A few weeks ago, we got nearly 95% of our VMs clean from known vulnerabilities after putting a lot of effort into patching. Now we’re back down to around 10%, and it honestly feels like all that progress disappeared overnight.

Every week there seems to be another critical vulnerability, and the workload is getting hard to keep up with.

At this point, our time is almost split in two: nights for patching during maintenance windows, and mornings for regular operational work, support requests, and issues from other teams.

It’s starting to feel like this is becoming the new normal for security and infrastructure teams.

I understand that keeping systems secure is part of the job, but the constant cycle of emergency patching, coordinating with application owners, testing fixes, and making sure production stays stable is becoming exhausting.

So I’m curious how other teams are handling this:

• Do you have a weekly maintenance window dedicated to vulnerability remediation?
• Are your teams also spending more and more nights patching, or have you found a more sustainable way to manage it?

I know having a 100% vulnerability-free environment is unrealistic, especially with how fast new CVEs keep coming out, but it’s frustrating to see weeks of hard work erased so quickly.

Is everyone else dealing with the same thing, or are we approaching this the wrong way?

why are there sometimes two slots for amphenol cables on each side of the 66 block? I get that the 66 block is kinda split in the middle and theres left pairs and right pairs but if they werent jumpered and all 4 amphenol cables were used would the two amphenol cables on each side have the same pairs on them?

Wondering what cert(s) or education to go for from my position.

I was on the Service Desk for 3 years and have been a Network Engineer for the past 4 years. My work does neither encourage nor rewards certifications, so I have never pursued one. I have experience with Palo, Juniper, Fortinet, VMWare, and other basic Network Admin tools/concepts.

Where should I go from here to be valuable in the job market? My family will likely need to move in the next 1-3 years and I want to be able to find a job easily. Even though we have no access to Cisco equipment, is a CCNA best? Should I go with a Palo or Fortinet cert even though I do not plan to go into security? Juniper cert? Any input is appreciated, and thank you in advance.