Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab
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@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I think one of Scott's points is that you don't need a decked out box to make a lab happen.
I had an old 486 running Novell Netware what seems like 100 years ago, and a Pentium running Windows NT 4.0 This was when P II's were the rage, or was it PIIIs?
10+ year old hardware used to be completely usable for most lab setups. now with Virtualization, you need something a bit newer, x64 and supports virtualization, but that started becoming very common 8 or so years ago, so there's that. But real servers aren't needed either. A desktop can run VMWare ESXi or XenServer or Hyper-V just fine (assuming the virtualization hardware is there). Other factors will limit the number of VMs you can run, but hey, this is a lab.
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
And that's the price to keep it online and running 24x7. You can make scripts and build them when you need them and tear them down when you don't to learn more, cheaper than even the $5 mark!
Yeah, I don't have a HOME lab, but I've been building things in ramnode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr in not quite wild abandon. My current Vultr instance I'm playing with is all the way up to $0.56 for this billing period. That's less than I'd pay for the electric to run something at home.
If you are doing it outside of work hours, then it is a "home" lab IMO.
Exactly. An alternative home lab could also be "volunteer at a non-profit where I have essentially unlimited educational opportunity."
A "home" lab need not be in your home.
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@scottalanmiller said
- Given that practically unlimited candidates do have home labs, what differentiators do you feel should cause someone without a home lab to be considered above them
...A degree.
I'll get my coat.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said
- Given that practically unlimited candidates do have home labs, what differentiators do you feel should cause someone without a home lab to be considered above them
...A degree.
I'll get my coat.
In business administration....
bu da bump..
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@DustinB3403 said
In business administration....
No in computer science...because that's so helpful.
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I personally run a MacBook Pro decked out with 16GB of RAM and 256GB SSD & 1TB 7,000 spare drive. I run VMware Fusion 8 running everything from Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, 2012 R2 + Hyper V , Server 2016 RTM, Windows 10, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, & Debian.
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@Kyle OMG, it's Kyle!!
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@scottalanmiller Fresh outta surgery and have been home for 24 hours. Feeling a little rough but better that Saturday - Monday.
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@Kyle said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller Fresh outta surgery and have been home for 24 hours. Feeling a little rough but better that Saturday - Monday.
Welcome back, glad to hear that you are on the road to recovery.
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@scottalanmiller Figured I'd chime in on the home lab. I've found it essential in being competitive in the IT industry. I get the whole work/home life balance but I've always wanted to learn more & more. If you think that you have learned all you need to know in this industry, it's time to find a new field of work.
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@Kyle said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller Figured I'd chime in on the home lab. I've found it essential in being competitive in the IT industry. I get the whole work/home life balance but I've always wanted to learn more & more. If you think that you have learned all you need to know in this industry, it's time to find a new field of work.
My thoughts on the work/life balance part are that it's not as clear as people make it sound. Work/Life balance doesn't just mean "shutting off work when the day is done."
At NTG, for example, we take a very different view. We don't have downtime, there is no work hours / play hours. It's all one and the same. The job is integrated into normal life. But life is also integrated into the job. It's a totally different approach and certainly doesn't apply well to every person or to every job. But IT is much the same, IT isn't great for normal people or normal jobs. But for the people that it fits for, it's like the best thing ever.
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Fully agree. I don't know many in the IT field that just clock out and leave. Especially in 1 man shops where uptime is your sole job no matter how many hours you put in.
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@Kyle said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Fully agree. I don't know many in the IT field that just clock out and leave. Especially in 1 man shops where uptime is your sole job no matter how many hours you put in.
I know some in the enterprise. It does happen. Especially in the "traditional approach" path people, those that did a degree first, likely a graduate degree, got a job as an entry level person and worked their way up the corporate ranks, mostly through senority and stick-to-itiveness rather than being really into what they were doing.
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I have a virtual lab.
Virtual box with two windows vms, a linux vm, and three windows server vms.
A small linux vm (pfsense) for routing in th vm environment.That's all. Helped me many times when testing powershell scripts, learning concepts etc.
