Upskilling in Infrastructure Type Roles

[gables]

... Private Cloud stuff with VMware is still ticking along but I don't want to invest a lot of time and money in a skill I feel will be mostly obsolete in 5 years time.

Any advice appreciated.

Assuming we are both talking about Public cloud, as Private cloud is just a fancy wrapper around traditional virtualization, so the need for the underlying skills is still there.

Which public cloud provider is giving up free (or almost free) dev environments? Hope you are not talking about a hand full Azure credits that come with MSDN sub.

By the sound of it you are talking about web businesses, which are the biggest users of DevOps and Public cloud - they would be the 20% in my statement. For them the elasticity of the Public cloud is major factor and the reason for the economic case for using the cloud.

For the majority of the other businesses, where IT is not the business by itself and the demand for storage and compute is more or less static on-premise or a healthy mix of on-premise and public cloud is still much better and cheaper solution.

What Sal said.. VMware ain't going anytime soon, certainly won't be obsolete in the 5 years.

maybe the smart money would be keeping this skill because as everyone jumps to be cool, sorry get on the latest tech, these skills will then be in demand with lower supply... or am I dreaming?

[Lance]

It's all private cloud here, and you know what - it's utter wank. Promised 20min linux 'small server' spin-ups - two weeks - still waiting...

It's for a POC, ended up starting it on VMware Workstation on isolated network on my lappy. Trouble is, gonna need them soon, need to interface to existing AD/Centrify, my laptop (and brain) cannae take all that...

badly deployed (or purchased) private cloud is the issue not cloud as a concept (or as AWS/Azure do it). Sounds like you have a people problem rather than a technology one

[mattfx]

You got any demonstrable experience to back these bits of paper up?

Yes - Completed a handful of mediums sized migration projects and successfully managed a 2000 user estate in O365.

[Lance]

What Sal said.. VMware ain't going anytime soon, certainly won't be obsolete in the 5 years.

maybe the smart money would be keeping this skill because as everyone jumps to be cool, sorry get on the latest tech, these skills will then be in demand with lower supply... or am I dreaming?

I don't disagree with VMware being around in 5 years, probably longer. My point is that it costs less to deploy in the cloud what you can deploy locally (servers, storage, network, support, training etc.). Whilst companies have spent $$$$$$ on the tin they're not likely to bin it any time soon. The TCO of the same in the cloud is less.
It will just take some time for the already heavily invested organisations to move.
The cloud also scares people who are worried about their jobs, but to be honest they should be more worried about TCS/Wipro/etc. than Azure.

The cloud skills are in demand. And finding good people is a challenge.

[mattfx]

Azure ties in with O365 the best so I'd look at that.
However the certificates were out of date 1 week after released and they are a few years old. O365 and Azure are changing weekly. IMO the certs are a total waste of time.

If you can get a migration based on them then go for it, but use that project as the spring board. Make sure that you use Azure as much as possible during that migration and gain as much experience as you can. Building your ADFS systems in Azure may be exactly what you need.

Thanks for this Lance. I agree when it comes to certs - just because someone has them doesn't mean they can deliver. However, I've literally just lost out on a gig due to not being certified and this friend of mine for the migration has management that was someone certified. We all know businesses make silly decisions based on nothing but desires with no factual basis; just have to roll with it I guess.

AD is definitely one of my more specialist skills, so I guess getting into Azure AD would probably make the most sense and then learning what some of the bigger players are using at a third party level (Ping seems very hot right now) would be of benefit..

[stek]

badly deployed (or purchased) private cloud is the issue not cloud as a concept (or as AWS/Azure do it). Sounds like you have a people problem rather than a technology one

Think it was an attempt to wrap the exisiting provisioning in a cloud-like box ticking environment. The team is in Texas, so we only get about 2 hours overlap on Lync to complain! another madness (that is being explited like mad now people have cottoned on) is the cloud sizing is so fixed (small, medium or large Red Hat 6) and costed too high, folks have found ordering a configurable physical cheaper because rack and power etc isn't considered in the costings. This is what happens what some bright spark shouts 'Cloud!' and they slap it in a quick as possible.

[Lance]

Thanks for this Lance. I agree when it comes to certs - just because someone has them doesn't mean they can deliver. However, I've literally just lost out on a gig due to not being certified and this friend of mine for the migration has management that was someone certified. We all know businesses make silly decisions based on nothing but desires with no factual basis; just have to roll with it I guess.

AD is definitely one of my more specialist skills, so I guess getting into Azure AD would probably make the most sense and then learning what some of the bigger players are using at a third party level (Ping seems very hot right now) would be of benefit..

you're welcome. Don't confuse Azure AD with ADFS, or the AD you already know though. It's totally stripped down to support Azure/O365 only. You can integrate with on-prem AD (or build AD on IaaS in Azure). And there is Azure AD premium which costs more and is still different.

[Lance]

Think it was an attempt to wrap the exisiting provisioning in a cloud-like box ticking environment. The team is in Texas, so we only get about 2 hours overlap on Lync to complain! another madness (that is being explited like mad now people have cottoned on) is the cloud sizing is so fixed (small, medium or large Red Hat 6) and costed too high, folks have found ordering a configurable physical cheaper because rack and power etc isn't considered in the costings. This is what happens what some bright spark shouts 'Cloud!' and they slap it in a quick as possible.

"This is what happens what some bright spark shouts <INSERT LATEST FAD/BUZZWORD> and they slap it in a quick as possible"

and this it ever was and shall be.

It's why contractors exist. We know how to manage change (well most do).

[mattfx]

VMware and Hyper-V are both old tech now; Public Cloud is the way forward for any business looking to refresh their estate or a startup / new arm of a business looking to build new. There are still use cases for internal kit such as VDI, but even these use cases are becoming limited.

The reason so many businesses think Public Cloud is too expensive is because they don't size it correctly. I've seen Domain Controllers in the cloud with 8 GB of RAM and 4 CPU cores assigned - because that's what it was on prem. If you let resources run away like that then of course it's going to be expensive! It's a little bit like buying a Ferrari and then taking it over to Jersey where you can only do 20MPH, then complaining of a massive fuel bill.

It's just my opinion and people can take it or leave it but, VMware are in trouble which is why they're spending so much time innovating in the AirWatch and Horizon View space. They sold vCloud Air off to OVH because they couldn't compete and were too late to the party, now they've got to hope that they find another niche before vSphere dies a death.

In relation to the comment made about let everyone jump to the new platforms, then be one of the few "old guard" left that knows how to service old stuff, that only works for so long before you bankrupt yourself, surely.... That said, I know some guys working on Windows 2003 servers who make a killing.

[mattfx]

you're welcome. Don't confuse Azure AD with ADFS, or the AD you already know though. It's totally stripped down to support Azure/O365 only. You can integrate with on-prem AD (or build AD on IaaS in Azure). And there is Azure AD premium which costs more and is still different.

Yeah, I'm reasonably aware of it although i've not delved into it - Azure AD is a totally flat structure isn't it? I.E. no OU's or anything?!

I designed an ADFS solution for a customer a couple of years ago, but that was easy... Read requirements, shove on to diagram, do pre sales stuff, hand over to installation team. That's as much as i've had to do with it really. Although I'm pretty sure everything I suggested worked, I won't know because I'm no longer in touch with those people and I wasn't responsible for carrying out the on site bit! That and everything is always changing and that was a couple years ago.