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Ugh, After a decade years in IT largely consisting of managing Wintel Environments I honestly want to move into development. I feel like the demands of System Administrator are entirely unreasonable and compensation while adequate just not enough. Granted, I'm sure there are plenty of decent gigs out there but I'm tired of job hunting. I know this seems corny but I'd rather actually make a difference other than just keeping the trains running on time. Has anyone ever made the switch? Any advice? At best I'm somewhat proficient with Powershell and Bash. I took a Java Class years ago in college but ended up dropping out but because I was young and stupid but found it incredibly enthralling. I've gone through about 2/3s of the Python Course on Code Academy and I'm following along pretty well. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 05:43
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Lilli posted:This isnt the right thread at all! But for what its worth my new job is going really well so far! 
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Jun 29, 2016 11:14
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Tab8715 posted:Ugh, After a decade years in IT largely consisting of managing Wintel Environments - Yes I feel like the demands of System Administrator are entirely unreasonable - YES I know this seems corny but I'd rather actually make a difference other than just keeping the trains running on time. - YES!!! Hell I hadn't even admitted this to my wife until about 2-3 weeks ago because it was just something I'd been feeling vaguely in the back of my mind, but I just don't know how much longer I can sys admin. It isn't my current job, or anyone I work with - it's the whole idea. As a sys admin, we're just supporting what others create. I want to create. I don't know what, but I want to have an idea, and then I want to build it. The closest I can come to that as a sys admin is if a close friend gets a couple million dollars in funding, starts a company, and lets me build the infrastructure from the ground up. Since that's not happening, all I do in IT right now is just clean up messes and try to get excited about automating a server deployment. I want to make something.
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Jun 29, 2016 12:11
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On the theme of making things - a friend of mine sold his stake in an MSP, took some classes and now does joinery for a living. He couldn't be happier.
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Jun 29, 2016 12:16
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I'm really glad this topic is coming up. I recently took a Java class and just loved it. I did an extra project on the side just for fun that's way more complex than anything the class required. But is it worth ditching my certs and job experience to start over in developing? How much work do I need to pour in to a portfolio before I start getting serious offers? What am I going to miss as a sysadmin if I jump (prob domain admin rights)?
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Jun 29, 2016 12:25
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Working in IT 4.0: The Exodus
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Jun 29, 2016 12:26
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Dunno you guys, I have development certs and all, but I find sysadmin way more fun and relaxing than the project hell of software development.
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Jun 29, 2016 13:55
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SEKCobra posted:Dunno you guys, I have development certs and all, but I find sysadmin way more fun and relaxing than the project hell of software development.  Let them find out that the green grass is from the mold.Edit: I'm not saying that to be a dick, after all everyone has to find their niche. But developers are paid nothing, still have to do support (why have a help desk when the developers know what they built betterer!), still need to be able to anticipate every way an end user will ignore instructions highlighted in bright red next to a dancing clown with finger pointing at the instructions (why have QA when the developers know what they built betterer!), as well as actually design....which, if you are lucky, is either based on a design that never changes but is retarded and dumb or constantly changes as people see advertisements/learn buzz words from their 15 year old nephew. To compare, be a SysAdmin that is also T1 Help Desk that has to help each user save a file each time they do so, while also having to replace servers every week because the requirements for the environment keep changing while your boss keeps randomly hooking up servers of his own design cobbled together from 286s and duct tape that take over vital functions you are trying to keep stable. Sure, you can find a place that isn't chaos, but there will always be something. (Jaded? Me? Nah. This here hip flask is for my rheumatis.) Arsten fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 13:57
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Yeah, unless you're in some sorta codemonkey position, your job obviously includes testing and support. Probably also gonna have to do Ops, so at least you can pretend you're a cool "DevOp".
