I have a lot of people ask me "How can I get into Networking?"  or "How do I become a Network Engineer?".  I personally think that anyone who asks these questions and has a desire to learn about computer networks is doing themselves a big favor that will benefit them for the rest of their life.   There are many reasons to want to work as a network engineer, great pay or work with great technology, but getting yourself into a position like this may not also be the easiest thing to achieve.  Today I'm going list some ways that may help you get that cool network engineering job and boost your career.

Certifications

The first and most direct way to easily get a job working as a network engineer is to do some self study and get a vendor certification like a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA).  Anyone who already has a certification in Microsoft or Novell knows these certification tests are not easy.  And Cisco tests are, in my opinion, the hardest tests out there.  The current CCNA test not only will test your book knowledge on the theory of computer networking, TCP/IP, and the OSI model, but will also test  your "practical knowledge" of actually performing the task that may be called upon you as a junior network engineer.  The one thing that set Cisco tests apart from other vendors are the router simulations. Router simulations are very common on the CCNA and are very realistic. For this reason people who pass a Cisco exam not just good test takers, they are know their stuff.  To pass the CCNA I would highly recommend starting with one of the great books on the CCNA. Go the book store and find a book that keeps your attention and is easy for you to read.  Next, invest in a practice exam like one from Pass4Sure, or Test King. Test questions are worded very tricky and taking these practice tests will guarantee you getting the multiple choice stuff correct.  Finally, you will need to work on your router skills.   Either purchase a router on ebay or download GNS.  GNS is a free router simulator that can help you immensely and best of all its free.  These three things combined will land you that certificate, they will increase your value in the work place, and will most likely get in the door to do some real hands on networking.  Of course you still have to pass the interview

On the Job Training

Sometimes poring over the Career Builder web site or the Monster job boards can yield you a nice selection of network jobs you may qualify for without having a certification.  These jobs will typically pay less however will offer the opportunity to learn and may provide training to advance yourself to get a CCNA.

College

Colleges today recognize the demand for skilled I.T. people in the work place and have started to establish certification programs that will allow you to earn your CCNA or CCNP which will definitely launch you in the the networking hot seat.  The benefit of College programs is that these often qualify for grants and loans that may not otherwise be available.

Military

This option seems to be overlooked and is last on the list of where to find quality training but really should be one of the first on the list.   The biggest problem is that working in the Army, Air Force, Navy or Marines is often misunderstood.   Eachc branch is significantly different and each has their own benefits. Most people envision Hollywood movie footage of "Black Hawk Down" living in the dessert eating C-rations.  Those jobs, locations, and duties do exist,  however life in the military is far different and the educational benefits are tremendous!  The US military offers some great programs that will get your hands on some of the latest technology and networks that you can find in the civilian world.  No where else can you find a place that will immediately give you a paycheck, provide you with all the food you can eat, comfortable living quarters, new clothes and a world class education.

Summary

There are lots of ways for motivated people to change their life, and land a job as a network engineer.  Doing so will allow you to make a good living and work with some awesome technology.  Getting there is up to you. Whether it be self-study, class-room training, college or the military, if you truley want to work as a network engineer there is a way.  You just have to do it.

As Yoda once said - "Do or Do Not, There is no Try."

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Many engineers (at one time myself too) believe they understand wild card masks. If you ask someone they will most likely tell you that a wild card mask is just the opposite or reverse of a subnet mask. Unfortunately this isn't quite correct. Yes, at first glance a wild card mask "looks" like the reverse and in some ways it really is. But a wild card mask can do so much more. I hope to explain in this article what a wild card is and how we can use it more effectively.

As the name states, a wild card mask matches (wildly with a zero) everything in the network portion of an ip address.  As we dive into how this works it will becomes a bit more clear exactly how a wild card mask works and how we can use it.

THE RULES

So there are two basic rules of a wild card mask.

• 0-bit = match
• 1-bit = ignore

THE TARGETS

What can wild card masks target?

• A single host (or a single IP address)
• An entire network (i.e, Class A, B, or C)
• An entire subnet
• A range of IP addresses

Got it so far? ...Good.  But, what does this mean? How does it work?

Keep reading...

Targeting a Single Host

To target a single host with a wild card means that every bit within the IP address of the host must match. The bit that means we are matching is a zero (0-bit).  So a wild card mask for a host would be --  0.0.0.0

Targeting an Entire Network

To target an entire network means that every bit within the NETWORK portion of the IP address must match.  All others we can ignore.  So for a Class-C network (i.e., 192.168.1.0) the wild card mask would be -- 0.0.0.255

Targeting a Subnet

To target a particular subnet (not classful) we will still need to match on  every bit on the NETWORK portion, however now we need to find the proper bit boundary in the last octet used by our network.  So for example we need to find the wild card mask for the network 192.168.1.128/25.   The easiest way to do this is to simply subtract the subnet mask (255.255.255.128) from 255.255.255.255.  255.255.255.255 minus 255.255.255.128 equals a wild card mask of -- 0.0.0.127

Targeting a Range of IP Addresses

To target a range of IP address is where we begin to see how the wild card mask is different from just a reverse of a subnet mask.  The same rules apply 0-match, 1-ignore.  If we have a range of 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.1.255 we can match at the 23rd bit.  This would allow only the two networks to be targeted.  The wild card mask would be 0.0.1.255

Writing this out in binary helps. We know we want to match on the entire 1st and 2nd octets.  That part is easy - both are zero's.  Its the third octet that is the trick. Lets break that third octect out in binary

192 168.0.  ---- binary  00000000
192.168.1.  ---- binary  00000001

If you look here the bit we want to match on is the 23rd bit. The subnet mask for a slash 23 is 255.255.254.0.  We then subtract it from 255.255.255.255 to get our wild card which is 0.0.1.255

Pretty cool huh?

Target all even Networks or all odd Networks

With what we've learned so far, you might be able to see the possibilities.  So now lets take this one last step further.  Lets target just all even networks. (definitely a CCIE lab scenario)

Let say we need to route all even networks in the 192.168.0.0 block of space. Where can we match within the third octet that will allow us to do this.  Once again we need to break it out in binary to see it more clearly.

192 168.0. ---- binary 00000000
192.168.1. ---- binary 00000001
192.168.2. ---- binary 00000010
192.168.3. ---- binary 00000011
192.168.4. ---- binary 00000100
192.168.5. ---- binary 00000101
192.168.6. ---- binary 00000110
192.168.7. ---- binary 00000111

If look you can see the last bit of the third octet (bit 24) is a zero for every even network.  The value for this bit is 1. We can match on this last bit to target the even network by taking the inverse of 1 to get 254. (255-1).

The wild card mask for this would be 0.0.254.255.

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Summary

I'm sure your head is swimming about now, but I hope you can see the power of wild card masks and how they are different from subnet masks.

Do you have problems with wild card masks?  Do you have a cool way to figure out wild cards mask or a cool trick you can use wild card masks for?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you think?  It comments that brings websites like these to life.  I'd love to hear what you think.

FREAK!

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