, compilers, and then a java-like programming language. From there, it has you build a small operating system that can run programs like Tetris.

Code: The Hidden Language of Hardware and Software

This book is incredibly well written. It's intended for a casual audience and will guide the reader to understanding how a microcontroller works, from the ground up. It's not a text book, which makes it even more more impressive.

Computer Networking Top Down Approach

one of the best written textbook I've read. Very clear and concise language. This will give you a pretty good understanding of modern-day networking. I appreciated that book is filled to the brim of references to other books and academic papers for a more detailed look at subtopics.

Operating System Design

A great OS book. It actually shows you the C code used to design and code the Xinu operating system. It's written by a Purdue professor. It offers both a top-down look, but backs everything up with C code, which really solidifies understanding. The Xinu source code can be run on emulators or real hardware for you to tweak (and the book encourages that!)

Digital Design Computer Architecture

another good "build a computer from the ground up" book. The strength of this book is that it gives you more background into how real-life circuits are built (it uses VHDL and Verilog), and provides a nice chapter on transistor design overview. A lot less casual than the Code book, but easily digestible for someone who appreciates this stuff. It culminates into designing and describing a microarchitecture to implement a MIPS microcontroller. The diagrams used in this book are really nice.

I was in your same shoes 3 years ago when I took my first SA internship. I was the only person on site for 8 employees locally, 30 around the country.

I was scared to make actions at first but the first thing you need to do is learn your network in and out and document the shit out of everything before you even make a change. After that, you will be confident and I am sure of it.

1.) Begin a document called "IT Department Handbook" - add everything you find to it, except passwords. Refer to it, love it, it will always save you. Include disaster recovery in it. Make it so that a third grader can understand it. I have one thats 50 pages right now. This will save you as it has saved me so many times. Make it confidential though, because it will end up holding information you don't want people to see on the outside such as IP addresses and your network map.

2.) Keep passwords file but separate from the system and indistinguishable. I actually keep a password file on my phone in my memo's app but I don't have the full account usernames associated with each one. I provide really indistinguishable hints to the username, usually riddles that only I would know.

3.) Get Veeam endpoint backup and find a place to backup your DC (full backup) and any databases at the very least. You can create a standard for backups later.

3a.) Find the Domain Controller's recovery password immediately.

3b.) Create a recovery USB for all your servers and put them in a location where you can find them later.

4.) Get a Network Diagram going, then after that...

5.) List all Roles and Features each server has on the network diagram, what each server stores, what applications run on them and how essential they are to the business. Example: Domain Controller. No domain controller, no work can be done. CRM: No crm, people can't keep of their cases on the webserver but rather locally, they can live without it for a short time. Start thinking about disaster recovery.

6.) Develop a Khanban System. It's an agile project management method I learned from reading This Book -- I highly suggest buying this to help you better your practice. Put tasks in the backlog and move the ones you think need to be done sooner than others to your daily or weekly sprint.

7.) Find out who uses what server for certain tasks. This may take a while but it helps.

8.) Something I do personally before doing any changes to Group Policy or Regedit is I save their current configurations before making changes. Therefore, if something doesn't work right after a setting is changed, you can quickly revert back to it's last state.

9.) If you have the capability and hardware, get clustering going. So if a DC1 fails, DC2 takes over and everyone can still authenticate and work.

10.) If you have the capability and hardware, create a test environment reflecting your live network on a very small scale but enough to test "Ok so if I make this change, can people from workstations still login, can they still access the development server... etc." - you can create a test domain under your current forest and have it remain separate in this test environment.

11.) If it's not already in place (this might take some time) create a naming nomenclature standard. I.E. DC1.example.com (domain controller 1), DC2.example.com, PS1.example.com (production), WEBS1.example.com (webserver), TE1.example.com (test env.), WK1.example.com (workstation number 1...2...), VM1.example.com (virtual machines). This will help when it comes to debugging issues. My boss likes to make personal names for his servers which drives me fucking nuts because we have 20 servers between us and our clients that we manage. It's a lot better for him to mention "yea I cant get into PS1." rather "I cant get into rabbit" - and there I am trying to remember which server rabbit is and what features it holds off the top of my head; which is where a network diagram can come into play.

So essentially a chat service? You're right that a LAN is simply a network of devices, not necessarily connected to the Internet, but from a machine perspective, communicating over LAN vs over the internet isn't all that different. It's what you want to do with the devices in your LAN that makes things more challenging.

At a super high level, you'd have your "server" code on your macbook, which would manage the devices attached to it, and your clients, which would reach out to the server. When you type a message, it will get sent to the macbook (server), which will then relay the message to all the other devices. This is something that can most definitely be done in Python (and probably swift, but I've never used it). For Python, look into the socket library, but I would do more research into the network stack in general before attempting to go into any code, especially if the end goal of this is to have a strong grasp of network programming.

YMMV, but when I was taking a networks class, the textbook we used was https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132856204/, which was surprisingly helpful, and explained things very well. I'm sure there are plenty of free resources out there as well though (and most likely free pdf versions of that book somewhere). At a glance, it looks like this link gives a very in-depth view of the network stack, and how data is transmitted.

Here is a "curriculum" of sorts I would suggest, as it's fairly close to how I learned:

1. Programming. Definitely learn "C" first as all of the Exploitation and Assembly courses below assume you know C: The bible is pretty much Dennis Richie and Kernighan's "The C Programming Language", and here is the .pdf (this book is from 1988, I don't think anyone would mind). I actually prefer Kochan's book "Programming in C" which is very beginner freindly and was written in 2004 rather than 1988 making the language a little more "up to date" and accessible. There are plenty of "C Programming" tutorials on YouTube that you can use in conjunction with either of the aforementioned books as well. After learning C than you can try out some other languages. I personally suggest Python as it is very beginner friendly and is well documented. Ruby isn't a bad choice either.
   
   
2. Architecture and Computer basics:
   Generally you'll probably want to look into IA-32 and the best starting point is the Intel Architecture manual itself, the .pdf can be found here (pdf link).
   Because of the depth of that .pdf I would suggest using it mainly as a reference guide while studying "Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective" and "Secrets of Reverse Engineering".
   
   
3. Operating Systems: Choose which you want to dig into: Linux or Windows, and put the effort into one of them, you can come back to the other later. I would probably suggest Linux unless you are planning on specializing in Malware Analysis, in which case I would suggest Windows. Linux: No Starch's "How Linux Works" is a great beginner resource as is their "Linux Command Line" book. I would also check out "Understanding the Linux Kernel" (that's a .pdf link). For Windows you can follow the Windows Programming wiki here or you can buy the book "Windows System Programming". The Windows Internals books are generally highly regarded, I didn't learn from them I use them more as a reference so I an't really speak to how well they would teach a "beginner".
   
   
4. Assembly: You can't do much better than OpenSecurityTraining's "Introductory Intel x86: Architecture, Assembly, Applications, & Alliteration" class lectures from Xeno Kovah, found here. The book "Secrets of Reverse Engineering" has a very beginner friendly introduction to Assembly as does "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation".
   
   
5. Exploitation: OpenSecurityTraining also has a great video series for Introduction to Exploits. "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation" is a really, really good book that is completely self-contained and will walk you through the basics of assembly. The author does introduce you to C and some basic principles of Linux but I would definitely suggest learning the basics of C and Linux command line first as his teaching style is pretty "hard and fast".
   
   
6. Specialized fields such as Cryptology and Malware Analysis.
   
   
   Of course if you just want to do "pentesting/vuln assessment" in which you rely more on toolsets (for example, Nmap>Nessus>Metasploit) structured around a methodology/framework than you may want to look into one of the PACKT books on Kali or backtrack, get familiar with the tools you will use such as Nmap and Wireshark, and learn basic Networking (a simple CompTIA Networking+ book will be a good enough start). I personally did not go this route nor would I recommend it as it generally shys away from the foundations and seems to me to be settling for becoming comfortable with tools that abstract you from the real "meat" of exploitation and all the things that make NetSec great, fun and challenging in the first place. But everyone is different and it's really more of a personal choice. (By the way, I'm not suggesting this is "lame" or anything, it was just not for me.)
   
   *edited a name out
   
   
   
   
   
   

I'd like to preface this by saying that I am certainly not the world's greatest security expert and that there are many people who are more qualified to speak to this matter. Hopefully some of them will see your post and chime in.

In my experience the less complex the product is, the easier it is to both maintain and secure. Therefore, knowing what you're building and how to build it gives you much better control over the security of it. Unless you're apart of an extremely tight-knit team that includes your SysOps and DevOps people or you're developing the product and the product's host environment by yourself, then there will always be aspects of security outside of your control. However, putting time and effort into the security of the product itself is typically a rewarding investment.

Books:

• Threat Modeling: Designing for Security by Adam Shostack
  This book is focused on introducing security considerations into the phases of the SDLC. The information in this book is a bit more advanced than Security Software (included below) but not inaccessible to a beginner. Understanding architectural risk analysis is a valuable skill in any tech environment.
  
• Iron-Clas Java: Building Secure Web Applications by Jim Manico & August Detlefsen
  I would say this book is a must-have if you develop any sort of Java web app or API. The authors manage to cover a lot of territory in a very understandable format.
  
• Software Security: Building Security In by Gary McGraw
  Another book that is primarily aimed at introducing security into each phase of the SDLC. When I first started working in software development I found it extremely helpful at convincing some "old guard" types why red teaming products is extremely valuable. You may want to read this before reading Threat Modeling.
  
• The Practice of Network Security Monitoring: Understanding Incident Detection and Response by Richard Bejtlich
  Networking is definitely not my strongest skill but this book breaks down some concepts of network monitoring and threat detection in ways that are easy to understand.

Internet is a very complex global network of networks. Internet security is a bit vague term, what you really are looking for is network security, but even before you go for understanding security you first need to understand how network communication works. First understand the basics.

Network communication is made possible by hardware and software stack. Electrical/telecom engineers take care of the hardware part, i-e how the data has to be multiplexed into signals (see Frequency division multiplexing, Time Division Multiplexing) and transmitted over through some medium and de-multiplexed again at the receiver end.

Software stack is an implementation of set of protocols/standards through which communication between processes, devices and networks is made possible, the famous one is TCP/IP stack. There is another conceptual networking model OSI model as well but TCP/IP is the most well known and widely implemented protocol stack. Make yourself familiar with the TCP/IP stack, you should grasp basics like how different layers of stack communicate with each other and how different protocols work together to make the magic of internet possible.

You should learn the HTTP request/response flow and then relate it to what you have learned so far.

When you are done with these, move towards more advance stuff. Network security involves understanding about cryptographic algorithms that includes symmetric (eg AES) and public key cryptography (RSA) and hashing algorithms (SHA, MD5 etc). Get an overview about these systems, how and why they are used. These cryptographic algorithms/concepts Cryptography is based on mathematics especially number theory but you don't need to worry about that at the moment. Abstract understanding is important before you get into more details.

Learn about how SSL works. Exploits work at almost all levels of protocol stack, starting from exploits in HTTP and TCP to lower level packet sniffing and Man in the middle attacks. Learn a front end web language i-e javascript and at least know about one server side scripting language, PHP is one of the easiest to learn.

I recommend Computer Networking: A top down Approach by Kurose, this book explains the complex concepts in a very intuitive language and is used as a text for undergraduate networks course throughout the world.

Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach

Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice

There is another very good book TCP/IP Protocol Suite by Behroz Forouzan but the text is very dense and detailed, and usually is taught at advanced undergraduate or graduate level networking courses.

Read good and famous security blogs and Keep learning with a lot of patience. Cheers!

Setting up a homelab is a great way to gain some experience. Pick up an old server off ebay, or if you've got a solid comp at home start up hyper-v and get some VMs running. From there you can set up a domain, explore DNS & DHCP, windows updates, things like that. Or you can go down the linux route if you're more interested in that, get a spacewalk server set up, provision out some servers to do those same basic stuff. Set up a web server, a file server, a mysql server. The beauty of linux is that you can grab centOS for free and just start building up these servers. I saw on here the other day someone plugging the Linux Bible, I think it's a great book, a great learning tool, and a great way to get your feet wet building up servers and administering them. Beyond that, most of the info on the red hat system administrator cert is in the book as well, so...2 birds 1 stone? That's what I'm doing to explore things beyond my current scope of just SQL Server. Good luck!

https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Bible-Christopher-Negus/dp/111821854X

I love learrning linux! I love the community! You aren't following a trail of breadcrumbs, you are racing down a superhighway of information. Google/duckduckgo is now you best friend, it pays to learn how to work with them.

