How do you find the right employer?
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@scottalanmiller said:
The school had no money, so I provided everywhere...I paid for all the stuff... Everything. Every decision, all planning, all features had to come from me. There was no leaning on someone else, no skipping pieces I didn't know, no using "whatever was there". You learn and you learn fast.
And when it's your money, you suddenly want to do purchasing properly too
So you learn that as a skill. -
@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
If I could do anything I would be working with File Servers, VM's and maybe even Media streaming. I find them all to be interesting. At the same point I don't really care. My primary concern is to put myself in a strong position to provide for my family ultimately. I will do what I need to do period.
File Servers I see as phasing out very quickly. Already I see them dropping very quickly. Like AD, we phased ours out in the past few years. They just don't make sense like they used to.
VMs are ubiquitous and is almost like saying "working with computers". All servers are VMs and should have been for nearly a decade now, even in the SMB. It should be assumed that anytime someone says servers, VMs are just assumed. It's not something that you really specialize in, it's just part of doing everything else. In the enterprise space you get a few rare roles that are "platform" roles that just handle the VM layer, but they are few and seem to be getting fewer as that gets absorbed by the more technical and needed systems departments.
I can't answer what I want to do because I don't really have a preference. I currently run Exchange, our File Servers, VM's which include AV, print servers, utility servers, and a domain as well as a SQL database server. I run all cabling, setup all switches etc. I have no preference. Keep in mind I didn't build this I inherited it and they won't change anything.
Do you have a home lab? If not maybe you should like at implementing one and working with systems and technologies that you will not be able to get firsthand experience with at your current job.
So you've got experience administering a Server 2012 Domain. Can you join a Linux client/server to it?
You've got experience managing Virtual Machines. Can you migrate a Hyper-V VM to XenServer? KVM? VMware?
Are you able to setup VoIP? Conigure a SIP Trunk? Register a SIP Client?
Even if you don't know the tasks in and out you can setup a list of tasks like those above and expose yourself to the associated systems, services, and technologies enough to have an informed/intelligent conversation in an interview.
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@scottalanmiller said:
As a start, when it comes to "I want to advance my career" and especially when you don't have super solid direction, which is not uncommon because how do you know what you want to do until you have done it all, the top thing (and this goes for people with really solid direction too) you want to build a home lab, an epic one.
A home lab you can get access to the tech, the techniques, the trends, the products and all the stuff that your job does not. Certs are a decent way to push yourself to do boring things or things you never thought of, helping to avoid gaps. I like certs not for the paper that they provide but for the education they push you to do.
Build a lab that makes your company jealous. Make sure that in any discussion you could roll your eye and laugh with disdain at the joke of IT that your company uses. Don't actually do it, but have those thoughts deep down inside. Make your servers better, your email better, your security better, your file serving better... everything, make it more current, better implemented, running faster and doing more than you get to do at work. If they ever question what you are doing, mention that they take their business less seriously that you do your home network - set the bar higher than they do. Don't let your job define your quality bar.
Ha! You must have been typing this out as I was starting to make my own reply evangelizing the usefulness of home labs...
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
The school had no money, so I provided everywhere...I paid for all the stuff... Everything. Every decision, all planning, all features had to come from me. There was no leaning on someone else, no skipping pieces I didn't know, no using "whatever was there". You learn and you learn fast.
And when it's your money, you suddenly want to do purchasing properly too
So you learn that as a skill.That's a huge one. Although the goals of a home lab are not the same as a business. So in some ways you learn good stuff and in other ways you learn bad things.
Good: Not spending money willy nilly, learning that open source and low cost options are often viable or even better, shopping around, learning where to find good gear, paying attention to what is cost effective.
Bad: Getting used to buying tech because you are emotionally inspired by it, buying things just because "other companies use it" or getting expensive things because working on them tends to pay the bills.
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@RamblingBiped said:
@scottalanmiller said:
As a start, when it comes to "I want to advance my career" and especially when you don't have super solid direction, which is not uncommon because how do you know what you want to do until you have done it all, the top thing (and this goes for people with really solid direction too) you want to build a home lab, an epic one.