Took about six hours in total to setup...but no money as the laptop it runs on is pretty beefy.
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Speaking of lab stuff: After my boss gets back next week, I will probably have a couple big (and very very heavy) Dell 2900 towers to get rid of. They were former lab systems for us. I know one has 16GB ram in it, no idea what the other one has, either 160 or 250GB drives and PERC raid card (might be real raid cards not sure) if anyone is interested let me know otherwise probably off to the scrap heap. note these are VERY HEAVY TOWERS so would be local pickup in Buffalo NY not going to ship. Again have to check with the boss first to make sure its OK (company gets really weird about giving stuff away for some reason). Just want to put it out there
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@jt1001001 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Speaking of lab stuff: After my boss gets back next week, I will probably have a couple big (and very very heavy) Dell 2900 towers to get rid of. They were former lab systems for us. I know one has 16GB ram in it, no idea what the other one has, either 160 or 250GB drives and PERC raid card (might be real raid cards not sure) if anyone is interested let me know otherwise probably off to the scrap heap. note these are VERY HEAVY TOWERS so would be local pickup in Buffalo NY not going to ship. Again have to check with the boss first to make sure its OK (company gets really weird about giving stuff away for some reason). Just want to put it out there
Man wish i lived closer....
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@FrostyPhoenix said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@jt1001001 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Speaking of lab stuff: After my boss gets back next week, I will probably have a couple big (and very very heavy) Dell 2900 towers to get rid of. They were former lab systems for us. I know one has 16GB ram in it, no idea what the other one has, either 160 or 250GB drives and PERC raid card (might be real raid cards not sure) if anyone is interested let me know otherwise probably off to the scrap heap. note these are VERY HEAVY TOWERS so would be local pickup in Buffalo NY not going to ship. Again have to check with the boss first to make sure its OK (company gets really weird about giving stuff away for some reason). Just want to put it out there
Man wish i lived closer....
We drove from @jt1001001 to you so far today and will be driving from you to him when the pizza and whiskey is done this evening. It's not that far.
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Its only what 6-7 hours depending on traffic. Though keep in mind that's me driving with a 3 year ond and a 1 year old so frequent stops a must unfortunately
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My first home lab was an IBM eServer xSeries 366 8863 with 4 quadcores and 32 gb RAM. I got it on ebay for 6 bucks (50 delivery lol). At the time that was a lucky shot, they were going for way more. No drives in it. Had to pay $250 for 6 75gb SAS's. So, for 300 bucks a datacenter quality home lab. I am not saying everyone should be able to afford this, but it certainly was a good investment for me. I know at the time the money hurt, too. Sitting in the corner collecting dust now because I have the capacity for a lab at work, which is nice, because I do also agree with @RojoLoco that we have lost sight of a healthy work/life balance. Just offered it to my neighbor's kid who is messing around with raspberry PI's and Linux. Guys and gals, remember that first time you turned on an enterprise server and the fans blasted up to 100%...
Think he will have a blast with it!
My that was off topic. I don't know if I would consider it a reason not to hire someone, but if I was hiring it would definitely give a second candidate with a lab an advantage.
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I think you basing your decision on hiring someone on whether they have a home lab or not is complete and udder crap. For example, I do have a media "sever" but that is it. I chose to not spend my money (whether it be on a home server or the electricity to power said home server) on things I have access to at work. My time out the office is my time, spent with family, doing things I enjoy. Not having my head buried in technology (I do that enough at work).
Scott you are different than most since you have come out and said that you cannot disconnect from technology (even when you are on vacation). Those like myself like to leave technology at work. When I get home, I usually (if I can) leave my cell phone on the opposite end of my house and spend time outside. When I go on the weekend camping trips, my phone stays in my tent. We as a society have become so dependent on technology to run our daily lives, we lose sight with the fact that the things we did as children, (hanging out with friends, playing at the park and not coming home until dinner...etc.) we no longer do. Most adults have their heads on a permanent 25 degree downward angle with a phone/tablet glued to their hands.
Yes IT is a hobby/passion but that does not mean IT needs to be your life. I think you discounting someone based on if they have a home server or not is total bs.