Books:

The linux command line

The Linux Bible

UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook

​

Where to ask questions and find information:

https://askubuntu.com/

https://www.linuxquestions.org/

https://www.linux.org/

https://www.linux.com/forum

https://stackoverflow.com/

https://unix.stackexchange.com/

https://ubuntuforums.org/

https://wiki.archlinux.org/

​

How to ask questions for maximum help:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

​

Tutorials:

Linux Journey

This dude called Ryan is pretty cool

This guy Dave has a really nice voice on youtube

Linux Foundation

linuxcommand

linuxsurvival

​

Linux learning games:

Terminus

wargames

​

Subreddits you might want to get into at some stage, or subscribe to, I just made a big multireddit that I use when I want to focus my redditing on positive use of my time:

• -PROGRAMMING
  
• -LINUX
  
• -SYSADMIN
  
• -LEARNPROGRAMMING
  
• -LINUXMASTERRACE
  
• -HOMELAB
  
• -HACKING
  
• -RASPBERRY_PI
  
• -NETSEC
  
• -UNIXPORN
  
• -THINKPAD
  
• -LINUX4NOOBS
  
• -UBUNTU
  
• -AWS
  
• -VIM
  
• -LINUXQUESTIONS
  
• -DEVOPS
  
• -DEBIAN
  
• -LINUXADMIN
  
• -COMMANDLINE
  
• -LINUXHARDWARE
  
• -ANSIBLE
  
• -LINUXPROJECTS
  
• -LINUXFROMSCRATCH
  
• -LXD
  
• -LXC
  
• -TERRAFORM
  
• -LINUXCONTAINERS
  
• -SYSADMINMENTOR
  
  ​
  
  Some distros:
  
  Ubuntu
  
  RHEL
  
  ArchLinux
  
  centos
  
  openSUSE
  
  fedora
  
  Linux Mint
  
  ​
  
  This is a big ass list of stuff to look at and seems really daunting, start off really simple and learn these commands:
  
  
• pwd
  
• touch
  
• cat
  
• mkdir
  
• ls
  
• cd
  
• cp
  
• mv
  
• rm
  
  ​
  
  Tip: for any of those command you can look at the man page by typing:
  
  man <command>
  
  ​
  
  examples:
  
  man touch
  
  man ls
  
  ​
  
  Edit: The only thing I would warn you of is that learning can be quite lonesome, it is a very individual pursuit, the answer to almost every question has been asked and answered before, you just need to google the right stuff, think hard and google hard before asking questions, you will run into some toxicity if you do not, I do believe at times that it is justified but you can insulate yourself from too much negativity by really putting in some of the grind before asking questions online. The reward for asking smart questions is help from people that go out of their way to help you, help them help you.
  
  ​
  
  Enjoy the rabbit hole!

Tl;dr Python works, it's super popular and you'll be able to transfer most things you learn there to other languages.


Some examples you might run into:Caprica - ACL descriptive language (https://github.com/google/capirca)

You should understand caprica as a tool, and why you might want to use it (not deeply, just enough to see why you might use things like rule/subnet minimization etc.)

Rancid - Backup automation (uses *cringe* Expect http://www.shrubbery.net/rancid/) look at oxidize instead but rancid was the standard for years (over a decade?)Nmap - Lua scripting (you may need to write custom scanners https://nmap.org/book/man-nse.html)

Network Security Monitoring - This is more a discipline you'll probably need to understand, and even while it's a little dated I would suggest the no starch press book on the practice. Understanding where you should use a simple beam splitter or an active tap etc is important too, but you've probably had plenty of experience there. I wouldn't focus on too many different tools but you can certainly test things like Bro/Surricata out on your personal network with pretty minimal modifications to understand the concept.--

Scripting will help you do really basic things like be able to take a single SNMP walk command for a single OID and run it against a csv/txt file list of assets. It helps give you the fundamentals to fix/change the tools you'll have to use as a network security engineer.

Understanding Certs is super important, so knowing some basic things: how to extract a certificate/private key in any format you need it. How to verify a certificate is valid with a copy of the Certificate Authority, how to verify a certificate is still valid. What's the minimum required process to renew a certificate etc.

Also, you'll probably have to deal with break/inspect (*transparent* tls proxies) so learning and understanding how certificate (x.509) based systems work even lends itself there. Unfortunately scripting tools for that kinda thing suck/are missing pieces so basically I would say learn how to use openssl really well/make yourself some good bookmarks for references.

• Buy (and read) Radia Perlman's book
  
• Learn to program. You shoudl have at least enough of a language to automate basic tasks. Doesn't really matter what language - I'd choose python, but it really doesn't matter
  
• Learn some linux. Most of the applications that exist around networking run on linux. So you should be able to compile your own apps, add cronjobs, add things to init. You don't need to be a super linux guy - just have enough to know your way around. This'll help quite a lot in university, as well.
  
• Get a job. I got my first job in networks because I'd call centre experience previously. Experience in a job with computers is valuable. Experience in a job talking to people on a phone is valuable. Try and spend your summers doing one, the other, or both.
  
• Join the college computer society. If possible, go to a college with a good computer/networking society. Something like University Edinburgh's TARDIS. The contacts you make there are pretty invaluable, and the skills you'll pick up don't hurt either .

I can only highly recommend the second book/link as I have not fully read the other two. https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing-Context-Driven/dp/0471081124 is a good one as well. Outside of that, here is the advice that I would give to someone in your position.

You as a Project Manager and a QA have sole responsibility as to what your customer will see. You are the gatekeeper for software good or bad to make it to the public's hands. This is the key and the only thing you really need to keep in mind. Everything else is just fluff and suggestions.

1. Think about your product. What is it advertised to do? What does it currently do? Do those answers match?
   
2. How does it feel to you or to a customer? Is it buggy or difficult to understand? Can the process be simplified?
   
3. What criteria does software have to meet before you are willing to let your customers see it, or get their hands on it? Is there a 70% pass rate that you are looking for? 90%? And who gets to make that decision?
   
   What you decide for #1, you can start to form a set of product requirements or statements of what the product is supposed to do. For example : "I expect the login form to validate username and password, and take you to a dashboard"
   
   Keep track of these (excel or if you want to spend some money, a test case management system), and they will evolve into test cases, that you can use for your QA cycle. This will be 75% of the work. A Traceability matrix can be generated from reqs and test cases, and can be useful in checking things off.
   
   Keep in mind that while Agile is vastly popular, it's not the only SDLC you can follow. You may opt for waterfall style QA cycles instead with a sprint dedicated towards regression or exporatory testing. The ISTQB is the standardized test for QA, simply reading through their syllabus and the content that they have on their site will allow you to talk the language of other testers once you get to that level (https://www.istqb.org/).
   
   ​
   
   As for automation testing, it is never too early, but it is also never too late. If you want to think about automation testing early, start by trying to create Gherkin for your test cases and/or requirements. That will allow you to transition into using cucumber or specflow (depending on your technology stack) quickly, when you are ready for it.
   
   My advice, although may be different, is to NOT FALL INTO A SDLC PATTERN JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD YOU TO. I've seen too many shops fail in QA because they are so engrained into following the SDLC pattern that the developers are using. If you don't continue to switch things up, then you will get to a point where you're simply looking for and finding the same issues over and over again. I've been in agile heavy shops where I've told the QA team to forget what they know of agile, and go different patterns for their QA cycles, and then switch things around the next release. Keeping things fresh and continuously learning what is the trend in QA will help keep your product fresh, and your developers on their toes. Keep trying new things, and relying on what works to back up your QA work as you go. Just keep to the time schedule and the promised deadlines.
   
   ​
   
   My final advice for anyone working in a QA field is to ask questions. Ask so many questions that your developers start to label you as someone that needs to be scheduled to have a conversation with. If you don't understand anything, ask, and make sure that you understand why something is working the way something is before you let it pass in your testing. If something doesn't make sense, falter in writing too many defects and asking questions about why those defects are not defects in bug scrub or when working with your developers. May seem like I'm telling you to be annoying, which I probably am, but after a couple cycles of this, you'll naturally fall into understanding core concepts of your software, how it works, what you expect it to do in the field, and common misunderstandings from your customers about what it does and how it should work.
   
   ​
   
   I am usually fairly available, so if you have questions, feel free to pm me. And above all, best of luck with the company!

It kind of sounds like you'd be good just getting a textbook. I think any book will be fine since you mainly just want questions (and presumably answers), but try to find one that implements code in a language that you're comfortable with, or that you want to learn.

There are a lot of different "final year" DSP courses, but it sounds like you want something covering the fundamentals rather than anything too advanced. I started off with The Scientist & Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing and then used Signals and Systems for my first undergraduate course, but we used it largely because he co-authored it. I would recommend scouring the web for some free books though. There are books like ThinkDSP popping up that seem pretty neat.

Edit: Oppenheim is always mentioned also.

This book has been suggested a few times so I finally got around to reading it. I think it has some good information in it. I'm only about halfway through it, but I like it so far.

Time Management for System Administrators

Other books would be any of the social books like "How to influence people", "7 healthy habits..." Etc.

I haven't read this one yet, but It has been suggested to me if you plan to go more into management/leadership Start with Why

Other books that have I have ear marked due to being mentioned:

• The Devops Handbook
  
• The Practice of System and Network Administration
  
• The Practice of Cloud System Administration
  
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - This one might have been a joke, but as someone who has dealt with depression and burnout on the job. I think this could be beneficial.
  
• How to win friends and influence people
  
• How to win friends and influence people in the Digital Age
  
  Also, do a search for "Books for IT Professionals" to find a lot of other suggestions.

I come from a similar background, but now I live almost completely in the networking domain. If you’re interested in learning about the various technologies from the perspective of a non-operator expert, I recommend TCP/IP Illustrated: The Protocols.

If you want to learn how to route packets from the perspective of a (albeit senior) network administrator, I recommend Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 and Routing TCP/IP Volume 2.

Beyond the excellent and thorough descriptions of the various technologies (with context), they also provide direct references to the RFCs and white papers wherein the technologies were first published. Using these three texts as a starting point, you can delve as deep as your interest carries you. I believe all three books are available through Safari Books.

If you learn best through video and verbal instruction, I recommend INE. It’s pricy but worth it.

Off the bat I know we look for candidates who know python or powershell. Knowing how to automate is extremely valuable. We've been giving this book to our network engineers, but I feel it could be helpful for sys admins as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Network-Programmability-Automation-Next-Generation-Engineer/dp/1491931256/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521053597&sr=8-3&keywords=network+automation

Also, LEARN and LOVE virtualization. If I can trust you to spin up a VM for something like a training or testing environment, I will hire you. The MCSA is still valuable as well. You're already on the right track for management because your holding a degree. Get your skills up some and you'll be making bank.

If you ask me, Andrew Tanenbaum books are AWESOME. Not cheap but this guy takes a good bottom to top approach, if you really want to understand networking down to the TCP/IP stack get this.

Computer Networks If I can offer you a shred of advice, understanding what is happening under the hood and the 'big picture' of network design becomes an easy concept.

On the flipside - here is a good Top Down approach to networking Computer Networking Top-Down

Best of luck with your studies!

It seems your problem is not programming, but architecture. Namely, how the client-server architecture that most of the web is based on works.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find something that's both easy to understand and comprehensive enough, and I can't really write it here, as either I would have to simplify it too much or I'd have to write way much more than I'm comfortable writing.

So keep google for client server architecture until you find a book/tutorial/article/video/etc that makes you understand and go from there. Don't worry about languages, liibraries, frameworks and all that mumbo-jumbo for now, just focus on understanding what happens when you interact with a website, from start to end. Once you understand that, choose a language, find a framework that you think you'd like and start learning it (some frameworks, like Django, have very comprehensive tutorials). And then you keep improving that until you're satisfied with your project - or you hit your deadline, that product got to ship someday!

EDIT: Actually, I do have a recommendation: the Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach book. Reading the first chapter will probably be enough for you, but if you enjoy it, you can read a lot more and really (begin to) understand how the Internet (and computer networks in general) work.

Presumably you know how to code. . . the question is, do you know how to test? Not that knowing how to test is rocket science but I'd say the first thing to embrace is that anything and everything can just break. When you write code, it's easy to focus on the "happy path".

As you might expect, there are tons of resources about testing online. . . including this subreddit and r/QualityAssurance.

Other resources I'd recommend:

• Twitter, there are a number of QA/SDET people on Twitter. . . I've stopped using it for the time being as the discussions there can get a bit pedantic/theoretical but there's quite an active testing community on Twitter.
  
  
• http://sqa.stackexchange.com/
  
  
• Blogs. . . there are many, if you want me to list my favorites, let me know.
  
  
• Forums like http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/ and http://www.stickyminds.com/
  
  
• Books, there are a ton of course, I'd recommend these two to start: http://www.amazon.com/Explore-It-Increase-Confidence-Exploratory/dp/1937785025/ and http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing-Context-Driven/dp/0471081124
  

I learnt a lot from Tanenbaum's Computer Networks, though it's not exactly light reading.

If you're going to be/are a Cisco shop*, then a CCENT/CCNA would be really useful (and it also gets you a discount on equipment, but it never beats eBay) - though it's not a bad certification even if you're not a Cisco shop. If you do take that track, I'd recommend CBTNuggets/Jeremy Cioara's videos, though they're not cheap (and I can't think of any way to see videos without paying for them ;) ). By that same token, ASP/APP if you're going to be an HP shop*, JNCIE/JNCIP if Juniper*, BCNE if Foundry/Brocade*, or if you're going to be a Linux/BSD shop*, start tinkering (which is probably the best way to learn anyway).

