Industrial network - Ethernet/IP career

[mustafafekaiki]

Hello All,

I have Cisco CCNA / CCNP certification with little experience in the field as I was working in IT support . I've got a job as a network Specialist to work on Industrial network and Ethernet/IP ( PLC , robotics , controllers ... ) I have little concerns that it might be not really related to the filed and it can effect the career path with Cisco .. OR do you think that it will give me more experience and work on network devices that could be beneficial in the future   ? !! 

Please share your suggestion and opinion . 

Thank you

[Albert Mitchell]

its impossible to say, this decision is good or bad for your career. 

Industrial Networks have a lot in common with Enterprise networks.   

Security and wireless as always good skills to have.  See if you can get more specific experience in those categories.

[mustafafekaiki]

Thank you. But do you think I can take the experience  to enterprise environment if I go to this path ?

[paul driver · Accepted solution]

Hello

My very first networking job was a industrial manufacturing site and I found  it didn’t matter, Your new company will no doubt use bespoke software however networking concepts are the same no matter what type of software/hardware they have, you will be lucky if it’s all cisco but large industrial, manufacturing sites have a lot of different networking hardware switch/rtrs firewall, wifi etc but just you take a step back get an understanding of the topology and rely on your training and you will be find sooner than later you would have exposure to a lot of other platforms than cisco, which can only increase you understanding and expertise in networking.

Just remember it just lots boxes with bits in it - lol

[mustafafekaiki]

Thank you for advice . I appreciate that

[dabehren]

Just to add on to the discussion, the industry as a whole is starting to see the need for the two "worlds" of IT and Operations (OT) to work together, especially as it relates to security. I personally started my career focused on industrial controls and saw first hand how the shift to Ethernet based platforms and protocols was changing the skills required for the operations team and was also driving the need for IT to become increasingly involved to meet the needs. Assuming your role is going to give you exposure to both, I think you will find it only increases your relevance in the future. As said in other responses, while there are some things that are different in operations vs IT, such as system requirements and features, types of traffic and resiliency features, the core networking is still switching and routing. The real question is if the field is something that excites you and is of interest for you.

Best of luck!