@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:

@momurda said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:

Perhaps someone could write a guide on how to get your CV past the 23 year old HR major that cant do anything with technology except text and email? Just about every time I have ever had an interview ive been offered a job, but getting past the HR drone...

Consider it a good thing, good companies don't have HR drones, ever. You actually want to be filtered out by those people to make your job of selecting a job easier. It's one of the reasons I take my education and certs off of my CV. I specifically want to be filtered out by bad companies (e.g. I want to filter them out before I waste time talking to them.)

My last 3 times getting hired...

1. Recruiter sets me up with a meeting with the CEO and IT Director. Talk to IT director for an hour, get an offer. No HR involvement.

2. Former Vendor who remembered having a good talk with me about VOIP and storage calls and asks me to go to coffee. Go to coffee with VP of company.

3. Chief Technologist for BU messages me on Twitter asking if I'd be interested in a roll. Makes sure I get an interview with Hiring manager. Recruiter involved, but more to see if I was interested and work out logistics for my flights.

None of these companies had HR that filtered IT hires. Particularly past the first job my skill level was above that. If your more than 2-3 years in this industry and have that as a problem the guide isn't on how to bypass them but how to Network (I go to a lot of conferences and maximize my time meeting people), get involved in influencer programs (I'm in vExpert and Veeam Vanguard) write good technical blogs (done a few of these), get on podcasts (done a LOT of these), and connect with other experts (I spend a lot of time on private slack channels).

Previous interviews I've done....

1. VP of company messages me on linked in asking if I can meet him for lunch. Remembers me from a meeting, where I impressed his head of ops.

I've hired ~8 people over the years and NEVER was HR involved in "filtering" beyond an after the fact doing criminal background checks and telling me if someone tripped a flag.

@Carnival-Boy said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:

@scottalanmiller said in How Do You Evaluate IT Skills for Hiring:

• You must have someone doing the hiring that is dramatically more skills and experienced than the person you are hiring. This is the case for all jobs, not just IT. If the person interviewing is confused because the interviewee knows way more than them, they will just as likely think that the person is an idiot as a genius because they don't know enough to know if the person is right or wrong (seen this a lot.)

How? Are you suggesting firms should employ you to do the hiring or something? That's not normally practical.

Cost to hire a bozo and not fire him for 90 days.

Use cut rate recruiter who charges 10% = $8K
20K Salary.
7K Benefits.
40K to operations being impacted (outages, work not getting done).

Cost to hire me to interview candidates and help you go thru resumes ($250HR, for 30 hours) ~$7500

One of these looks a HELL of a lot cheaper to me....

@JaredBusch

VMware's support stance on Zerto.

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2069900

Zerto corrupting data on Nutanix
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/zerto_5_u2_fixes_nutanix_data_write_bug/

While my opinions and posts here are my own, my day job is working as a Senior Architect in the VMware Storage and Availability Business Unit. My company builds and supports the API's used for replication (VADP, VAIO) as well as the product vSphere Replication (and SRM used for array and DR run book orchestration and testing).

@NerdyDad said in Zertø Virtual Replication:

@scottalanmiller said in Zertø Virtual Replication:

@NerdyDad said in Zertø Virtual Replication:

There isn't a Veeam cloud solution yet (I'm sure there will probably be one eventually). But what is not to say that you couldn't have a free Veeam server in Vultr or something?

There is.

Link?

https://www.veeam.com/find-a-veeam-cloud-provider.html

They also are introducing native Cloud Archiving target support (announced at VeeeamOn).
Also you can use Starwinds VTL to Cloud function as another option.

@NerdyDad said in Zertø Virtual Replication:

@JaredBusch said in Zertø Virtual Replication:

Have any of you looked at Zertø?

I just found someone using it and they love it.

https://www.zerto.com/zerto-virtual-replication-version-5-0/

I saw them at Pure//Accelerate and they say that they are more for replication, similar to Veeam, but solely focus on replication. They say that they do it faster because of their proprietary compression and deduplication of the data on the way to the secondary site.

I've never used them before, so take that with a grain of salt.

Veeam is matching them on RPO time by using a SUPPORTED API that is stable called VAIO. The feature support was announced at VeeamOn.

@scottalanmiller said in Zertø Virtual Replication:

Isn't Zerto the one that is unstable and can corrupt your storage because it depends on a deprecated and never production released kernel hook - so its' not a supported product. It's a big deal that Veeam just released something like this because Veeam is the first to do it with Vmware support. Zerto has been doing it and has been done to down VMware from messing with the kernel in inappropriate ways.

Yah they were corrupting data on NFS by re-writing SCSI Sense codes. They also don't use a supported API and are abusing an old security API that is deprecated. They can crash a host pretty easily too because of it.