I've never done or met anyone who's done Network+, though my experience is that CompTIA's certifications aren't held in high esteem.

* Once you start needing managed/enterprise gear, it's generally a good idea to try and keep all their gear from one supplier where possible, because some features don't work between competing products, it makes it easier for the employer to find employees, and it generally makes life easier. For unmanaged/consumer gear, you can mix and match all you want, though most sys/net-admins tend to develop biases for one vendor or another.

I just saw you said low on funds, but if you have a birthday or something coming up these two books have been great resources for me, and others that have taken a dive into it.

https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Bible-Christopher-Negus/dp/111821854X

https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Shell-Scripting-Bible/dp/111898384X/ref=pd_sbs_14_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=J9RW2JJ25KF0HEW2DDNK

One thing I'd say is DON'T BE DISCOURAGED. There's a lot to Linux, and it'll feel like you are drinking through a fire hose sometimes with concepts, everyone has been there, and I'm still very much there. In addition to reading a butt load, one thing that helped me take the edge of was getting a box up with something I'd use. My personal pet project back in the day was setting up a redhat instance and run a ventrilo server. It helped me learn things like security, package management, patching, getting real comfortable with things like awk and sed. I didn't expose it to the internet except for a few whitelisted IPs but it kept me learning for a long time, and made it fun.

Computer Networks A Top Down Approach, by Kurose and Ross. Amazon.

I did not understand the internet. I didn't think that was a big deal, but networking shows up a lot and understanding it has helped me out enormously. This book is excellent, too. It is extremely readable, almost colloquial. It covers the network stack in depth (application/transport/network/link/physical!) as well as other important topics like network security and networked algorithms and data structures. Stuff like distributed hash tables, routing algorithms, and even large scale data center design. Seriously, this book is amazing.

Plus, I was surprised at how many times I've been asked a networks question in interviews. That's not to be sneezed at.

The senior part is more of a technical grade level and not necessarily management... granted I'm in the lead role here, it's my first time as one. All I can say is what help me spring forward at a lull at mid-level was picking up Thomas Limoncelli's books, [the sysadmin one] (https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512041042&sr=8-1&keywords=thomas+limoncelli) and [the cloud one] (https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Cloud-System-Administration-Practices/dp/032194318X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1512041042&sr=8-3&keywords=thomas+limoncelli) /r/sysadmin recommends them too. These are your best practice books, these tell you why to do things, not how. It will turn you from being the guy that mops the floor in a burning building into knowing when to yell, "FIRE!"

Cert wise, unless a specific company or contract requires it, I don't bother with the time and money on certs if you already have years of experience on the books. I'd probably go for a Security+ and then go for a Red Hat and/or CCNA certification as they are both prestigious. Red Hat is a big deal just by its practical application test.

If you want to go into cloud related stuff, you might want to brush up on your programming. This is what is limiting me, I have very minimal bash scripting experience coming from military in the Windows world then making a move to Linux.

Honestly, I would focus on being both as they both overlap very often unless you are in really large stovepipe enterprise environments, but you never know if you need to make a move to something smaller where you have the many hats role. I'd get your degree in something Computer science related (CS, CIS, EE, CE, etc) and then go RHCSA/CE and maybe Sec+/Net+ or instead of Net+ just go for something Cisco related. My networking is Net+ strength at best and I resent not doing better when I was younger.

EDIT: Also, if you can do the math, BS is Computer Science all the way... sysadmins are still really kind of not doing well in the degree program department, mainly because were so... trade-like I guess. Honestly, we're the new Millwrights like my dad was. We keep the factory going and fix it when production stops. It's kind of cool actually, it's nice to be able to have some kinship to my dad in that way.

Senior Level Software Engineer Reading List

Read This First

1. Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment
   
   

   Fundamentals
   

   
   

2. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
   
3. Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
   
4. Enterprise Patterns and MDA: Building Better Software with Archetype Patterns and UML
   
5. Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail
   
6. Rework
   
7. Writing Secure Code
   
8. Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries
   
   

   Development Theory
   

   
   

9. Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests
   
10. Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications
    
11. Introduction to Functional Programming
    
12. Design Concepts in Programming Languages
    
13. Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
    
14. Modern Operating Systems
    
15. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
16. The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles
    
17. Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
    
    

    Philosophy of Programming
    

    
    

18. Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It
    
19. Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think
    
20. The Elements of Programming Style
    
21. A Discipline of Programming
    
22. The Practice of Programming
    
23. Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective
    
24. Object Thinking
    
25. How to Solve It by Computer
    
26. 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

27. Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
    
28. The Intentional Stance
    
29. Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine
    
30. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
    
31. The Timeless Way of Building
    
32. The Soul Of A New Machine
    
33. WIZARDRY COMPILED
    
34. YOUTH
    
35. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

36. Software Tools
    
37. UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language
    
38. Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development
    
39. Practical Parallel Programming
    
40. Past, Present, Parallel: A Survey of Available Parallel Computer Systems
    
41. Mastering Regular Expressions
    
42. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
    
43. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C
    
44. Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
    
45. The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security
    
46. SOA in Practice: The Art of Distributed System Design
    
47. Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques
    
48. Data Crunching: Solve Everyday Problems Using Java, Python, and more.
    
    

    Design
    

    
    

49. The Psychology Of Everyday Things
    
50. About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
    
51. Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty
    
52. The Non-Designer's Design Book
    
    

    History
    

    
    

53. Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality
    
54. Death March
    
55. Showstopper! the Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft
    
56. The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
    
57. The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad
    
58. In the Beginning...was the Command Line
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    

59. The Art of UNIX Programming
    
60. Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
    
61. Programming Windows
    
62. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
    
63. Starting Forth: An Introduction to the Forth Language and Operating System for Beginners and Professionals
    
64. lex & yacc
    
65. The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference
    
66. C Programming Language
    
67. No Bugs!: Delivering Error Free Code in C and C++
    
68. Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied
    
69. Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#
    
70. Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit
    
    

    DevOps Reading List
    

    
    

71. Time Management for System Administrators: Stop Working Late and Start Working Smart
    
72. The Practice of Cloud System Administration: DevOps and SRE Practices for Web Services
    
73. The Practice of System and Network Administration: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT
    
74. Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale
    
75. DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective
    
76. The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
    
77. Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
    
78. Cloud Native Java: Designing Resilient Systems with Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and Cloud Foundry
    
79. Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation
    
80. Migrating Large-Scale Services to the Cloud

I'd go read books about the A+ cert (you don't need to certify but it's great material).

For other technical things I recommend a lot of books that are amazing:

• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
  
  
• Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (6th Edition)
  
  
• Introduction to Java Programming, Comprehensive Version (9th Edition)
  
  
• Scripting with Objects: A Comparative Presentation of Object-Oriented Scripting with Perl and Python
  
  
• Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms (3rd Edition) WARNING: GOD TIER
  
  Use technology books to learn processes, not end results. To be a better IT person, you should know how computers work as a system, not how to do say "Map network Drive in Windows", learn how those drives are mapped, what are the underlying fundamentals?
  
  

Really happy to see interest in D. I think it's an excellent programming language to start with, and there's a few more resources than you might think.

Great introduction to programming in general
http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html

A more advanced overview of D
http://www.amazon.com/D-Programming-Language-Andrei-Alexandrescu/dp/0321635361

Make sure to check out Rosetta Code for tons examples:
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:D

Web programming is a good way to start out
http://vibed.org/

For an example web project, used in production:
https://github.com/rejectedsoftware/vibenews

Most of these links can of course be found at:
http://wiki.dlang.org/Books

Make sure you check out the new API documentation:
http://dlang.org/library/index.html

And don't miss out on all of the great projects in D:
http://wiki.dlang.org/Open_Source_Projects
http://code.dlang.org/

If you have any questions, you can always post on the forums, but I've found that an even better way to get feedback is through the #D channel on irc.freenode.net.

Feel free to message me directly with questions too! I'm relatively new to the language myself, but I have a solid background in other languages and I'm transitioning to D as my go-to language.

You sound like you are already at entry level dev level already. If you published the repos here we could provide additional insight.

The biggest thing you seem to have is the right attitude. You know there’s more to learn, that you don’t know all the right answers and you approach things of okay it is working how can I refactor the code to make it better. These are huge skills that we look for.

I second the recommendation of reading books. SOLID is a really important principle for hiring today and I think think is a good easy to understand introduction to it: https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Code-principles-Developer-Practices/dp/1509302581

Unfortunately a lot of places have that college degree requirement, so that will be an inhibitor but please don’t let that discourage you. Some of the best devs I have ever worked with didn’t have a college degree and honestly the best companies I have worked for were always willing to hire without a college degree.

What area of the world are you in?

I think you are just looking in the wrong place. While dsource has many stagnant projects, which has always been the case, there has been a lot of involvement in the development of D2. A greater number of patches to DMD are being submitted (now that the source is available). Phobos has become a very impressive standard library.

And of course there is still lots of complaining about what needs to get done, but those complaining don't want to do it.

I do believe library writers are getting a little shafted with the need to maintain a D v1 and v2 without much help from the version(D_Version2) identifier. Many believe, and rightly so, that D1 will fade out pretty quickly and the community will be much more united with version 2. [D1 will still have its users, and Walter will be supporting it while people are still using it]

Of course a great place to see how fast D is progressing is to check out the change log v1 and v2. You can also check out future directions and improvement proposals.

It is also getting lots of interest on StackOverflow; with questions such as Does the D programming language have a feature?

And I didn't even mention that Andrei Alexandrescu is writing a book, The D Programming Language

There are couple books that really stood out for C#. These don't touch on .NET core but the same techniques apply.

Functional Programming in C#. http://amzn.to/2Ct3q5B if you come from a functional lang, this one is a must. Great LINQ concepts as well.


Adaptive Code via C@ http://amzn.to/2CsglEP is an updated version of the original. Dependencies and layering really helped me understand the core concepts of .NET. It's a M$ Press book. Easy read and a great reference.

Again, not entirely my wheelhouse, but time definitely helps.

Curiosity is also critical. The guys I know who are really good software guys are always tinkering with things because they see something like Amazon Echo's home automation and think "I wonder if I could do that with some Arduino's and a Pi". They never seem to really finish the home projects, but they pick up enough of a new skill/language/protocol set that they've leveled up just a bit. Good programmers always seem to be dicking with something inconsequential that they get to 60% functional before they chase the next "Hunh. That's neat. I bet I could..." thing.

Don't just learn the hot new skill. Learn how the stuff underneath it works. As a network guy, I've met dozens of coders who didn't understand the first thing about how networks work or the OSI model. These are then they guys shouting at me in a meeting because they chose to use CIFS as their backup mechanism for boxes deployed in California and Dubai, and their backups never seem to complete. This is the first book in a trilogy that will teach you more than you ever wanted to know.

Security onion is amazing, I use it myself as a VM in a home esxi server with a cheap 5 port smart switch.

A few quick notes:

• The Practice of Network Security Monitoring by Richard Bejtlich is a great resource for this sort of thing.
  
  
• You will need something with more power than a rasberryPi for this, unless you make the pi just a sensor and you have a server running the snort analytics.
  
  
• Keep in mind that if you have this behind your router, and your router is also your WiFi access point, you will not pick up any WiFi traffic. If you put it in front of your router, you will get all traffic, but it will all show the same IP (your public IP).
  
  My suggestion is to get a cheap switch with port mirror capabilities, like the Mikrotik Routerboard 260gs. Get a wireless AP (or an old router which has AP only mode), and plug this into your switch. Plug your actual router (the one doing the NAT) into the switch, and mirror these to a port that is connected to the security onion box.
  
  That way will get you both ethernet and WiFi traffic. If you have any questions about running security onion in a home setting, feel free to send me a PM.

Sure.

1. Have confidence
   
2. Study, study, study. Ideally you should naturally love learning. Check out the A+ exam objectives. here
   
3. I recommend buying a copy of The Practice of System and Network Administration
   
4. TRY to get 8 hours of sleep a night.
   
   Good luck. You'll do fine.

