[rlander]

As someone who used to be CISSP certified (way back in 2003), here's my advice: don't bother. The only reason I got it in the first place was because, honestly, I had more free time than actual experience. Otherwise it's a great way to bullshit your way into a job you're unqualified for in a shitty company.

Focus your efforts on actual learning, instead of proving through a worthless piece of paper.

edit: Just to drive the point home: 9 years later I still don't know shit about security.

[rdl]

If you're going to waste your time on a stupid cert, waste it on a vendor cert around your main technology.

I'd trust a RHSE to know redhat security for redhat deployments more than I'd trust a CISSP, mainly because I put close to negative value on the CISSP, and a lot of infrastructure security is actually following best practices, not anything too specific to security.

For networking, Cisco (assuming a Cisco shop).

For virtualization, I've heard the VMware stuff is good if you're enterprise doing VMware. I wonder if there's value in the Amazon AWS courses for AWS deployments; I'd almost take one just to see what they're like.