Similar but different: A question for the audience.
My situation is very similar in the respects that I entered the field with almost zero knowledge and experience.
I was hired as a HIPAA Security Officer. No one at the company knew WHAT that position entailed much less myself. They only knew it needed someone that knew computers.
FYI, it is essentially a Network Admin/Security Specialist hybrid on the technical side.
My degree was in computer animation. I only knew basic networking and troubleshooting I learned on my own for the purposes of running my own home rendering farm. I was not at ALL prepared for this job.
What I didn't know what that this company of about 200 people and desktops spread across nine offices WAS running a home network. I have since moved us to a Windows Server 2003 environment and thaught myself basic server setup and administration, Active directory and Group Policy, ACLs, and ISA server setup and management as well as other random things. I'm working on figuring out how to VPN our offices together at the moment(but due to time contraints and heavy workload I am thinking of going with a hardware solution).
The problem is I'm lost at sea without a paddle(but I'm familiar with Windows and they weren't running Linux so thank god I have a boat at least). I know I need the theories and general information to more properly plan our network(s) and I plan on returning to college for a degree but in the meantime I NEED some certification or a continuing education course to help me be more confident about running this network while I take the time for that degree.
Any suggestions?