Try out some of these:

Books:

The linux command line

The Linux Bible

UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook

​

Where to ask questions and find information:

https://askubuntu.com/

https://www.linuxquestions.org/

https://www.linux.org/

https://www.linux.com/forum

https://stackoverflow.com/

https://unix.stackexchange.com/

https://ubuntuforums.org/

https://wiki.archlinux.org/

​

How to ask questions for maximum help:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

​

Tutorials:

Linux Journey

This dude called Ryan is pretty cool

This guy Dave has a really nice voice on youtube

Linux Foundation

linuxcommand

linuxsurvival

Engineer Man. thank you to u/dk1998 for the reminder

Bash Guide by Greg Wooledge

​

Linux learning games:

Terminus

wargames

​

Subreddits you might want to get into at some stage, or subscribe to, I just made a big multireddit that I use when I want to focus my redditing on positive use of my time:

• -PROGRAMMING
  
• -LINUX
  
• -SYSADMIN
  
• -LEARNPROGRAMMING
  
• -LINUXMASTERRACE
  
• -HOMELAB
  
• -HACKING
  
• -RASPBERRY_PI
  
• -NETSEC
  
• -UNIXPORN
  
• -THINKPAD
  
• -LINUX4NOOBS
  
• -UBUNTU
  
• -AWS
  
• -VIM
  
• -LINUXQUESTIONS
  
• -DEVOPS
  
• -DEBIAN
  
• -LINUXADMIN
  
• -COMMANDLINE
  
• -LINUXHARDWARE
  
• -ANSIBLE
  
• -LINUXPROJECTS
  
• -LINUXFROMSCRATCH
  
• -LXD
  
• -LXC
  
• -TERRAFORM
  
• -LINUXCONTAINERS
  
• -SYSADMINMENTOR
  
  ​
  
  Some distros:
  
  Ubuntu
  
  RHEL
  
  ArchLinux
  
  centos
  
  openSUSE
  
  fedora
  
  Linux Mint
  
  Manjaro
  
  A couple of cool resources that you might want to look at:
  
  sysadmin.it-landscape.info
  
  Awesome Sysadmin links, a popular set of curated links

> As for D, it does not even exist in real world.

It does. It just needs some good tools support.

For reference Python first appeared in 1991, but didn't really gain wide acceptance until well after 2000. Ruby first appeared in 1995, but didn't gain wide acceptance until RoR was open sourced in 2004.

D was first designed in 1999. It's starting to gain more and more acceptance -- Andrei Alexandrescu is writing a book on it. This is about the time languages really start gaining traction. We'll see what happens in the next few years.

I'd be interested if there is something like what you're looking for out there. I don't think there is.

One of the things I've discovered over the years is how much of these "golden nuggets of networking history" are sprinkled about in various non-certification networking textbooks. They're generally not in certification-oriented books because there isn't enough room, but they are quite often found in textbooks that cover particular networking topics.

For example, one of my favorites is contained in Developing IP Multicast Networks. Beau Williamson writes:

> There’s an interesting story as to why only 23 bits worth of MAC address space was allocated for IP multicast. Back in the early 1990s, Steve Deering was bringing some of his research work on IP multicasting to fruition, and he wanted the IEEE to assign 16 consecutive Organizational Unique Identifiers (OUIs) for use as IP multicast MAC addresses. Because one OUI contains 24 bits worth of address space, 16 consecutive OUI’s would supply a full 28 bits worth of MAC address space and would permit a one-to-one mapping of Layer 3 IP multicast addresses to MAC addresses. Unfortunately, the going price for an OUI at the time was $1000 and Steve’s manager, the late Jon Postel, was unable to justify the $16,000 necessary to purchase the full 28 bits worth of MAC addresses. Instead, Jon was willing to spend $1000 to purchase one OUI out of his budget and give half of the addresses (23 bits worth) to Steve for use in his IP multicast research.

And that's why we have a 32:1 overlap of multicast IP addresses to multicast MAC addresses today :-)

There are tons of these kinds of things sprinkled about in Radia Perlman's Interconnections book as well.

> Thanks for the advice.

No worries, always good to have a working backup prior to messing with anything; make sure to test the restore though before you tinker. You never know when that backup is a dud until its too late.

> This is for a friend of a friend and a good opportunity.

Understandable, usually the golden mark is two years of experience with some reputable certifications under your belt. I wouldn't put much weight on the A+ line of certs, if your looking for Linux Administration focus on RHCSA its a practical exam and will carry more weight than A+ and CCNA for Infrastructure. Those two are well considered and some companies will hire you just for your CCNA Cisco partner discount.

Document everything that you can for yourself (6 months down the line). First year I carried a composition book around where I wrote down most of my solutions; saved so much time later on when I couldn't remember what I'd done to fix something. Also pickup a copy of the bible if your serious about this as a career.

I'm sort of in the same boat as you, except with an aero and physics background rather than EE. My approach has been pretty similar to yours--I found the textbooks used by my alma mater, compared to texts recommended by MIT OCW and some other universities, looked at a few lists of recommended texts, and looked through similar questions on Reddit. I found most areas have multiple good texts, and also spent some time deciding which ones looked more applicable to me. That said, I'm admittedly someone who rather enjoys and learns well from textbooks compared to lectures, and that's not the case for everyone.

Here's what I gathered. If any more knowledgeable CS guys have suggestions/corrections, please let me know.

• Intro-ish: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson & Sussman
  
• Math: Mathematics for Computer Science by Lehman et al.
  
• Computer Architecture: Computer Systems A Programmer's Perspective by Bryant & O'Hallaron
  
• Algorithms: Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al.
  
• Programming Languages: Programming Language Pragmatics by Scott
  
• Computational Theory: Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Sipser
  
• Operating Systems: Modern Operating Systems by Tanenbaum & Bos
  
• Networks: Computer Networks by Tanenbaum
  
• Compilers: Compilers by Aho et al.
  
• Security: Security Engineering by Anderson
  
• Type Theory: Types and Programming Languages by Pierce
  
• AI: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russell & Norvig
  
  Full disclosure: I haven't actually read more than the preface of any of those books. Software engineering topics are more directly applicable to me than CS topics right now, so here are some that I've actually started reading:
  
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt & Thomas
  
• Clean Code by Martin
  
• Code Complete by McConnell
  
• Design Patterns by Gamma et al.

I wouldn't run away, as some others are suggesting. QA/Testing is a great learning experience that can help you understand technology from a variety of different perspectives. Personally I would recommend buying a few good testing books, you can learn everything conceptually about testing from reading 2-3 books. Everything else is learning specific tools, businesses and technologies.

Here's the book I loved when I first started in a testing role (15 years ago though...) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing-Context-Driven/dp/0471081124

If you are in Barcelona, DM me, happy to meet for a coffee.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Once you're comfortable with the basics and you want to learn a bit about program design I can really recommend Adaptive Code: Agile coding with design patterns and SOLID principles. After my teacher told me he was happy with my code but thought I should focus more on the SOLID principles to get it to the next level, I read this book. The first couple of chapters cover Agile and Kanban which was interesting, but I certainly got the most out of the next chapters covering the SOLID principles. Thorough explanations on each one of them.

the tao of network security monitoring explains a framework for stitching together different pieces of network security data into a process for investigation (the follow-up is also good).

yes, the thing you want is called 'full packet', and yes, it usually involves just sniffing, saving, and indexing all traffic at your network ingress/egress. there's some good open source frameworks like moloch for doing that, or if you've got money kicking around, something like solera or netwitness will do the trick nicely.

First, read our Wiki. It is very thorough and answers a lot of these common questions such as

day to day? The Practice of System and Network Administration
And the topical reference books listed below.

Books to help in shaping a sysadmin? The above &:
The Phoenix Project
Time Management for System Administrators


Topical Books I see mentioned often and have been very helpful to me:
Powershell in a month of lunches
Learn Python the hard way
Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook
Windows Server 2016: Inside Out

Group Policy
AbsoluteBSD
FreeBSD mastery:ZFS
CCNA
RHCSA/RHCE
Pro Puppet
SSH Mastery

On my docket:
FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS

Michael W. Lucas and Thomas Limoncelli are very good sysadmin writers, you can't go wrong with a topic they have chosen to write about.

Most of the *nix stuff assumes a baseline knowledge of how to use a unix-based system. I learned as I went but did pick up an old copy of Unix Visual Quickstart Guide not too long ago at a used books sale, which seems like a good starting place for someone overwhelmed with sitting at a terminal and being productive.
I notice I don't have any Virtualization books, perhaps someone else can fill in good books. Most of my knowledge regarding virtualization and network storage has been a mix of official docs, video training, and poking at it. Seems innate but it isn't.

The Design of the UNIX Operating System

• It's an old book but is really a must read for anyone getting into unix systems administration.
  
  Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
  
  Unix Network Programming, Volume 1: The Sockets Networking API
  
  Sams Teach Yourself C for Linux Programming in 21 Days
  
  
• That last one isn't as much of a must read as it is just a great book for learning basic C.
  
  edit: These aren't books but are GREAT online guides for sed and awk given by IBM
  Common threads: Awk by example
  Common threads: Sed by example
  
  edit 2: Left this set of books out because I figured it had to have been posted already, i was wrong
  TCP/IP Illustrated
  
• Couldn't find a link to the complete set which are all good, but volume 1 is by for the most important.

I agree with other comments in that you need to give us more details on the project criteria. That said I'll shoot two things at you. Perhaps you can look at TCP, impact latency, packetloss, etc has on overall throughput. Then you can do a study of WAN optimization technologies and recommend a particular approach for small, medium, large networks? An excellent book to get you started is (TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols (2nd Edition))[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321336313/]. The benefit here is you will get a deep understanding of the issues affecting network performance and things we can do to improve.

If you're on more of the computer science/programming spectrum, you can look at creating an automation framework for network configuration and changes. Every network change has the same basic steps:

1. Backup the configurations of any affected devices.
   
2. Run a series of checks against the state of the network (ping, traceroute, show commands) and compare it to known expected values.
   
3. Execute the network change (in the case of Cisco, order matters).
   
4. Re-run a series of checks against the state of the network and compare to outputs captured in step 2.
   
5. Save all configuration.
   
   In shops that don't have network automation, it seems that the most common root cause of incidents is human error. Either the procedure is theoretically flawed or the change itself was implemented incorrectly. Network automation can help with the latter. The features and functions of your framework is up to you. The benefit here is you get familiar with programmatically interfacing with network equipment using ssh, api's or snmp.
   

Not all of these are in our core training/ required knowledge, or related to our day to day functions as a university A/V department, but They are all available to my team for knowledge building and professional development. Additionally , and our job ladder includes Infocomm certifications, so the library is a little biased towards infocomm resources at the moment.
Books I use are

• [Master Handbook of Acoustics](
  http://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Alton-Everest/dp/0071603328)
  
• CTS exam guide
  
• sound reinforcement handbook
  
• a/v best practices
  
• Sound system engineering
  
• show networks and control systems
  
• television production handbook
  
• tcp/ip illustrated vols 1-3
  
• PMBOK
  
• network wiring
  
• entertainment electricity
  
• sys admin
  
  just ordered digital video and hd
  based on a recommendation in r/videoengineering
  
  infocomm's audio and visual systems design, essentials of the av industry, av best practices, AV installation hand book
  
  
  white papers/ online training from extron, JBL, Dalite, surgeX, bluejeanscable, and others. (out of the office and do not have the exact list and links with me
  
  
  
  
  

1.) We always post open positions on http://jobs.redhat.com/job-search-results/ but if your in the market send me a pm and we can discuss this further.

2.) You don't need to be certified however it is a requirement that before you start supporting customers that you have your RHCE. We have some great instructors here and the one who taught me is Chris Negus author of the Linux Bible

3.) Didn't eat breakfast but the new cafeteria is amazing!!

You will pick up the knowledge fairly quickly, but the wisdom part comes slowly.

Read some books:

• Phoenix Project https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business-ebook/dp/B00AZRBLHO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495835961&sr=1-1&keywords=the+phoenix+project
  
• Practice of System and Network Administration https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
  
• Toyota Kata https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Kata-Managing-Improvement-Adaptiveness/dp/0071635238/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495835986&sr=1-1&keywords=Toyota+kata
  
• GTD https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280
  
• Five Dysfunctions of a Team https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495836025&sr=1-1&keywords=five+dysfunctions+of+a+team
  
• How to win friends and influence people https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034
  
• Powershell in a month of lunches https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Windows-PowerShell-Month-Lunches/dp/1617294160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495836112&sr=1-1&keywords=powershell+in+a+month+of+lunches
  
  Start humble, stay humble, be quick to listen and slow to speak, and don't make changes on Friday!

Give me a DM if you need some help and I am cool pointing out resources or giving some pointers. The key is to make the data in the end valuable, instead of a jumble of graphs.

It was recommended to me by the Practice of System Administration book, which I highly recommend as it outlines many great 2017-2018 practices .

The first thing to remember is that the OSI model doesn't completely fit many of the network protocols which are widely in use today. Some of our protocols fit nicely in the OSI slots, and others straddle multiple slots. This is a fact of history: many of the network protocols we use today were invented (in some form) before OSI and the OSI model. OSI was, to some extent, a competing set of networking protocols and ideas. That doesn't mean that the OSI model doesn't have great value in allowing people to think clearly about networks.

Ok, what is the OSI model? It is a multi layered model that breaks the delivery of networked applications up into layers, names Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and Application. The general idea is that each layer of the stack presents a clean interface (sometimes called a contract) to the one above it, such that the lower layers could be swapped out without changing th operation of the upper layers. Some of these layers are more interesting than others, so I'll focus on those.

• First, Physical. The physical layer refers to the actual transmission of bits over a wire, the design of the wire, the design of the transceivers that drive the wires, and the way that the digital signal is encoded into an analog signal (because digital signals don't really exist - they are just an abstraction).
  