They are not working within the VMware TAP framework as a supported product, and refuse to provide VMware GSS or engineering with any documentation of what they are doing, like how other TAP partners work. The are a bad apple in the ecosystem and with Veeam offering VAIO support I expect them to loose market share quickly.

@scottalanmiller Lets play "solaris did it first!"

Containers are so awesome (Scott mutters something about zones).
SDS is so badass! (ZFS did it first!)
Virtualization (has been around since the mainframes)

I know I"m crazy late to this but I'll throw my 2 sense out....

Vendor neutral for what?

VMworld (and VMware in general) is essentially Switzerland if your curious what people are doing for networking, and storage. You can talk with Cisco, and AWS people at the conference. You could go to this conference and focus on non ESXi related conversations and sessions the entire time if you wanted (there are like 700 different sessions). Throw in the brownbag and booth theatre sessions and there are likely over 1000 unique presentations. The other reason I'm a fan of the conference for al long time is the community. There is a conference before the conference (Opening Acts) put on by the VMunderground team where it's panels's and you can talk to people over vBrisket lunch about how/why they are doing things. A conference with a lot of people in your field gives you the opportunity to talk to peers about not just what people are saying on stage but also validate what others are doing.

DellWorld is neutral if your wanting to see where non-hardware overlay vendors are going (Microsoft, RedHat, VMware are all there to talk and present).

AWS and Microsoft conferences will yield similar benefits partly because they (like VMware and Dell) have so many products (and partner ecosystem partners) surrounding them that while there are always slightly rose tinted glasses on things they had enough product diversity that you can learn a little about everything in them.

If you want an analyst driven conference about the future of IT, IDC is what Gartner promises to be IMHO. Any of their presentations at other conferences (I saw their people speak in vForum in Kuala Lumpur and their vision for digital transformation is really spot on with what I see in the field).

The "vendor focused" conferences really only get tunnel vision when they are about a single vendor who only has a single product (or maybe 2 products) in a very narrow filed. Pure Storage's conference would be an example (Where you can expect the sessions on HCI to be pure FUD, because they don't have an HCI product).

I'm pretty sure I attend more conferences than everyone else on this website.

Just saw this...

If you have a PSOD you generally want to take picture of it, and pull the crash dumps and open a ticket with Vmware GSS.

The other useful thing to do is check the syslog (LogInisght is part of vROPS).

@scottalanmiller Check out OVH. Largest hosting provider in EMEA. BareMetal and you run your own whatever or dedicated vCenter/ESXi private cloud stuff.

@NerdyDad Yes you are

In all seriousness I wouldn't run a PBX on anything that didn't have a dedicated resource pool (Transcoding can do funny things when it doesn't have equal access to the CPU clock). This is generally in the install guide for a lot of PBX systems.

@scottalanmiller

VCE (or any converged vendor) never offered a solution that leveraged local storage, or included only a single host.

Even looking at other CI stacks (FlexPod etc) no one ever did this and called it converged infrastructure.

Even within the HCI space the top 4-5 players never called it this (Scale doesn't call a single node HCI, VMware doesn't, Simplivity HPE do not, and Nutanix never have).
The analysts (Wikibon, IDC, Gartner) all love splitting hairs (ServerSAN was popular for a while with Wikibon, Gartner refused to consider anything that wasn't an appliance, and IDC stayed pretty neutral) all seem to be in agreement on things now.

You (and really anyone) can call anything anything, but at some point you stand alone in calling a poptart a sandwich.

@scottalanmiller said in You can't quit, you're fired!!:

want you at the office, and you've given 2 weeks (at least in NY) you're entitled to that pay.

No. They can totally fire you. Otherwise you could put in long notice to avoid being fired

If they fire you can claim unemployment. This raises/spikes their insurance costs though so smart companies go to GREAT lengths to not fire people.

@scottalanmiller said in You can't quit, you're fired!!:

@s.hackleman said in You can't quit, you're fired!!:

@coliver said in You can't quit, you're fired!!:

@DustinB3403 Find me a reference then. Everything I've seen points to the opposite. You are employed at the will of the company and can be terminated for almost any reason, or no reason. It doesn't matter if you've put in your two weeks notice or not. For reference here is the NYS Attorney General's list of Employee Rights.

https://ag.ny.gov/labor/your-rights-employee

No where does it say protection during a transitional period.

Also in an at-will state here. You are paid for the hours worked, if your employer let's you go, they have to pay you for every minute up until that point, but once you are fired, quit or other wise not working, your pay ends. If there is another contract outside of that, that may be the case, but nothing exists on state labor laws. Typically, you only give your 2 week notice so when you use the place you worked on your resume they will mark you available for rehire, and give a positive review. If you bail with no notice they won't mark you for rehire, then using them as a reference can be difficult.