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Jun 29, 2016 14:11
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Cthulhuite posted:Sometimes supporting the business means beating on the end users. I'm doing this because I love you. It hurts me more than it hurts you.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:23
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This anti-antivirus position confuses me. Is it that I should not have any AV at all, or that I should not rely on AV as my only defense? The latter seems obvious, the former seems scary and kind of dumb.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:23
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Colonial Air Force posted:This anti-antivirus position confuses me. The point is that AV in 2016 barely does anything and might cause you to be more vulnerable than not having it. The cost is also absurd for what it does.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:28
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Sickening posted:The point is that AV in 2016 barely does anything and might cause you to be more vulnerable than not having it. ESET was pretty cheap for us, but I suppose still more than $0. Even if all it does is find very old viruses, very old viruses are the kind of thing that happens at a ski resort.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:29
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Basically just use whatever is bundled with Windows 10 (Windows Defender?) and be done with it. All AV is terrible, might as well use the one that is least obtrusive, updates itself along with your OS on a regular basis, and is free.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:29
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Colonial Air Force posted:ESET was pretty cheap for us, but I suppose still more than $0. Even if all it does is find very old viruses, very old viruses are the kind of thing that happens at a ski resort. Very old viruses prey on stuff that should be patched by now. They way they attack you (email attachments/browser) should be your primary concern.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:31
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Arsten posted:
This most definitely goes both ways. Is it cool to work on high end servers, racking and stacking, spinning up VMs, automating workflow? Sure! But it any decently sized environment, one of these things will happen in a 2 month span. Which means you have 7 weeks of loving nooottthhhiiiinnggggg except waiting for fires to break out. If you're doing your job correctly, no fires will break out. A typical day for me is checking backups, looking at firewall logs, antivirus logs, email reports, VMWare event logs, and anything else I can fill time with between pointless meetings about a project coming up in a few months. Developers dealing with deadline demands all the time would probably love the monotony of sysadmin, and sysadmins would love the stressful fast pace of development. For a year. After which we'll all be begging to go back to where we came from.
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Jun 29, 2016 14:32
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Testing out the Cisco/Meraki voip phones and they are so pretty  they aren't very functional yet though 
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Jun 29, 2016 14:42
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SEKCobra posted:Dunno you guys, I have development certs and all, but I find sysadmin way more fun and relaxing than the project hell of software development. Yup this is basically me at work  In my shop developing would mostly be small projects and supporting code developed by lovely contractors in Bangalore. At least as a sysadmin I get to design systems.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:02
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Kashuno posted:Testing out the Cisco/Meraki voip phones and they are so pretty Meraki scares me. Hopefully that's not a huge headache for you though.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:17
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alg posted:Yup this is basically me at work Wizard does all that cool poo poo but then pipes the output into null. The image checks out.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:17
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HatfulOfHollow posted:Wizard does all that cool poo poo but then pipes the output into null. The image checks out. Only noobs need to read output
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Jun 29, 2016 15:41
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mewse posted:Only noobs need to read output For security purposes some of the programs I have written explicitly don't print anything when debugging is undefined.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:44
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Supervisor for network engineer (read: network technician) job I interviewed for a month ago called me and told me they had to redo something on the HR end and would I please apply for the new position he's just recently posted.  ?
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Jun 29, 2016 16:02
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Arsten posted:But developers are paid nothing,  I mean, I realize there's always something terrible about every job track but "developers are paid nothing" is not one of them as far as I can tell.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:07
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Inspector_666 posted:
Depends on the area and depends on the language: http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/technology/blog/best-programming-languages-based-on-earnings-and-opportunities/ 
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Jun 29, 2016 16:08
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ratbert90 posted:Depends on the area and depends on the language: drat did all the DBAs jump ship or did everyone just realize their 'dba' had no idea what they were doing?
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Jun 29, 2016 16:12
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ratbert90 posted:Depends on the area and depends on the language: 80k+ isn't "Nothing" by any definition of the word.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:15
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ChubbyThePhat posted:Meraki scares me. Hopefully that's not a huge headache for you though. Same, not sure I want to trust a third party with access in to a business infrastructure. Cool tech, it does work as advertised. I'm perfectly happy to run the free MX-64 they sent me for the next three years at home until the subscription runs out, however!