  
• Next, Data Link. This has got to do with how (typically fixed size) groups of bits - called frames - are moved around the network. How do they find where they are going (physical addressing)? How do we stop multiple users of the network from breaking each other (access control)?
  
  
• Network. This provides a logical abstraction of the data link layer. Addresses become logical (more like a phone number than a physical address) and the problem of how to move packets (groups of frames) across a complex network is addressed.
  
  
• Transport. The layers below allow packets to arrive out of order, get lost, get corrupted, and so on. Transport provides abstractions on top of the network that hide some of these warts. TCP is one such example: if packets are delivered at all, they are delivered in-order, completely and correctly. This layer might also provide some other level of logical addressing, like TCP and UDP port numbers.
  
  
• Session. The session layer is interested in faking a 'connection'. In a packet-based network, there is no actual physical connection. The session layer (some parts of TCP for example) creates a logical connection.
  
  
• Presentation. As we get higher up the stack people disagree more and more about what each layer means in modern networks. Presentation is the biggest one. You can read wikipedia's take, but you'll get a different one from every book. Encryption (like SSL) is nearly always lumped into this layer.
  
  
• Application. Finally, the meat of the matter. What are we using the network for? HTTP is the most famous application layer protocol (look at your address bar for http://), but is only one of a menagerie of protocols.
  
  
• (Bonus Layer) Politics. The political layer is an ongoing joke among networking types, and it refers to how politics trumps everything else on the network.
  
  Highly recommended Computer networks by Andrew Tanenbaum. It's the best book for noobs by far.

A few thoughts. Hopefully at least one of them will be helpful.

• Learn How to Speak Boss. Stop reading this post and go watch this. Yes, right now. I'll wait.
  
• Your job is just a job. They get your time in exchange for a paycheck. They do not get your physical and/or mental health.
  
• Work you ass off for 8 hours then GTFO. Do things you love, with people you like, and don't answer the fucking phone or your work email until your return to work the next day.
  
• Long weekends are your friend. You have vacation time. Use it and don't even feel bad. Don't think of 10 days as "two weeks". In a place this crazy, taking an entire week off will be utter hell coming back - assuming you'll even get an entire week off approved. Think of 10 days as "one long weekend every 6 weeks". Put the time off requests in all at once.
  
• Work from home is evil. Home is your safe place to get away from work. Working from home defeats this purpose. Fight me.
  
• Read Time Management for System Administrators then do what it says.
  
• Document how you spend your time. Do this in addition to the ticketing system, because the ticketing system only tracks time on tickets. You have other things to do, too, and that time probably isn't visible to your supervisor.
  
• Document what you do. Get in the habit of documenting EVERYTHING. Convince yourself the task isn't completed until the documentation has been updated, and do not move to the next task until the current task is done. Ignore the tendency to "document it later, when things calm down". Pro Tip: Things will NEVER calm down. Build documentation time into your project timelines.
  
• There is never enough time. Ever. I don't care how many people are on your team, IT isn't about having no tickets. It's about properly managing the workload.
  
• Incremental progress. You aren't going to change things in big chunks. Don't try. Read The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT and do what it says - even if nobody else on the team does.
  
• Automate all the things. Seriously. You have better things to do than manually perform system checks. Automate that shit. If it can't be automated, make the business case for upgrade and then automate it.
  
• Sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than ask permission. If your boss is resistant to process automation, pick a small non-critical process, document how much time it takes to do manually, then automate it anyway. Show how much time you saved by not doing this one thing manually. Repeat as necessary until you're the most productive motherfucker on the team. Then use this information to justify a pay increase.
  
• Slow the fuck down. My dad used to say, "I'm always in a hurry, but I never rush." Do things as efficiently as possible, but do NOT rush. Rushing causes you to overlook critical aspects of things. Rushing makes you frazzled. Rushing makes you leave your keys on your desk & locks you out of your office. DO NOT RUSH. Things take as long as they take.
  
• The phone on your desk is Satan incarnate. Don't answer it unless you absolutely must. (Y'know, like when your boss calls.) Staff will do everything they can to bypass ticketing systems. The ringer on my desk phone is turned all the way down; I can barely hear it. Our phone system integrates with email, so messages show up in my Inbox. Playing back a message from my email is less of an interruption to my workflow than actually talking to some asshat who can't be bothered to submit a ticket. Most of the time, people won't leave a message, anyway.
  
• Close your email when you need to focus. Not just minimize the window. Close it completely. If desk phones are Satan, email is one of the Dukes of Hell. Just because someone emails you doesn't mean you have to read it immediately. In fact, replying as soon as a message arrives only serves to encourage users to email you directly as a bypass to the ticketing system. I check my email three times a day.
  
  I could go on, but most of the above is already in the two books I listed and I'd just be riffing on a theme. I'll leave you with this:
  
  
• They can't take away what you learn. Seriously. Learn it ALL.
  
• The best time to find a job is when you have one. Absolutely keep your resume updated and sign up for job alerts on your favorite job site (sent to your personal email, obviously). Take a page from actors & musicians and never stop looking for your next gig.

A good start would be to study for any standard certifications in the field, since they cover the basic topics and hey, why not get certified while you are at it? Comptia's N+, Cisco's CCENT or CWNP's CWTS cover the fundamentals of networking.
On the other hand, you could just go through free online lectures like this one on youtube or this one offered by MIT. Of course, there's always the good old-fashioned way to learn- borrow any standard textbook like Tanenbaum.

Thanks for the links and ideas too, I'm hoping to get my RHCSA in the next few months also. Here's what I've been doing:

• My employer thankfully paid for a course, RHCSA Rapid Track Course (RH199). It was fast paced and very by the book, but I learned a lot. I don't work in a Linux heavy shop, so I'm coming at it from more of a long-term hobbyist perspective. I wanted something that would keep my attention and give me more hands-on with the latest version in a little more directed way.
  
  http://www.globalknowledge.com/training/course.asp?pageid=9&courseid=15678&country=United+States
  
  
• Linux Bible - http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Bible-Christopher-Negus/dp/111821854X
  
  Very RHEL/CentOS focused, lots of emphasis on RHCSA/RHCSE. It's more focused on RHEL 6, but if I'm remembering right there is some discussion of sysvinit vs systemd and how to deal with both. Good read overall I think for the future too.
  
  
• The link perfecthashbrowns gave you already has been helpful when the others weren't as detailed as I was looking for.
  
  I suck at taking tests, but I've been experimenting at home and creating some screwed up scenarios, and I'm getting decent enough to work out of messes. I feel like I'm learning something at least.

I as well went to school for Network Engineering and am working Entry-Level networking now. These are the books that have helped me so far.

Network Warrior

Network+

CCNA Library

TCP/IP Illustrated

I've read a few others, but these were my favorite ones. The Network+ book helped me obtain my Network+ Cert, then the CCNA Library helped me obtain my CCENT and CCNA. Great Books!

I would only recommend that Netowork+ book though if you plan on getting into Cisco stuff because the author is a Cisco guy and tends to start rambling about Cisco technologies that you will learn for the CCNA.

You don't need the mumbo jumbo (but if you are genuinely interested, google or https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Protocols-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321336313/ref=sr_1_2)

Let's see what we can learn from the part you pasted.

The first few lines are just setting up the TCP connection. Kind of like two people saying, "hello, nice to meet you."

192.168.2.1.80 -> 192.168.2.15.41580

192.168.2.15.41580 -> 192.168.2.1.80

IE: 192.168.2.15 port 41580 is talking to 192.168.2.1 port 80

A bit later we see:

HTTP: GET top_conn.xml HTTP/1.1

So the client (192.168.2.15) is asking for http://192.168.2.1/top_conn.xml

The server replies:

HTTP: HTTP/1.0 200 Ok

Meaning the resource is available, and I presume the payload contains the data.

What we have learned:

1. The client (192.168.2.15) can successfully send packets to the server (192.168.2.1)
   
2. The server (192.168.2.1) can successfully send packets to the client (192.168.2.15)
   
3. The web server is running on port 80
   
4. The web server successfully responded to a web request from the client.
   
   Now you need to try connecting from outside your firewall via the port-forward.
   
   First, you want to see packets successfully reaching the server from outside. If you don't see those, obviously nothing will work; there's something wrong with your firewall port-forwarding rule.
   
   Second, you want to see packets successfully returned by the server. If you don't see those, something is wrong with the server.
   
   Third, on the client (outside the firewall) you want to see the returned packets from the server. If you don't see those, your firewall is preventing packets from leaving your LAN (yes, firewalls can filter packets in only one direction, or any number of ways. It's their job, after all.)
   
   Fourth, if packets are moving through your firewall in both directions successfully, but you still don't see the webpage you expect, it's probably something with your web server.
   
   Hope this helps :D

Learn the fundamentals before you touch any of the crap from a vendor.

Computer Networks by Andy Tanenbaum. Available from Amazon but you should buy a used copy on abebooks for < $10. A newer (e.g. 2002) edition is preferable.

Once you've read that feel free to pick up the trade-oriented certification guides that will teach you command line stuff.

Also, put Linux on an old computer or two. Don't spend more than $100, any old junk will do. Play around with the network tools.

Good luck!

If you have the time, this textbook is the real deal: Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach

http://smile.amazon.com/Computer-Networking-Top-Down-Approach-5th/dp/0136079679/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453149284&sr=1-2&keywords=computer+networking+a+top-down+approach

I actually started off watching networking and CCNA tutorials on Youtube, as well as some online guides. They do introduce some concepts, but for me, it was still difficult to grasp how everything was built and how they interact. I'd be able to spout off what the 7 layers of the OSI model are, the basic differences between TCP and UDP, and some other pieces of info. Yet, I didn't feel like I actually understood how networking worked. I felt like I was learning facts here and there, but not learning the fundamentals that tie everything together. Nothing made me go "Ohhh so that's how/why it works!"

Then I got this book. It really explains the concepts well. It felt almost too easy. It begins by explaining how the internet works, what are the different components, how it all came to be, and how they're all connected. It then handles each layer (it does talk about the OSI model, but the book is structured around TCP/IP) from top to bottom and goes into technical detail, along with some math, as well as providing real world examples.

Each concept usually has an accompanying analogy (during the first couple chapters), if that helps you learn. After the TCP/IP chapters, it goes into more specific topics like wireless, security, etc. The end of each chapter also has guided labs (like with Wireshark, for example) and problem sets.

I'd really recommend going through each chapter, taking notes, and doing the labs and problems if you want a solid foundation in how networking works. Having this sort of understanding, to me, really helped when studying CCNA material - which by then would just be learning the commands and configuration.

Most "schools" that offer QA programs or courses are usually a waste of money. This is due to the fact that there are not many regulations or standards that exist for education in this field. They can teach some extremely outdated syllabus and get away with it because their students and admins do not know any better (look at all the useless certifications out there). Testing is an extremely nuanced and complicated art, it's one of those things that is very easy to get started and do badly, and most people cannot tell the difference. This is an area where I'd like to make a difference later in my career. For now though, if you want to get into testing, I would suggest you to both learn the automation side (even though you didn't pass your java course, you are still probably technically savvy enough to learn the basics and go from there) and the theoretical testing concepts.

You get a lot of devs that do not have a testing mindset or testers without enough technical skills / coding experience. If you can do both really well then you will be looked at like a unicorn and can make a good living (depending on your country/area).

The easiest way to get into automation is learning through a tool like Postman (back end testing) or Selenium. There's tons of Udemy courses and youtube content for these.

Check out Valentin Despa's content for PM, and John Sonmez or Naveem's stuff for selenium.

For testing concepts such as analysis, risk, quality criteria, communication, test design and techniques I would suggest reading the following books:

https://www.amazon.ca/Explore-Increase-Confidence-Exploratory-Testing/dp/1937785025

https://www.amazon.ca/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing-Context-Driven/dp/0471081124

https://www.amazon.ca/Perfect-Software-Other-Illusions-Testing/dp/0932633692

and consider taking Rapid Software Testing classes from michael bolton or james bach, they get pretty theoretical but are based upon practical work that you will be asked to perform.

These videos can also give you a pretty good sense of the testing role:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILkT_HV9DVU&t=19s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FTwaojNkXw&t=2048s

Yes, those are the two sections that I haven't done v4 recordings for yet. Multicast will be added in the near future as part of a larger multicast series I'm working on.