Yeah, ALL of the power comes down to things like unemployment costs and claims with references. You say they fired you for putting in notice, they can't legally deny it. They want to say you quit, you can prove that you didn't. You want to claim unemployment, they have no way to stop it because they fired you. They want you back, you can negotiate anything that you want, you have no obligations at all. Firing you puts most of the power in your hands. Other than stopping you from riding out two weeks, you get all the cards. They also make it public that they don't accept notice, so other employees have no professional obligation to give notice either. It's now a free for all for others to quit simply by calling in on the morning that they start their next job. That's not something an employer wants happening.

This is also when you fire people you pay a severance so employees don't get paranoid and jump ship to avoid cashflow issues if they THINK they might get let go in a RIF. Companies that just "throw people out" and stop paying them are more likely to see employees do the same.

If an employees regularly fires people without putting them on a performance improvement plan, giving warnings, and pays no severance people are going to be much more aggressively always looking for their next job.

I've heard of us giving 3 months pay and medical insurance as severance. That means if we have a down quarter people are less likely to run for the exits and more likely to come back if they can find another role.

@scottalanmiller said in Is HyperConvergence Even a Thing:

Then what stops a VMware setup with vSAN from being called hyperconverged?

Converged (The predecessor) and hyper converged systems have always included multiple nodes.

VCE (Which really founded the converged systems model) was primarily about converging the install/config and support operations. When you bought a vBlock it came factory pre-cabled in a Rack as a single unit. It solved a LOT of install problems based on people not knowing how to correctly plugin 80 cables if nothing else.

@scottalanmiller A lot of even small conferences have some good speakers buried in. A big thing is ignore the session topics and focus on the speakers. Look them up on linkedIn. Want technical information? Is it being given by a product marketing person with less than 6 months tenure, or is it being given by someone who's got 3 books you've read a blog you consult weekly.

At VMworld the following speakers could be have a topic called "things you didn't know about how to make a Cat5 cable" and it would be well worth going.

Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, Mike Foley, Emad Younis, William Lam.

Frank would give you a performance deep dive on cables that would make your head explode, Duncan would somehow make it entertaining and practical even if it wasn't your core field, Mike would teach you why you don't need to be afraid of the cable but the person who plugs it in, Emad would teach you how to automate it, and William would teach you how to McGuyver your way into making the cable into a Indiana Jones Laso and fly across the ball room.

GREAT presenters can make even dry topics insanely entertaining.

For Pure storage I'd stalk Cody Hosterman. He's been doing some really cool stuff with vRA and automation recently. There's a big Russian Guy who talks about new x blade stuff who's pretty sharp and Scott the CEO has some interesting thoughts on the industry and data analytics and is worth talking to (I got locked in a room with Pure people for a few days recently). Vaughn Stewart is fun to argue with (Remember if he gets out of control threaten his hair).

The other person worth stalking while your there is Pete Flecha. He's a short guy who does the virtually speaking podcast and works for VMware. You should ask him about vVols and why you should be using it with Pure after you do your setup.

@scottalanmiller Spot on. The booth work is one of the most hated positions, and generally used by Product Marketing, or SE's who were trying to find an excuse to get a pass and pay for the trip.

The more serious SME's at conferences are often in the briefing center. Schedule with your vendor before hand with your sales rep who/what you need to meet with. Briefings are not just for the F500 (although those guys spend a LOT of their conference in there I'm pretty sure).

Now note, at a minor conference occasionally you get lucky. Some of my team did some booth duty for VeeamOn, and the Gartner conference.

@NerdyDad My office is in Palo Alto (it's a long damn commute) and $400 a night is sometimes the rate for the Residence Inn. The trick in SFO proper is AirBnB, or use boutiques (us business travelers are after our points and will avoid both).

My hotel in Barcelona this year is ~$320 mostly for this reason.

@coliver said in Is HyperConvergence Even a Thing:

Hyperconverged to me is bringing disparate interfaces and technologies into one box. Storage, Hypervisor, Management, and Network on a single box managed from a single interface.

That's just boring virtualization. (Virtualizing networking, storage, and compute of a local server).

Hyperconverged infrastructure is an evolved term from converged infrastructure.

It was introduced to argue that CI systems were made of disparate vendor solutions and bringing it all together into a system where the hosts compute and disk bays took on the role of the storage controller in providing HA storage. The SAN component was rolled inside the server It was "moar" converged than a traditional CI stack.

Now some people are abusing this term. Netapp is describing a bundled deployment of SolidFire and SuperMicro servers is HCI.

Coheisity is arguing that they are hyperconvered secondary storage (because they converge secondary storage roles).

for a while Gartner said HCI had to be an appliance.

They are/where all wrong.