A home lab you can get access to the tech, the techniques, the trends, the products and all the stuff that your job does not. Certs are a decent way to push yourself to do boring things or things you never thought of, helping to avoid gaps. I like certs not for the paper that they provide but for the education they push you to do.
Build a lab that makes your company jealous. Make sure that in any discussion you could roll your eye and laugh with disdain at the joke of IT that your company uses. Don't actually do it, but have those thoughts deep down inside. Make your servers better, your email better, your security better, your file serving better... everything, make it more current, better implemented, running faster and doing more than you get to do at work. If they ever question what you are doing, mention that they take their business less seriously that you do your home network - set the bar higher than they do. Don't let your job define your quality bar.
Ha! You must have been typing this out as I was starting to make my own reply evangelizing the usefulness of home labs...
This was from yesterday, too...
http://mangolassi.it/topic/7817/the-newbie-s-guide-to-the-ultimate-home-it-lab-experience
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
...CARF accreditation and move on from there.
CARF?
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@scottalanmiller I am in NJ so I can realistically commute to NYC
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@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller I am in NJ so I can realistically commute to NYC
Oh, what part. I've lived in Newark and North Brunswick before. I working in NJ a little in 2005 and was living there in 2006 - 2008.
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@scottalanmiller I live in Brick NJ in the Toms River Area
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I know the area a bit. Pretty far south, commuting up would be painful.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I know the area a bit. Pretty far south, commuting up would be painful.
Meh. My dad did it for 30 years. I'd be fine
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@Minion-Queen said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've got some free beer tokens if you ever visit London.
Shush! He is TOO YOUNG for beer yet!
Not over here
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@scottalanmiller said:
But the majority of SMBs running Exchange are doing so because they are either just bad at IT, their IT person is doing things intentionally poorly in an attempt to technologically extort career stability from the company and/or someone is operating from an emotional position of fear and lack of understanding of IT. All bad things.
LOL. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm useless, corrupt or over-emotional. Or all three!
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But the majority of SMBs running Exchange are doing so because they are either just bad at IT, their IT person is doing things intentionally poorly in an attempt to technologically extort career stability from the company and/or someone is operating from an emotional position of fear and lack of understanding of IT. All bad things.
LOL. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm useless, corrupt or over-emotional. Or all three!
Always safer to go with the latter!
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@JaredBusch said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But the majority of SMBs running Exchange are doing so because they are either just bad at IT, their IT person is doing things intentionally poorly in an attempt to technologically extort career stability from the company and/or someone is operating from an emotional position of fear and lack of understanding of IT. All bad things.
LOL. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm useless, corrupt or over-emotional. Or all three!
Always safer to go with the latter!
Why the latter? I always default to E) All of the above.
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After Researching last night I'll be using the study materials for:
Network+
MCSE - Server Infastructure and Private Cloud.
MCSD - Azure Solutions ArchitectThis is based on the information received here. Any other ideas?
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@wirestyle22 said:
After Researching last night I'll be using the study materials for:
Network+
MCSE - Server Infastructure and Private Cloud.
MCSD - Azure Solutions ArchitectThis is based on the information received here. Any other ideas?
I'd add a Linux certification in there, maybe? I'm not sure what all is out there, but definitely check for a Redhat cert of some sort?
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@dafyre There is an Azure on Linux cert. That seems like it would be useful if SAM is correct in their direction. Virtualization as well as Configuration Management (Puppet) would be useful.
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@dafyre said:
@wirestyle22 said:
After Researching last night I'll be using the study materials for:
Network+
MCSE - Server Infastructure and Private Cloud.
MCSD - Azure Solutions ArchitectThis is based on the information received here. Any other ideas?
I'd add a Linux certification in there, maybe? I'm not sure what all is out there, but definitely check for a Redhat cert of some sort?
RHCE is the only major one in the industry. They've put a lot of effort into certification. Everyone else has mostly backed off.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@dafyre There is an Azure on Linux cert. That seems like it would be useful if SAM is correct in their direction. Virtualization as well as Configuration Management (Puppet) would be useful.
Azure is an odd one for Linux certification. If you are specializing on Linux on Azure, sure. But that's relatively uncommon, especially because Azure is so expensive and poorly performing for Linux workloads.