QoS hasn't changed from the SPv3 to SPv4 blueprints. Here they are side by side:

SPv3 Blueprint:

• 1.10. SP QoS
  
• 1.10.1. Marking using DSCP, IP precedence and CoS
  
• 1.10.2. Priority Queuing
  
• 1.10.3. Custom Queuing
  
• 1.10.4. Weighted Fair Queuing
  
• 1.10.5. WRED
  
• 1.10.6. Policing
  
• 1.10.7. Class-based Weighted Faire Queuing (CB-WFQ)
  
• 1.10.8. Low-Latency Queuing (LLQ)
  
• 1.10.9. Random-Detect using MQC
  
• 1.10.10. NBAR for QoS
  
• 1.10.11. MPLS EXP
  
• 1.10.12. Differentiated Services Traffic Engineering (DS-TE)
  
• 1.10.13. Maximum Allocation Model (MAM)
  
• 1.10.14. Russian Dolls Model (RDM)
  
• 1.10.15. Class-Based Tunnel Selection: CBTS
  
• 1.10.16. Policy-based Tunnel Selection: PBTS
  
  SPv4 Blueprint:
  
  
• 1.6 Quality of Service (QoS)
  
• 1.6.a Describe, implement, and troubleshoot classification and marking
  
• 1.6.b Describe, implement, and troubleshoot congestion management and scheduling, for example, policing, shaping, and queuing
  
• 1.6.c Describe, implement, and troubleshoot congestion avoidance
  
• 1.6.d Describe, implement, and troubleshoot MPLS QoS models (MAM, RDM, Pipe, Short Pipe, and Uniform)
  
• 1.6.e Describe, implement, and troubleshoot MPLS TE QoS (CBTS, PBTS, and DS-TE)
  
• 3.3 Quality of Service (QoS)
  
• 3.3.a Describe, implement, and troubleshoot classification and marking
  
• 3.3.b Describe, implement, and troubleshoot congestion management and scheduling, for example, policing, shaping, and queuing
  
• 3.3.c Describe, implement, and troubleshoot congestion avoidance
  
  
  Beyond those QoS videos in the playlist, I would recommend to read the following:
  
  
• Chapter 13. Implementing Quality of Service in MPLS Networks from MPLS Configuration on Cisco IOS Software
  
• Part VII: MPLS VPN QoS Design from End-to-End QoS Network Design
  
  Edit: Also, check out Packet Volume 7 No. 1, First Quarter 1995.. There's a great article on page 11 titled "Building Consistent Quality of Service into the Network". ;)
  
  

Nice congrats!

Right now my plans are to not study anything for a while. But after that I am going to study more Python and this:
https://www.amazon.com/Network-Programmability-Automation-Next-Generation-Engineer-dp-1491931256/dp/1491931256/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

I work a very expanded helpdesk roll at a small credit union, so boss wants me to start studying MCSA and ITIL and eventually Security+. So I have a path there.

I know everyone one likes to carry their momentum into the next cert, but I am just gonna slow down and enjoy some other aspects of my life for a while. I put a lot of stuff on hold as I studied, so I am looking to get a better balance in my life.

'Best practice' is such a vague term that you're going to run into issues defining it in a meaningful way for your client's environment.

I'd look at generic guides (u/jhend28 mentions a good one) but also read up on specifics that apply to your environment. For example: best practice for a level 4 data center hosting financial data for banks etc. will not apply at all you a SME with two servers on premise that don't sell direct and hold no Top Secret data.

Have a read of The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1 for a good starting place.

Check out "The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT (3rd Edition)" by Thomas Limoncelli.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321919165

I'm also pretty new to this job, and this book has been really helpful in better understanding all that we get to do.

Some good books:

VMware vSphere Clustering Deepdive

Administering vSphere 5

VMware vSphere 5 Administration Instant Reference

Mastering VMware vSphere 5 as already mentioned - great book

Blogs:

www.yellow-bricks.com as someone else mentioned

http://vlp.vsphere-land.com/ <-- Link to list of more VMware blogs than you could ever possibly read


Other:

Follow virtualization guys on Twitter (@scott_lowe, @duncanYB, @rick_vmwaretips, @ChrisWahl, @FrankDenneman, etc, etc, etc.)

/r/vmware

VMware channel (#vmware) on Freenode

See if there's a local VMware Users Group that meets in your area. Lots of information/smart people to be found there. - www.vmug.com

Set up a home lab (can check out /r/homelab for information) and get some practical experience to go along with all of the reading that is in your future. :)


EDIT: Found a cool list of the top 10 virtualization Twitter accounts: http://vdestination.com/2010/09/23/top-10-virtualization-twitter-accounts/

I know of some good text books that are pretty easy to read. The Oppenheim and Schafer are considered by a lot of my former profs to be the bible of DSP intro:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131988425/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0132146355&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=17WDV1JR8EA7P3D8W78A

It's pretty comprehensive, so if you're looking for something simpler, this is a pretty short and intuitive intro text (which was actually my first exposure to DSP!):

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Signal-Processing-Primer-Applications/dp/0805316841

The bandwidth command on an interface affects routing protocol metrics (protocols like EIGRP and OSPF both use bandwidth as a part of their metric calculation) and as I recall it does affect the calcualtion (not actual bandwidth but the calculation which may then affect actual allocation in a policymap) in a QOS policies where the policy references bandwidth percentage (but not hard set expression listed in X bits per second).

​

Since I am almost always running an RP on a WAN interface (this is MPLS) that more times than not has less of an allocation than its interface speed the bandwidth statement on the interface matches the allocation from the provider edge / circuit order.

​

Then for QOS the shaping command is used to shape the traffic to the correct speed and a sub-policy is used to assign priority queue and bandwidth percentages based on class maps (which are often DSCP based). The is not the only way to skin the QOS cat though.

​

This is a newer edition of a book that i used to use as desk reference material, I DO NOT KNOW what if this is the most current. Typically books are not, and instead Cisco online documentation is best. (but I am not hunting for that right now)

​

https://www.amazon.com/End-End-QoS-Network-Design/dp/1587143690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536680974&sr=8-1&keywords=Cisco+press+end+to+end+qos+network+design

​

one last thing, the best thing to remember is QOS is a congestion management tool...try to avoid needing congestion management tools by buying circuits that do not get congested.

​

​

I don't know much about any other websites other than Coursera, so I don't know if there are any courses I'm missing on the other websites.

Security:

On Coursera, I highly recommend the
Cyber Security Specialization. It covers a varied approach to security from multiples perspective and a great start for anyone.

After that you will have to look around for the specific type of security you are interested in. You won't find a MOOC because it is probably too specialized.

If you want a more mathematically rigorous courseload in crypto, I would suggest doing both Crytography I and Lectures by Christof Paar

Networking:

Sadly I haven't come across a good networking course. My current suggestion is to read Computer Networking: A Top down approach. You should be able to find PDFs of 6th ed (don't tell anyone I said that) which is similar to the 7th ed except the last chapter.

After that, you should be comfortable enough, but if you want to dive in deeper, read CCNA and CCNP books for the specific part you want to get a good understanding of (I would suggest starting with CCNA R&S).

If you're looking for an intro that will get you doing hands-on stuff quickly, I definitely recommend "Practical Packet Analysis: Using Wireshark...". Only if you want something that's far from textbook-y and will give you some insight into doing casual sysadmin type stuff. Also, "Nmap Network Scanning" will get you doing some hands-on fun activities as well. Just pay attention to local laws before doing anything that might raise red flags.

• Nmap network scanning
  
• Wireshark
  
  everyone recommends TCP/IP illustrated, and I've still got that on my shelf and to-do list. Can't lose there.

This has been one of my favorite books: http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Bible-Christopher-Negus/dp/111821854X/

And I read through this entire book: http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0131480057/

They are both great!

Edit: I can't type much because my internet is going out regularly at the moment, otherwise I'd love to elaborate further.

If you really want in-depth knowledge, I would go with TCP/IP Illustrated. It has recently been updated and pretty much covers the gamut of all things networking.

If that looks a little too daunting, you can go with a CCENT book (Lammle and Odom tend to be the best writers, IMO). It does cover Cisco products, but the concepts in it are primarily vendor neutral. Hope that helps.

Yeah reading about design patterns is going to be a great help in moving forward. They will carry throughout most programming languages too, not just c#.

I just got a book that was recommended to me and I am really excited to read it, after I finish my current book. Check it out:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1509302581?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition)

Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 (5th Edition)

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols (2nd Edition)

are the three 'vendor neutral' books that are recommended by INE as resources for all CCIE tracts.



Cisco CCIE book list contains the following:

Other Publications

Cisco Documentation

Configuring IPv6 for Cisco IOS (Edgar Parenti, Jr., Eric Knnip, Brian Browne, Syngress, ISBN# 1928994849)

Interconnections: Bridges & Routers, Second Edition (Perlman, Addison Wesley, ISBN# 0201634481)

"Internetworking Technology Overview" Available through Cisco Store under doc # DOC-785777

Internetworking with TCP/IP, Vol.1: Principles, Protocols, and Architecture (4th Edition)
(Comer, Prentice Hall, ISBN# 0130183806)

IPv6: Theory, Protocol, and Practice, 2nd Edition (Pete Loshin, Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN# 1558608109)

LAN Protocol Handbook (Miller, M&T Press, ISBN# 1558510990 )
Routing In the Internet (2nd Edition) (Huitema, Prentice Hall, ISBN# 0130226475)

TCP/IP Illustrated: Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (Stevens/Wright, Addison Wesley, ISBN# 0201633469, 020163354X, 0201634953)



edit1:
I own the first three and recommend them for vendor neutral network engineering books, with Perlman's book being the best switching book I've personally ever read.


edit2:
also I find wikipedia articles on computer related topics to be top shelf. I would recommend many of the references and papers referenced in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory
article.

Well, one thing to consider is that DRS doesn't seek to "balance out the load." At least not at its core. It's main purpose is to ensure that all VMs are getting the resources they need and that there isn't a large disparity. Frank Denneman has a good write up, a little old, but still applicable. His Clustering Deepdive book is also an excellent resource on understanding DRS.

Edit: Another good read on DRS.

> Tanenbaum's Operating Systems - Design and Implementation

It's the bible. Also get his Computer Networks book, another bible :) He's a great writer too, it was one of the few mandatory books we had I read front to back for pleasure.

Funny you should mention The Pragmatic Programmers. When I started working on The D Programming Language I've been seriously discussing working with TPP. (They pay very good royalties for one thing.) After a few discussions, it became clear that they want me to obey their exact format and toolchain, which I found rather limiting. They wouldn't want to accommodate some simple requests such as multi-page tables. So I decided to go with Addison Wesley Longman instead, which gives me total control over format (I send them the final PDF). I think this will be a win for the reader.

For the overall picture (vSphere only), you can't go wrong with Scott Lowe's Mastering vSphere 5.

Epping and Denneman wrote a technical deepdive book on clustering which really gets into the nitty gritty.

And for storage, Mostafa Khalil wrote the bible.

Also, if you want to really dive into the virtualization arena, definitely check out the VMware community site. Follow people on twitter, join the live podcasts (community podcast and vBrownBags), etc... Listening to recorded podcasts is also a great way to learn.

That depends on the book. Books on frameworks or specific languages are rarely useful -- I find that online reference manuals are the best for that.

However, books like TCP/IP Illustrated, The Art of Multiprocessor Programming, Compilers: Principles, techniques, and tools, An Introduction to Algorithms and similar tend to age pretty well, and I still find myself pulling them out and referring to them quite often.

There's Andrei Alexandrescu's book, The Day Programming Language, which has been well received. Andrei is one of the language designers and joined Walter Bright pretty early in the process of designing D2, the current version of D.

I haven't read it (I prefer online documentation and forums), and I'm unfamiliar with the book you mentioned (I'm mostly familiar with K&R's C).

Anyway, hope this helps!

Appreciate all the upvotes. Given no one has commented, I'm wondering if that means people think it's a cool idea but don't live in NYC? Would anyone be interested in doing this as a remote discussion group?

For the first book I'm thinking:
Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach

With this self-paced 8 week course (lectures / exams / transcripts all available) https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/Networking-SP/SelfPaced/info

Let me know =)

They are just now starting to come out. I would recommend these two books "Network Warrior" (this covers real-world applications not covered by the soon former CCNA R&S exam). It is a bit dated but a good read. The other is "Network Programmability and Automation". These should help tide you over until the books come out. Both are on amazon.com


https://www.amazon.com/Network-Warrior-Everything-Need-Wasnt/dp/1449387861/ref=sr_1_3?crid=25XVKEVRZ1LXQ&keywords=network+warrior+3rd+edition&qid=1573413049&s=books&sprefix=network+warrior+%2Cstripbooks%2C232&sr=1-3


https://www.amazon.com/Network-Programmability-Automation-Next-Generation-Engineer/dp/1491931256/ref=sr_1_3?crid=5F6P0KHY1366&keywords=network+programmability+and+automation&qid=1573413098&s=books&sprefix=network+program%2Cstripbooks%2C207&sr=1-3

Honestly, you are never going to find a way to shortcut you out of this situation. No one answer is going to be perfect and get you from A to B if your already at C. I had a similar experience with programming and web development.

I studied computer networking all my adult life and never thought I would be developing as my career at the moment. It is the burden of knowing too much and not having a clear direction. What I needed was more confidence in my skills which can only really develop over the years through experience.

You say you already know a lot of Linux and Bash concepts. CD/CI pipelines try to abstract a lot of OS related involvement since your code doesn’t need to know how low level kernel operations are happening.

What it sounds like you need is knowledge of OS concepts, not just Linux concepts. I say this because every OS has its own way of doing the same thing one way or another.

