Are routing and switching 'easy'?

LANs & Routers This newsletter is sponsored by Cisco Best Practices for Extending Your Network Architecture Access podcasts, whitepapers and more that offer best practices and principles for extending your architecture across a campus. Learn about the design principles that will transform your campus net and how to tackle the critical areas of integrated security, unified network services and more. Click here to read now! Network World's LANs & Routers Newsletter, 07/19/07 Are routing and switching 'easy'? By Jeff Caruso After reading an article on IT skills, one of our newest bloggers recently raised the question of whether routing and switching should be considered "easy." The Network World community keeps growing, driven in part by our Cisco Subnet and Microsoft Subnet efforts. Recently, Michael Morris started blogging on our site (anyone can set up a blog on our site; go here to get started). Morris saw this story from March, which goes into the IT skills in high demand, such as security and convergence. There's also a quote in there from Zeus Kerravala, a Yankee Group VP who says, "Things hard to do before, like setting up a switching and routing network, are easy today and don't command so high a salary as things that are new today and harder to do." Network World Buyers Guides Find the right products for your enterprise - fast. With seven categories - security, storage, convergence and VoIP, network infrastructure, network applications, wireless and LAN/WAN management - you can quickly pinpoint the hardware or software you need. With the side-by-side comparison tool you can evaluate product features and make the best purchase decisions for your enterprise. Click here to go to the Buyers Guides now. Morris was "shocked" by the quote. His point is that, if you're going to do switching and routing today, you have to know " MPLS, BGP (both internally and with carriers), dual-home servers, virtualization, load balancing, security devices and QoS everywhere." However, he acknowledges that there are 6,700 more CCIEs today than there were four years ago. So maybe the question is one of supply and demand. That is, more people have the know-how for switching and routing, and therefore having those skills isn't as much of a career differentiator as it was in years past. But "easier"? No. What do you think? Are these skills more of a commodity today? Do you find your own organizations paying more for certain kinds of expertise? Let me know.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Jeff Caruso is managing editor of online news for Network World. He oversees daily online news posting and newsletter editing, and writes the NetFlash daily news summary, the High-Speed LANs newsletter and the Voices of Networking newsletter. Contact him at jcaruso@nww.com This newsletter is sponsored by Cisco Best Practices for Extending Your Network Architecture Access podcasts, whitepapers and more that offer best practices and principles for extending your architecture across a campus. Learn about the design principles that will transform your campus net and how to tackle the critical areas of integrated security, unified network services and more. Click here to read now! ARCHIVE Archive of the LANs & Routers Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007