Reply to: Want to move from 2nd Line to Server work

[gables]

I'm gonna fire up the HP RX6600 in the garage, it's running HP-UX 11i with HP Integrity VM and a few OpenVMS 8.4 instances on it, Hobbyist licences, great fun. When I installed VMS in the VM's I'd totally forgotten most of the VMS stuff, but it comes back quickly, thanks to having done it for 10 years, albeit 20 years or so ago....

I bought the box (£150) to get up to speed again on VMS, since I was in for contract that need skills in 'AIX, Solaris VMS' so I though - w00t! Turns out it was mean to be 'AIX and Solaris VM's'. Bugger.

Ironically role was at the same nuclear power station, now being decommissioned, really fancied it for nostalgic purposes!

Well, did you fire it up?

[stek]

Pretty sure we were running a native Alpha port. Wasn't the rumour at the time that when Dave wrote WNT it's so called WNT as it was his vision of what VMS should become so they chose the next letters in the alphabet after VMS?

Yup, pagefile.sys still there.

Such fun

I'm gonna fire up the HP RX6600 in the garage, it's running HP-UX 11i with HP Integrity VM and a few OpenVMS 8.4 instances on it, Hobbyist licences, great fun. When I installed VMS in the VM's I'd totally forgotten most of the VMS stuff, but it comes back quickly, thanks to having done it for 10 years, albeit 20 years or so ago....

I bought the box (£150) to get up to speed again on VMS, since I was in for contract that need skills in 'AIX, Solaris VMS' so I though - w00t! Turns out it was mean to be 'AIX and Solaris VM's'. Bugger.

Ironically role was at the same nuclear power station, now being decommissioned, really fancied it for nostalgic purposes!

[LondonManc]

So, OP, this is the level of experience that you're up against. Fancy your chances?

[gables]

Memories!

We had NT 3.51 too on Alphas running the FX32 Intel emulator for PowerStation I think, can't remember if there was a native Alpha port. You can see the roots of VMS in NT, it was Dave Cutler who moved from DEC to MS to build it I believe. Did a 2001 - HAL-IBM - VMS-WNT.......

Also both VMS and Windows still have a PAGEFILE.SYS from memory....

Pretty sure we were running a native Alpha port. Wasn't the rumour at the time that when Dave wrote WNT it's so called WNT as it was his vision of what VMS should become so they chose the next letters in the alphabet after VMS?

Yup, pagefile.sys still there.

Such fun

[stek]

You've just listed pretty much my skill set at the time; I worked for DEC from Oct 1989-Oct 1993 based at Enterprise House, High Holborn. My first contract was based on DEC Pathworks in Brussels, then after that a company at Harefield where we added a Windows NT 3.51 server running MS SQL Server on a DEC Alpha - got me into Microsoft infrastructures that contract.

Memories!

We had NT 3.51 too on Alphas running the FX32 Intel emulator for PowerStation I think, can't remember if there was a native Alpha port. You can see the roots of VMS in NT, it was Dave Cutler who moved from DEC to MS to build it I believe. Did a 2001 - HAL-IBM - VMS-WNT.......

Also both VMS and Windows still have a PAGEFILE.SYS from memory....

[gables]

I was an expert on PathWorks, DECNET, LAT, TeamLinks at the time. We had two VMS clusters, mixed architecture, shared boot disks, VaxStations with 19" monitors, VAXELN embedded VAX, DEC bridges, routers and brouters, repeaters, vampire taps, thick ethernet, PowerStation FORTRAN77, this was c. 1992, all gone now.

Happy days, nuclear power station.....

You've just listed pretty much my skill set at the time; I worked for DEC from Oct 1989-Oct 1993 based at Enterprise House, High Holborn in the network management team, and I then took on the role of implementing Pathworks and supporting the PCs that came in, we even had an Apple, still kept my foot in the network management team as well. My first contract was based on DEC Pathworks in Brussels, then after that a company at Harefield where we added a Windows NT 3.51 server running MS SQL Server on a DEC Alpha - got me into Microsoft infrastructures that contract.

[stek]

and Banyan Vines, Novell, DEC Pathworks - those were the days

I was an expert on PathWorks, DECNET, LAT, TeamLinks at the time. We had two VMS clusters, mixed architecture, shared boot disks, VaxStations with 19" monitors, VAXELN embedded VAX, DEC bridges, routers and brouters, repeaters, vampire taps, thick ethernet, PowerStation FORTRAN77, this was c. 1992, all gone now.