For example virtual memory, if you understand the concept of virtual memory in any OS rather than a specific OS’s semantics regarding Virtual memory then I think you would be better off in the long run.

If I am wrong and you are the master of the Linux environment, I believe you just need to deep dive into development strategies and the core principles of CD/CI. Once you have a foundation it doesn’t really mater if you are a Jenkins expert or CircleCI expert, all that matters is if you have a foundation to fall back on.

Edit: if you wanted my two cents on material here are some books I recommend.

The Practice of System and Network Administration

Operating Systems Concepts

UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook

Well you're not going to learn any programming without a computer. But just a book on computer systems or a book on networking will easily overflow 20 days and should be a very interesting read.

I recommend either this book on computer systems or this book on networking.

• 1. Learn Networking - This is typically where installations are done incorrectly. Learn networking basics until you are solid then know the current best practices from the VMware Networking Guide.
     
• 2. RTFM - It's not the official manual but it might as well be.
     
• 3. Labs - Make use of the VMware HOL
     This should be a good start.

If you are trying to shore up what you feel are knowledge gaps regarding networking - I am a fan of Chris Sanders practical packet analysis He has training that if fairly reasonable if you company does reimbursement His Site

Grab a book like TCP IP illustrated, which is very in depth, makes a great reference, and is vendor agnostic.

Here are a few books I recommend:

Blue Team Handbook


Defensive Security Handbook


The Practice of Network Security Monitoring


Crafting the Infosec Playbook


And don't forget the NIST Cyber Security Framework

Even earlier versions would be a very good read despite the DevOps hype, but the 3rd (new) version includes best DevOps practices even without having any devs.

The textbook for the class I took absolutely sucked. I bought Mastering VSphere 6 ( Mastering VMware vSphere 6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118925157/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_UUXFAbVRY5J9X ) and it was perfect for me. It was a lifesaver when I was setting up my home network and I keep it on my shelf at work. Strongly recommend.

Here are a couple books I have. The author of the first one was a teacher of mine a while back. She really knows her stuff. That book in particular is good for explaining all the protocols involved and how the packets are put together.

http://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Protocols-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321336313/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382132562&sr=1-1&keywords=tcp+ip+illustrated


This second book is more general networking stuff. Still some really good reference material.

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Network-Modern-Kaufmann-Networking/dp/0123745411/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382132562&sr=1-7&keywords=tcp+ip+illustrated

And for operating system basics, this is a good all-rounder:

http://www.amazon.com/Operating-Concepts-Seventh-Abraham-Silberschatz/dp/0471694665/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382132818&sr=1-4&keywords=operating+system+concepts

And for *nix because it is important and nobody thinks about it:

http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0131480057/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382132917&sr=1-1&keywords=Linux+System+administration

I took general networking courses in college as part of my major and honestly, I didn't learn much. If you want a good book on general networking, read this fantastic book by Radia Perlman:

Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches-Internetworking-Protocols/dp/0201634481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321155480&sr=8-1

If it's a college course where you can get a CCNA at the end, I'd recommend taking that.

Honestly, it sounds like you are a bit over your head... I'd suggest checking out the book "The practice of system and network administration" it has a lot of really useful info about these sorts of things. https://www.amazon.ca/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518211088&sr=8-1&keywords=the+practice+of+system+and+network+administration

You'll need a good book and a good community (university? Linux User Group in your area?).

Don't try to learn from crappy outdated tutorials. Don't try to learn it all on your own. Choose a distribution carefully and be loyal to it for a while -- no novelty-seeking, optimistic "This distro will be so much better" distro-switching. Don't get obsessed with it -- it's a set of tools, not a way of life (hopefully).

I highly recommended: www.amazon.co.uk/Linux-Bible-Christopher-Negus/dp/111821854X/

What specifically? I'd suggest learning about networking in general. I.e. good place to start would be the OSI networking stack, learning about packets & how they organized, downloading and using wireshark to look at the packets going into and out of your machine.


This is the one I used, and it worked really well for me to get a good view of networking. If there's something you don't understand, I think you could google and find relevant tutorials/articles explaining the concepts there, though there's some obscure stuff that you don't need to fully understand (queuing theory) for a basic understanding.

CCNA gets you the basics, but it includes a lot of stuff that's not really useful from your perspective (WAN stuff, cabling details, etc.)

If you want to get stuck in, you might be better off understanding the protocols. This book is a great resource for that. Everything you ever wanted to know about ARP, DNS, routing and TCP (probably way more than you ever wanted to know about TCP).

I would take a close look at what your doing now before looking for a tool to through money at. You will be able to get a better lift from fixing what you have now before starting on automation.

What is our current testing process?
When does it start?
Who does what, when?
How do we execute tests?
What type of documentation is there?
What is our definition of done?
What slows down testing?
Do we have the right people testing?

Check out the book Lessons Learned in Software Testing: A Context-Driven Approach - https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Learned-Software-Testing-Context-Driven/dp/0471081124

It's a collection of short lessons, read the ones you find relevant don't worry about skipping around. I think it would be very helpful.

Look at the SANS website. They have some downloadable Word docs with basic questions. Other Google searches for 'audit' checklists will bring up some others.

From the audits that I've been part of, you need to focus on these key areas:

1. Servers - patching schedules, hardening processes, vulnerability scans (Nessus)
   
2. Files - security audits on who can access what, permissions reports on shared files, Where is the data stored?
   
3. Network - how locked down is the network and who can get on it? Do you have a separate Guest network?
   
4. Firewall - what type of policies do you have? Do you have IDS/IPS? What categories do you block?
   
5. Physical security - do you have door systems with locked-down access? Do you have security cameras? Do you have water sensors under the AC units?
   
6. Personnel - do you have security training? Are your users compliant with any standards (HIPAA, PCI, etc.)? Do you perform account audits, looking for old usernames or passwords that never expire?
   
7. In some cases, auditors look at individual departments to determine if their normal business practices put the entire business at risk.
   
   Also, take a look at this book. It helped me get a security program started, from the ground up. https://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Security-Handbook-Practices-Infrastructure/dp/1491960388/ref=sr_1_15?keywords=building+a+network+security&qid=1566233244&s=gateway&sr=8-15

Read Limoncelli's book: The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1. That would give you a good place to start and learn best practices.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537969093&sr=1-4&keywords=The+Practice+of+System+and+Network+Administration&dpID=5139XV0QYsL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

​

• The Practice of Network Security Monitoring: Understanding Incident Detection and Response
  
  
• Applied Network Security Monitoring: Collection, Detection, and Analysis
  
  Either one of these two should get you started. I haven't personally read the 2nd one, but I've heard good things.
  
  Followup/Read along with either/both of the following:
  
  
• [Practical Packet Analysis: Using Wireshark to Solve Real-World Network Problems] (http://amzn.com/1593272669)
  
  
• Network Forensics: Tracking Hackers through Cyberspace

So I have the MCSE Mobility and I do not know if that alone will last.

Would rather say it depends on your skill. You can also become a sysadmin without a certificate as the others have already mentioned. The MCSE Mobility does not really go deeper into server landscapes like the MCSA Server 2016 does.

The topics to be covered is:

Deplyoment

Inunte

And SCCM with intune I think.

I chose Deployment because I already had experience.

This contains:

LTIDeployment (mdt)

ZT Deployment (sccm)

WDS

USTMIf you really want to go deeper I can recommend the following book

is also recommended here in the wiki.

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-3rd/dp/0321919165/hope you get your sysdamin place :)

Thanks for linking this, I hadn't seen it yet. As a Windows admin looking to get into Linux, this seems interesting.

Also, for your automation, I'd recommend Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, if you haven't read it already. It can also be found for free here: Automate the Boring Stuff.

I'll add another plug for The Practice of System and Network Information, even if you have a good feel for the philosophical part of the job.

This book on Group Policy: https://www.amazon.com/Group-Policy-Fundamentals-Security-Managed/dp/1119035589/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539909607&sr=8-2&keywords=group+policy

I also second setting up a home lab. It isn't actually that difficult to set up a domain controller and some client VMs, and there is no better way to gain practical knowledge than by doing.

As for the MCSA, definitely start with 70-698 and not 70-697 if you are going to be doing on premise opposed to cloud (Azure) AD.

Yes, "it really depends on what you want to do." For generics you can search for "vsphere best practices" and find whitepapers, or buy a vSphere book. You can also hit up \r\vmware.

Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach

The book should be mostly sufficient for a modern approach to "end systems". The text content for SDN and NFV is fairly short, while the rest of the content digs pretty deep into the technical side of networking. If you get the newest version, it has been updated to accommodate newer concepts like SDN etc. Included with the book is access to online resources like Wireshark labs to reinforce learning.

Everybody probably has his favorite book. The book I had to study for my Networking class was Computer Networking: A TopDown Approach by Kurose and Ross.

Great book and very pedagogical. I read the Tanenbaum's book and my preference goes to the one I linked.

There is a Mastering vSphere 6 book Can confirm, I used the 5.5 version to get my VCP-DCV. Excellent reference book. Also agree the ICM class is so very basic that if you've installed a homelab, chances are you won't learn much new. When I took it I'd deployed several clusters already and didn't take much away.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1509302581/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Best of the best

Edit: by mistake I pasted a link to the first edition. Now updated.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1593275099/

I am not sure about the size of your environment. If it's small, Splunk may be way outside your budget.

Take a look at that link above if you really want to build an open source solution for security monitoring. It'll take a lot of elbow grease and knowledge of your business to be effective. Pick up the book and build yourself a POC to see what you can see.

Putting asside VA_Network_Nerd's condescending advice. If you want to go anywhere in your career you need to go beyond google. I'd go to indeed or DICE and search for Network Administrator or jr network admin in your area then look up job requirements and preferences.

Set up a GNS3 or Virl lab, or just buy some cheap switches/routers on ebay for homelab.
Get your CCNA. There should be no debate that CCNA is best for network admins starting out. I personally wouldn't let someone touch my network without at least a CCNA. Get hands on with Windows and Linux servers and various tools like nmap, nagios and other monitoring tools, wireshark.

Read:

The Practice of System and Network Administration

I also use cbtnuggets.com for my IT training. It's more than worth the monthly fee if you stick to it.

I'd check out these two books from the local library and read the first 2-3 chapters. It might contain more than what you need, but these are pretty well written books and don't assume a lot of previous knowledge.

http://www.amazon.com/Structured-Computer-Organization-5th-Edition/dp/0131485210

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networks-5th-Andrew-Tanenbaum/dp/0132126958/ref=la_B000AQ1UBW_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376126566&sr=1-1

Or you could just check out your network settings and search for the terms that you encounter (IP address, DNS, DHCP, gateway, proxy, router, firewall)

Can confirm. I would also recommend some additional reading. Something like https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-VMware-vSphere-Nick-Marshall/dp/1118925157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464096815&sr=8-1&keywords=mastering+vsphere+6 will be a good start.

"Practical Packet Analysis" is by far my favorite Wireshark book.

edit: I should probably mention the book was published in 2011, so some of the information is regarding older technology, but the book is still fantastic.

Additionally, pick up VMware vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive. It applies to 5.5 as well. Definitely a good book.

The Visible Ops Handbook: Implementing ITIL in 4 Practical and Auditable Steps

The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT (3rd Edition)

For us a Change is any change to the environment that isn't controlled by a separate process, like new employees, termination, etc.

If your not sure, it's a CM.

A+ and Net+ and all the other +-certs are entry level. CCNA is entry level, and 70-680 is entry level.

Something to consider is that everyone has certs these days, so the certs you get must make you better than "everyone".

For example, CCNP is a rather high-end cert. You don't see a lot of CVs with this on, because people with this cert only need a Linkedin page, and the offers will come in endless streams.

MCSE is absolutely good to have if you want to go anywhere in a Microsoft environment, though Microsoft doesn't really do high-end certs anymore, so the only thing you can really aim for with an MCSE is an MVP award, but that does take some serious effort.

WCNA is worth some brownie points in the right places.

You should also supplement certs with in-depth knowledge, and recommended practices, for example,

• Windows Internals 7th edition
  
• The Practice of System and Network Administration: V1
  
  I can't really help much with regards to Linux though. It's not really my area.

Practice of Network Security Monitoring is the best place to start.

The Practice of System and Network Administration.

A few general principles:

• Automate the setup of said servers. Pick a configuration manager: Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Salt. Keep the code for said CM in revision control.
  
  
• Separate your datastore (DB) from your frontend (webservers).
  
  
• Separate your backups from everything else.
  
  
• Set up a scheduled maintenance window in which you patch all of your boxes up-to-date with the latest security fixes. Include reboots where necessary (kernels need love too, and relatively few places have implemented hot-patching kernels).

Adaptive Code: Agile coding with design patterns and SOLID principles (2nd Edition) (Developer Best Practices) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509302581/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_W-SrDbP9CE48Y

Yes, ARPA was on X.25, but that was not the only communication protocol out there. The IP stack was built because the different networks used different protocols and the desire to communicate between them required a standardized one.

