Reply to: Infrastructure Guys - What`s actually hot right now?

[stek]

POWER runs Linux, y'know (as well as AIX and i). And now it's Little Endian, it's less of a drag. Much better performance than x86 as well (but of course, you know that).

EDIT: having said that, AWS seems to be as hot as ever.
Also, what about infrastructure design for open source databases like Mongo, Postgres, etc? Gartner are always predicting they're about to take over the world.

Yeah we got it at current clientco. Think it does endian-swapping tho but I'm not sure...

We got AWS for web-facing stuff but it seems to be quite unreliable so moving to a private cloud. I've just started here so again not 100% sure I'm correct on that.

Think I'm too long in the tooth for new stuff that pops up every so often, always end up back on core OS virtualisation old-school, to me DevOps is scripting with knobs on!

[Platypus]

I'm back in the IBM POWER world, cutting edge firmware-based virtualisation, sometimes it falls out of favour in today's Linux world but it always bounces back.

POWER runs Linux, y'know (as well as AIX and i). And now it's Little Endian, it's less of a drag. Much better performance than x86 as well (but of course, you know that).

EDIT: having said that, AWS seems to be as hot as ever.
Also, what about infrastructure design for open source databases like Mongo, Postgres, etc? Gartner are always predicting they're about to take over the world.

[spongeym]

I agree that being a jack of all trades is useful in the Infrastructure world, but in saying that, have come across a fair few SME's, Storage, PowerShell who certainly know their trade and earn well enough from it, but when the contract ends they tend to spend longer on the bench looking for a role with that specialism.

Everything is going down the Infrastructure as a Service/Code route.

[squarepeg]

I've seen a lot of shift towards adopting some form of Automation. Scripting skills with PowerShell, Ruby or a Chef/Puppet tool, also AWS & Azure, and more increasingly Google Cloud as well.

There is also strong demand for Ansible.

[DanielAnthony]

I've seen a lot of shift towards adopting some form of Automation. Scripting skills with PowerShell, Ruby or a Chef/Puppet tool, also AWS & Azure, and more increasingly Google Cloud as well.

Yep, everything is going software defined, and if you've got an infrastructure background and can pick up the Python/Ruby & Ansible/Chef skills, then you're laughing. I can't believe what its possible to earn now.

I still maintain that it's better to be a jack of all trades though, I've met a lot of arrogant OpenStack DevOps guys who go all quiet when having to discuss things like LUN masking or remote server management.

[vwdan]

UCS with Enterprise clients = too expensive
VMWare seems to be charging on
Cloud Backup / Look into the AWS Storage Gateway(s) and StorSimple at Amazon + S3 and Blob
MDT - Dear lord, I've done some work with it, bloody awful.
Hybrid Cloud - Have a look at Terraform, I think this will be the future
Backup, - Rubrik for all Windows environments, Veritas is back as well, so maybe more development with NetBackup on the horizon - Any sort of integrated On-Premise/Cloud data protection solution

Just my 2 cents

Fair analysis - not quite in line with my experience, but it`s always good to get some different viewpoints.

[vwdan]

I've seen a lot of shift towards adopting some form of Automation. Scripting skills with PowerShell, Ruby or a Chef/Puppet tool, also AWS & Azure, and more increasingly Google Cloud as well.

Yes, and this is definitely something I need to lean on more. I`m an infrastructure guy through and through, but I`m handier than most when it comes to .NET, PowerShell etc. Not done much with Ruby or Python but I imagine I could learn.

[spongeym]

I've seen a lot of shift towards adopting some form of Automation. Scripting skills with PowerShell, Ruby or a Chef/Puppet tool, also AWS & Azure, and more increasingly Google Cloud as well.

[SeanT]

Kubernetes

[squarepeg]

Not seen many contracts for Windows container experts, though They`ve got a place for sure, but can`t see core infrastructure looking much different in 3 years or so.



Fair points, definitely Though I hate the cloud

Better get used to it, AWS, Azure, GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, AWS CloudFormation, Terraform.... Docker is now available for Mac OS X, Windows, so expect it to become even more prominent. Devs hate being told by Ops how to do things properly, which is why they love Docker. They just package their tulip in Docker/Docker Swarm and expect Ops to sort it out. If I was allowed to shoot one bullet for every "but I gave you a container" I'd be tried in the Hague for mass murder.

Core infrastructure is and will be going strong, but if you don't venture out of it, you will find it difficult to earn more money, e.g. by reselling your "core" knowledge in the cloud world, which is where good money is atm. Even in this tulipty market there is a healthy demand for DevOps with Dev experience, as the clients put it when they want developers (usually Python) who know how to set up networking, administer servers, and automate deployments/monitoring on AWS/GCP/Azure. Unicorns, but they do get hired in this dead market.

[Lance]

I'm back in the IBM POWER world, cutting edge firmware-based virtualisation, sometimes it falls out of favour in today's Linux world but it always bounces back.

they didn't quite invent virtualisation but they had an early start and are still going.

I installed the first p-series LPAR system in Europe outside an IBM premise.

[stek]

Containers are in Windows server 2016. So there's your starter for 10.
Azure and aws are the game changers though so why not them?

I'm back in the IBM POWER world, cutting edge firmware-based virtualisation, sometimes it falls out of favour in today's Linux world but it always bounces back.

[vwdan]

Containers are in Windows server 2016. So there's your starter for 10.

Not seen many contracts for Windows container experts, though They`ve got a place for sure, but can`t see core infrastructure looking much different in 3 years or so.

Azure and aws are the game changers though so why not them?

Fair points, definitely Though I hate the cloud

[Lance]

Fair point, but it`s not really within what I`m talking about. Containers haven`t really come over to the Wintel world yet and they`re certainly not really disrupting anything.

Containers are in Windows server 2016. So there's your starter for 10.
Azure and aws are the game changers though so why not them?

[andyg]

Also consider PSD2 (Open Banking) and MiFID II