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Jun 29, 2016 16:35
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ChubbyThePhat posted:drat did all the DBAs jump ship or did everyone just realize their 'dba' had no idea what they were doing? The opposite: The job posters think SQL is a +1 required skillset for everyone on the right side of the graph to know. They just don't want to pay for an actual DBA just like they don't want to pay for an actual sysadmin. devmd01 posted:Same, not sure I want to trust a third party with access in to a business infrastructure. Cool tech, it does work as advertised. I'm perfectly happy to run the free MX-64 they sent me for the next three years at home until the subscription runs out, however! Meraki fills the void left where companies think they can get away without an IT staff as long as their enterprisey hardware has pretty, easy-to-use GUIs... So these companies pay IT consultants to own & manage their Meraki deployments instead. The hardware itself works well if used properly, and the whole ecosystem works great together (router + switches + APs) but they have pretty steep maintenance costs, and their pricing model is hardware-as-a-service so they brick themselves if you don't keep your subscription current. CrazyLittle fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 16:38
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Inspector_666 posted:80k+ isn't "Nothing" by any definition of the word. First, this is a switch-to position, which means it's going to be close to entry level. Outside of cost of living issues, I'm betting those are not entry-level or near-entry-level positions. Second, mind the source. A college isn't going to advertise a degree field by saying that you can make 40k - and also a lot of job listings don't list salary information and the ones that do skew high.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:44
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Sickening posted:Very old viruses prey on stuff that should be patched by now. They way they attack you (email attachments/browser) should be your primary concern. I know posting about this before got me my shiny red title but here goes again. Yes current AV sucks and is 99% useless. I think it does help catch older poo poo that shouldnt have gotten through to begin with but it rarely seems to. User education is the best bang for your buck defense. We've had great success with KnowBe4 and the amount of tickets coming in now that are just users asking help desk to check on a suspicious email have gone way up and helped us catch a few that in the past users would've clicked on or opened some attachment. That said we are stuck with AV to please the auditors and try to make the best out of a lovely situation. I cant wait to get rid of McAfee though, holy poo poo its hot garbage. Of course my boss renewed for two years right before I started here.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:51
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CrazyLittle posted:Meraki fills the void left where companies think they can get away without an IT staff as long as their enterprisey hardware has pretty, easy-to-use GUIs... So these companies pay IT consultants to own & manage their Meraki deployments instead.  But hey I don't pay the bills around here so here we are!
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Jun 29, 2016 16:53
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BaseballPCHiker posted:I know posting about this before got me my shiny red title but here goes again. Our high turnover rate means I can't rely on employee training. Fortunately most of the lower level staff don't even get email and the POS systems are locked down tighter than a nun's vagina. I mean we other things than just AV, but it seems bizarre to say "just don't bother" to me.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:55
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CrazyLittle posted:Meraki fills the void left where companies think they can get away without an IT staff as long as their enterprisey hardware has pretty, easy-to-use GUIs... So these companies pay IT consultants to own & manage their Meraki deployments instead. Even in enterprise environments with in-house IT staff, Meraki is great for remote site management. Having three branch offices with Meraki firewalls / APs plus 3 work-from-home users with Z1 gateways prevents a LOT of headaches.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:57
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BaseballPCHiker posted:That said we are stuck with AV to please the auditors and try to make the best out of a lovely situation. I cant wait to get rid of McAfee though, holy poo poo its hot garbage. Of course my boss renewed for two years right before I started here. That's the biggest thing in this thread when AV comes up. I'd say the majority of people asking about it are not in a position to say "None, we should use no AV" when asked.
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Jun 29, 2016 17:02
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Inspector_666 posted:That's the biggest thing in this thread when AV comes up. I'd say the majority of people asking about it are not in a position to say "None, we should use no AV" when asked. Yeah I'm sure beyond just pleasing the auditors if I looked deeply enough there is probably some language in compliance laws that cover our business dictating we use AV, laws that probably haven't been reviewed in a decade plus. Even now if our AV miraculously catches something we just reimage the culprits computer.
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Jun 29, 2016 17:06
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Yeah I'm sure beyond just pleasing the auditors if I looked deeply enough there is probably some language in compliance laws that cover our business dictating we use AV, laws that probably haven't been reviewed in a decade plus. We have auditors too and AV isn't even a requirement anymore and hasn't been for a quite a long time. Is there even a major compliance thing that requires it anymore?
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Jun 29, 2016 17:14
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Sickening posted:We have auditors too and AV isn't even a requirement anymore and hasn't been for a quite a long time. Is there even a major compliance thing that requires it anymore? It's a requirement for PCI.
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Jun 29, 2016 18:15
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rafikki posted:It's a requirement for PCI.
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Jun 29, 2016 18:35
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rafikki posted:It's a requirement for PCI. Yup, PCI-DSS (all 'levels/tiers' whatever they call them), require AV and yes HIPAA does as well, we have clients that fall under both, although thank god our one client doesn't do credit processing anymore, that makes you fall under the highest level of PCI and it's a nightmare.
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Jun 29, 2016 18:38
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