Happy days, nuclear power station.....

[gables]

Remember Microsoft LAN Manager which I think was basically OS/2 before the acrimony set in...

and Banyan Vines, Novell, DEC Pathworks - those were the days

[LondonManc]

Don't want to burst your bubble but pure OS server engineer contract roles are pretty much non-existent and the few there are, are for crap rate comparable to permie salary so hardly worth it. As others have stated you will be hard pressed to find a contract with no experience to show, unless you lie in your CV and count on your self-taught skills to get you through.

The situation is even grimmer for windows/wintel server engineers as everyone and their dog thinks they know windows server after reinstalling the PCs of their whole family a couple of times, sothe market is flooded with sub-par "junior" windows server candidates.

Your best bet for transition is to get a perm role that would allow you to grow in-house. Also if you want to eventually go into contracting or in more specialist/higher pay roles - forget about "server" admin in terms of OS MCSA 2012 and what not - move towards the underlying infrastructure by learning virtualization, storage and networking

+1

Significant skills change means that you're contracting ability in the new area is minimal. You're better off going perm, getting the training, getting two successful and different projects under your belt then looking back into contracting in a few years.

[sal]

Don't want to burst your bubble but pure OS server engineer contract roles are pretty much non-existent and the few there are, are for crap rate comparable to permie salary so hardly worth it. As others have stated you will be hard pressed to find a contract with no experience to show, unless you lie in your CV and count on your self-taught skills to get you through.

The situation is even grimmer for windows/wintel server engineers as everyone and their dog thinks they know windows server after reinstalling the PCs of their whole family a couple of times, sothe market is flooded with sub-par "junior" windows server candidates.

Your best bet for transition is to get a perm role that would allow you to grow in-house. Also if you want to eventually go into contracting or in more specialist/higher pay roles - forget about "server" admin in terms of OS MCSA 2012 and what not - move towards the underlying infrastructure by learning virtualization, storage and networking

[kingmob]

Escort contractor off site.

I've only seen it done by security.

One security guard if the contractor is well behaved and up to 3 if they think the contractor will be difficult.

funnily enough i had the reverse(?) Escorted back to my office by Security on my renewal date, had my new contract in hand but no one had let Reception know, my manager was on holiday for a week and my IT accounts had expired! My job role? 3rd Line Support gig at a British Uni!

[SueEllen]

Sorry, I have to ask

Escort contractor off site.

I've only seen it done by security.

One security guard if the contractor is well behaved and up to 3 if they think the contractor will be difficult.

[Pip in a Poke]

Agreed. Hence the "chancer" bit.

Strangely, IME, many clients seem to suffer the "sunk cost fallacy" and don't tend to let bad contractors go because they either can't be bothered to go through the hassle of replacing them, or they have a recruitment freeze on and they'd rather keep a carp person than have no-one. In more hands-on technical roles, the impact of a numpty engineer is a bit more impactful and the escort service is more likely to be used.

Sorry, I have to ask

[Vurso]

Have a look through the job boards and get an idea of the type of contract work that is required, this will give you an idea of where your profile sits as a desktop > server engineer.

Usually you can work out what is the "in" tech at the time and this will allow you to do some learning and brush up your terminology and knowledge and then get on the forums and search Google learn what are the hot topics and questions.

It's about sounding like you know what you are talking about and then demonstrating you are willing to learn but you can hit the ground running so talk about how you would go about learning something or prepping for your next role for example (you have to demonstrate you are resourceful and self managing).

Certifications are fine but you might end up looking a bit academic i.e. you have lots of certs but they don't tally up with your timeline (your experience) so try to gain the basic ones at least and let the employers offer you further training and qualifications (rare for a contractor but does happen) or at least mention that you plan to self fund your qualifications and training.

Experiment. Its very easy to try stuff now, you have virtual machines online, free cloud services and now Linux OSes that are free and accessible through a web browser (do a search on Google) - its important you look and sound like you have at least a small amount of experience not just someone who can talk about it and throw out key words.

Good luck.

[stek]

Didn't have to put in that kind of hard work. They needed someone OS/2 certified. I think I was the only person in the world who was

Remember Microsoft LAN Manager which I think was basically OS/2 before the acrimony set in...