Yes, ARPANet, NSFNet, CSNET, and a slew of others were the roots of the internet, but there was NO internetworking going on before that. The internet was born when they started internetworking. Argue with Tanenbaum, not me.

Since I can't find the full text of his book, here's a wiki article citing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet#Transition_towards_the_Internet

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networks-5th-Andrew-Tanenbaum/dp/0132126958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377285254&sr=1-1&keywords=Computer+Networks

Have fun.

I have heard a lot of great reviews of Computer Networks by Tanenbaum in terms of its ability to teach networking. Alternatively, you could get the 4th edition book a lot cheaper with the caveat that it is older and may not be completely up to date.

This is a great list, thank you very much.
I also happened to decide to study networking but for a bit deeper, my choice was this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networking-Top-Down-Approach-7th/dp/0133594149

This is a complete networking essentials, for grads, phDs, masters.

Is also has a helper site with video notes and animations

https://wps.pearsoned.com/ecs_kurose_compnetw_6/216/55463/14198700.cw/index.html

• "The Practice of Systems and Network Administration" by Thomas Limoncelli, Christina Hogan, and Strata Chalup
  
  
• "Time Management for System Administrators" by Thomas Limoncelli
  
  
• "Getting Things Done" by David Allen
  
  
• "UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook" by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein, and Ben Whaley
  
  
• "Essential System Administration" by Æleen Frisch
  
  Even more formatting fun!
  
  By the way, thank you for this list.

>https://www.amazon.com/Computer\-Networking\-Top\-Down\-Approach\-6th/dp/0132856204

We are using this book for our intro networking course. It is really good because they really break some complex concepts down with really good everyday analogies and explain everything in detail.

Unsure if it meets your requirements exactly, but I liked this book:


Defensive Security Handbook

I have ordered these two books.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/111821854X/ref=pe_385040_30332200_TE_item

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071765654/ref=pe_385040_30332200_TE_item

I read some of the linux bible in a pdf and really enjoyed it so decided to order the two books.

I have also picked up the centOS CBT nugget videos and will VM it at home and hopefully in a couple of months I will know whats going on in RH.

This book is pretty good. You can jump to whatever area you’re struggling with/want to improve. Lessons Learned in Software Testing

That is probably some of the craziest shit I've read in a while, and that's impressive, this being the internet and all.

EDIT: OP, to make a suggestion, the Linux Bible is a great resource for someone just starting out, and helps get you in the mindset of how Linux works when coming from other operating systems.

http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Bible-Christopher-Negus/dp/111821854X

For networking I would recommend:

• TCP/IP Illustrated by Stevens.
  
• Computer Networks, 5th Edition by Tanenbaum (of Minix fame and more) and Wetherall (taught my networks course at U of Washington).
  
• Seconding RFCs; Ethernet, IP, TCP, UDP, and the protocols layered on top are all there and they're fairly approachable.

I would recommend this book. It was just recently updated and is an excellent source for many of the fundamentals for networking.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321336313/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

These are the best texts for each subject, IMO.

Algorithms & Data Structures

Operating Systems

[Networking] (https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networking-Top-Down-Approach-6th/dp/0132856204/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1525873112&sr=1-1&keywords=computer+networking+a+top-down+approach+6th+edition)

Programming Language Theory

Theory of Computation

> As for a Sysadmin Bible, i would recommend the book: The Practice of System and Network Administration: Devops and Other Best Practices for Enterprise it.

This is going to sound dumb, but I don't want to spend $50 for the same book. I have "The Practice of System and Network Administration: 2nd Edition", already:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/practice-of-system-and-network-administration-thomas-a-limoncelli/1100835152/2675158637613?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Marketplace+Shopping+Textbooks_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP20452&k_clickid=3x20452

The DevOps one (3rd edition) is an entirely different book, right? Or is it just the 2nd edition with some DevOps stuff added to the end? Hard to tell when taking the Amazon page at face value.

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165

Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach by Kurose & Ross is pretty good.

If you are looking for stuff to do in your environment, this book will give you some pretty good pointers:

The Practice of System and Network Administration

Learn to program. Edx/Harvardx CS50x gets pretty good reviews.
Learn to and make a habit of writing extensive technical documentation on everything you do.
Read this book. https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480705767&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Practice+of+System
Apply everything you learn to the current systems you work with

This book is always a good place to start if your serious about being knowledgeable about networks http://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Protocols-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321336313/

Then there is this book. Even if you take only a couple hours to review the key sections you want learn about, you will look amazing. http://www.amazon.com/Wireshark-Network-Analysis-Second-Certified/dp/1893939944/

even if they don't ask casually mention which books you've been reading. While it may seem a little expensive to buy these books, it will pay back in dividends for future jobs

I've read parts of that https://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networking-Top-Down-Approach-6th/dp/0132856204&ved=0ahUKEwiRlIrF4sHUAhUCb1AKHVeeBvYQFghoMAs&usg=AFQjCNFJEsWQ4VHsSGx9fcNpEt0Z2Wip_w&sig2=bsLxWN2VX4CX_8HXPluczA book. It's really good and helps you get an overview of what's going on on the internet.

D is starting to become more popular. It's graced the frontpage of /r/programming a bit recently. One recommended resource is the book written by one of the language's developers: The D Programming Language.

Looking for solutions manual of Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (7th Edition) in 7th edition only:

The solutions manual is easily available in 6th Edition, but I am looking for the 7th Edition Solutions Manual only. Willing to pay $5 PayPal. There seems to be a version here but I cannot access it, so perhaps someone else can.

Willing to pay $5 PayPal.

Thanks!

TCP is a connection (edited to remove /less) protocol an application throws its data to the buffers it doesn't care about where it goes from there thats the routers job which will use any virtual circuit sucessfully negotiated by SEQ and ACK with the destination host buffers using the routers best path at that moment. In fact more than one route is often used simultaneously between hosts during a data download the robustness of TCP is why it is so sucessful. Latency can be caused by congestion, delays, packet loss, browser and application malware/bugs, even users pausing at the mouse.

A ping or traceroute tests for the connection the advantage of packet analysis is it can provide clues about the latency on your side or at the destination host so worth the effort to inspect packets. On this link Hansang Bae demonstrates special techniques using Wireshark to extract information about latency from packet traces. https://www.youtube.com/user/hansangb/videos Also this site is an introduction to tcp http://www.firewall.cx/networking-topics/protocols/tcp.html futher reference is from wikipedia or TCP Illustrated http://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Volume-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321336313/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z

Links for anyone looking to purchase a copy of these books

 

Mastering VMware vSphere 5.5
Amazon |
Barnes and Noble |
Google Play |
iTunes |
O'Reilly |
Wiley

Mastering VMware vSphere 6
Amazon |
Barnes and Noble |
Google Play |
iTunes |
O'Reilly |
Wiley

 

Happy VMing!

I think I found it and I'll definitely check it out, Thanks!

Here is a really good book for Wireshark: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593272669/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I11HBIRF55QCWX&colid=1QE51EOZ8AY1G

/r/Wireshark has some helpful posts either on the side or if you sort by top/all.

Wireshark can be intimidating at first with all the I information you get but if you follow some guides you will do good.

I've always used Computer Networking A Top-Down Approach by Kurose and Ross. (it's also fairly easy to find a PDF of it). It's a good read for understanding the fundamentals and the bigger picture.

Until you understand what a packet is and how it is constructed, wireshark isn't going to be of much use to you. A good resource for this is https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Protocols-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321336313/ref=dp_ob_title_bk To effectively get just what you need, you should also understand BPF: https://biot.com/capstats/bpf.html

When i was first learning here is the book i found most valuable.

Group Policy: Fundamentals, Security, and the Managed Desktop 3rd Edition
by Jeremy Moskowitz
ISBN-10: 1119035589
ISBN-13: 978-1119035589

If you already have a basic idea of how the machine works, I really have to recommend D as a powerful and, above all, sensible high-level language that isn't bound to a single platform the way C# is. You can do (almost) everything you can in C++, and more (the almost is multiple inheritance and binding to C++ libraries, but there are ways around both). If you're curious, check out Andrei's book or ask for more info in our IRC channel (irc://irc.freenode.net/#d).

Do yourself a favor, either buy The Practice of System and Network Administration or get it from the library. Make sure it's the 3rd Edition. Read Chapter 49 Perception and Visibility on page 913.


Pay special attention to 49.1.2 Attitude, Perception, and Customers on Pg. 918.

Then ask yourself what are projecting calling yourself glorifiedhelpdesk and creating a video titled "You don't fail at computer, you fail at life"?

I haven't read it in years, but I remember The C Programming Language being very useful.

If you want to learn more about the low level details of how computers work in general, I own the following books and recommend them:

---

• Low level details on how processors work, memory works, etc:
  Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective
  Computer Organization and Embedded Systems
  
• Building on the concepts in the above books, this book on hacking also walks through the same concepts from a programmer's perspective. In order to be an effective hacker, it's necessary to understand the low level concepts of how a computer works:
  Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
  
• To understand how operating systems work:
  Operating System Concepts Essentials
  
• To understand computer networking:
  Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach

Nice, the terms "client-server" and "peer-to-peer" is the correct one to use. I learnt that from Computer Networking course at university. https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networking-Top-Down-Approach-6th/dp/0132856204.

Popular "client-server" are Facebook, YouTube, etc, "peer-to-peer" is torrent.

I really like the book Practical Packet Analysis

But just to get you started, try capturing traffic and then going to a website (non-ssl) like reddit.com. After loading the first page, stop the capture and take a look at it. You can search for strings you would expect in the capture, like "reddit.com" or "GET". You can start looking at the payload portion of the packets and go up to see all the layers.

http://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-IP-Vol-5th/dp/0131876716/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351099800&sr=1-1&keywords=Internetworking+with+TCP%2FIP

(think theres a newer edition, thats the one i have however)

One of (if not) the best book ive ever read on networking, I read it whilst i was studing CCNP and have read it another couple of times whilst studying for CCIE, also this;

http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches-Internetworking-Protocols/dp/0201634481/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351099354&sr=1-1&keywords=Interconnections%3A+Bridges%2C+Routers%2C+Switches%2C+and+Internetworking+Protocols

A few ideas: For best results, do all 3.

• The 'Book' route. There are some very solid books that will give you a grounding in the fundamentals of what UNIX/Linux is and how to (generally) work with it.
  
• The 'Play' route: I am a big fan of Vagrant (free!) as it makes it extremely simple to get scratch servers of all flavors up and running. Once you have that, pick a howto and start playing. I would start with doing something you are interested in -- say, setting up a DNS or mail server, or maybe something more fun, and then find/follow a howto for it. Every time you get stuck, figure it out. For next level goodness, look at provisioning your Vagrant servers with something like Ansible, Chef, Puppet, or Saltstack.
  
• The 'Dogfood' route: Install Linux on your laptop or desktop and start using it for daily work as much as possible. This may not be as educational as it would have been some years ago, because there are more things that will 'just work', but you will still find some things you'll be forced to solve to get your work done.

I liked Steven's TCP/IP Illustrated Vol 1 (Addison-Wesley). It does a great job of breaking down exactly how the core protocols work at a very low level.

https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Protocols-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321336313

I'm going to recommend a book: https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165

Read the first edition of this 20 years ago. Great book about doing the "job" of being a sysadmin. Nothing OS specific.

Also, learn a scripting language. You're not a real IT guy unless you know one. Python is my preference, but PowerShell is fine if you primarily work in a Windows environment.

Andrei's book on D: "The D Programming Language" would be another great read whether you are looking into the D language or not, it is a great read for general programming design IMHO :-)

Network Programmability and Automation

This is a good book. It's probably not the best book to use for your very first exposure to Python but once you've got something else under your belt I would go here. Runs you through all the basic tools and data structures that get used in network automation.

I second the official Python tutorial. If you approach it with the right attitude that'll teach you everything you need to know to start feeling some comfort with the language.

> it just started updating Windows 10, no warning or anything.

Hello!

My name is Elder Temple-Noble, and I would like to share with you this most amazing book. It's a book about America an OS written a long, long time ago. It has so many awesome parts. You simply won't believe how much this book will change your life. Did you know that Jesus Stallman lived here in the USA?

The "Practice of System and Network Administration"; probably a bit too early in your career but has some strong advice.

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165

There's also a volume 2 which is cloud/site reliability engineering related.

The book "End to End QOS" was really quite helpful to me when I started doing campus QOS design. I have the 2004 edition, but it looks like there is a new edition out this year.

http://www.amazon.com/End---End-QoS-Network-Design/dp/1587143690/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371745187&sr=8-2&keywords=end+to+end+qos

Yes, yes there is.

TCP/IP Illustrated:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321336313/

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networking-Top-Down-Approach-7th/dp/0133594149

This is the 7th edition, i have the 5th which is extremely valuable and precise in it's context. Built very good and easy to understand, but also VERY in-depth.

I think I learned from TCP illustrated protocols

It's a long read but it does pretty much cover everything

Best advice I can give the OP is to read TCP/IP Illustrated. It filled in a lot of gaps of knowledge not picked up in vendor certs.