Death Inc

Folks,

EOFY has passed and I have been tasked with finding a new set of areas to study to ensure I stay employed :) (yay for me and the company willing to pay for it) however I wish I had a freaking crystal ball so I could see where technology was going so I could just study xyz field, reap in some dollars and move along.

I have in the past done simple sys admin work  on a DFS  environment with 2008R2 for a NFP which I didn't mind, but didn't enjoy and specialised in Desktop support W7 Ent by doing the MCITP / MCT exams which have been paid for and supported by Data3 (which I really do enjoy), and now am looking to do something like this;

Option 1 - Study and Complete the below;

Microsoft SharePoint Server
Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): SharePoint Administrator 2010
Exam 70-667
Exam 70-668Retirement dates for these exams will be announced when new MCSE certifications are announced for this technology.

Microsoft Lync Server
MCITP: Lync Server Administrator 2010: Exam 70-664
Exam 70-665Retirement dates for these exams will be announced when new MCSE certifications are announced for this technology.

Option 2 - Study and complete the below;

- ITIL Foundation for Service Management
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) 2011 Edition Foundation Syllabus

-  Project Management Institute (PMI)
Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) - PMBOK® Guide - Fourth Edition-aligned             
Project Management Professional (PMP) - PMBOK® Guide - Fourth Edition-aligned

Option 3 - Study and Complete;

- Something Sys Admin in Windows Server / cloud / VMWare
This would require me to pull out my Xeon old server and I would purchase a Technet Kit again and buy a cheap domain and some chocolate.
Technet - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/subscriptions/hh442910.aspx (Would get Pro $618.00)

I was contemplating an option 4 of becoming an unemployed bitch because Julia Gillard and Wayne Swam will pay me more if I do fuck all and sit on a computer and play games all day. But I don't think I could adjust to that lifestyle to much.

NOW - If anyone has any experience with time travel to the future and could highlight what may be beneficial that would be most appreciated. Currently I am wary of IT becoming saturated in Australia with way to many Sys Admins types being retrenched and off shore outsourcing taking over, thus everyone all trying to get the same job, or worried I will study something like Lync that may become defunct and no one is interested in it and thus, I become obsolete with it. 

I am contemplating Management skills courses to be Team Lead or SDM but some days I feel I would be more a friend than a leader and derail the team to play minecraft for a day instead of working out why a server keeps falling over. (discipline issue some may say).


Feed back on what I have highlights would be appreciated, I am not trying to twist an arm to get some one to tell me to do xyz, but if some one could highlight some key aspects of the future for me to help asses with a pros and cons list I have that would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Thinking of this for yourself,i think option 2 would be the better option, especially the project managment part. This is a broader set of skills rather than one focused on particular technologies. Consider it a hedge.

bandwagon: Anything but option 1. Sharepoint is a fad. /bandwagon

Option 2 sounds great since project management will always be relevant and get you the big $$.

Think Lync will be a fad too ?

I can't see sharepoint being a fad, but it depends what industry you work in.
If it were me id start looking at skilling up in the cloud area.

But it depends on where you want to be, do you want to have a more technical role or more a project managment/manager role and be in charge of technical?.

The industry in which i work in i see alot of services going over to cloud. I see alot more BYOD.

The path in which i have chosen to skill up in is Vsphere, View, Apple, office 365.

just my 2c
 

Cordlez is right about cloud I think, (and the things that hang off that like virtualization and storage) especially when NBN comes through- a lot of regional areas (like the one I'm working at) have too slow/unreliable internet connectivity to risk migrating their systems to cloud at the moment but I think that will change once more places get NBN.

I don't think sharepoint is a fad, its got a pretty wide deployment base already, I can't see MS getting rid of it any time soon.

I'm a technical bloke so I don't want to go into management but the technical skills market is saturated already. I've been applying for jobs around the place, even basic desktop support ones and I've got certs and several years experience as support/sysadmin and although I get interviews easily I keep losing out to guys with more paper and experience. I think there's a lot of highly qualified IT guys out there that lost their jobs recently, or were made redundant as more and more services were consolidated into cloud/hosted services.

I like deskside tech over server tech and love applications and app support hence I was looking at Lync and Sharepoint to move away from being a deskside style. Cloud passes my mind but I feel like thats moving back to sys admin and clsoing me into a room. And as DK/DPP pointed out, its coming so heavily saturated that you need to know some one to get a job not just apply and hope you were good enough.(IMHO)

Will split it to completing Lync Quals first as it will be rolled out in QLD for BG-Group soon then, some Projects Managements and look at some VM to stay broad. And if changes, adjust as I go.

I would say ITIL is generic and super good to have, not just for the paper but it helps you see IT from a business perspective, not IT, ive done this and would recommend it.

I was looking at a career down the Microsoft path too and was very much looking at studying SCCM and SCOM,  could work as a contractor doing contracts for new OS rollouts, hardware & software management / reporting  etc!  good money here and lots of diversity but im moving to a total Linux based role now (which still pays awesome by the way,  out staff are getting approached by google coz of the lack of linux experience out there)


FUCK SHAREPOINT :)

I work for a software design company, aussie verison of google.. and we are pretty much moving to 100% cloud solutions
Its hard to say go learn cloud stuff, as there is so much.  What do you want to do in the cloud exactly?

Something ive just learnt about and seems to be fkn HUGE is Subversion or version control software.
stuff like STARTEAM or SVN (UberSVN) etc :)


Ultimately you need to think about what you want to do every day for the next 10 years.

**just read your last post,  based on the idea of Desktop support / App support etc.  SCCM SCOM bro  check it :D

How much work is involved in getting an itil cert? I was thinking of doing one but i cant stand dynamically leveraging business synergy paradigms type shit.

Had a BDM and that "synergy & paradigms" was their favourite word. Made staff resign he was that bad speaking BS. :( And to me when I hear people say it now days all I want to go is stab them in the head with a frozen koala.

 that looks good - will check it out - now have a new option.

have a look at kace as well, dells version of sccm that does windows and mac.

My main skepticism of sharepoint was from an experience where my company was involved in helping one of the big four banks migrate to sharepoint. Licensing fees alone, before paying any staff, buying any hardware or developing any sharepoint applications were going to be over 80 million dollars. The project was pulled overnight when the brass found out. It quite simply doesn't pay for itself in most situations.

That's true of nearly all Microsoft licensing though. They are exorbitant. Plenty of companies are paying it though.

I'm a big fan of Groupwise instead of exchange for this reason - groupwise cost us a third of what an exchange setup was going to. Plus administration is way simpler.

Well got an email from management - they would like me to look at an App and a Cloud one followed by any other flavour after that.

Good old groupwise, i never did get around to clustering that on NW6.5oss i did with our print ques though. Still think i have my cert cards for netware around somewhere.

Option 2

Augmented reality, and mobile computing... we can talk later on this, it's a current project i am working on at SNP