optical/transmission networking resources

[pennywise]

Looking for some resources/websites to begin with that give a good general overview of the fundamentals of transmission/carrier level and optical networks, maybe with a view to sitting some certs in the near future.

Nokia and Ciena have their own courses which would be along the lines of what I'm looking for other than they refer to their own equipment throughout - I'm looking for something a bit more general and non-vendor specific for now.

Been looking at the CONA certification but I'm not sure how relevant or respected this is - if there are any websites or resources anyone can recommend besides this (or even some non-vendor certifications that are well recognised in the industry to get me on the right path) I'd appreciate it.

 

[pennywise]

My job is seeing me dealing with this sort of stuff more and more these days, I'm picking a lot of it up as I go along but it would be good to get a better idea of the fundamentals and how it all works at a high level so I can see exactly why and how things happen. If there were any certifications that fitted my description it would at least give me a syllabus or tick sheet to work from and would give me something tangible (read: CV worthy) to aim for. Hopefully I'm not being too vague here :S

 

[pennywise]

Yeah that's a fair point and is something I'm looking into as well - this post was to try to find something asap that I can get my teeth into before that happens. It's taken about 18 months for them to start putting people through courses towards their CCNA so I don't really want to be waiting that long for what I need. Do you think one of the vendor courses, or at least picking and choosing bits and pieces of what they cover, would be a fair start then?