IT Occupation

Neilc28

Neilc28

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Neil
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Hi all,

So I've noted over the years that a huge amount of Photographers are employed in the field of IT in some form or another, and it especially valid in this forum, so I was wondering what everyones area of expertise is? Not asking where people work, just what their role is.

I appreciate this is a topic that sits inbetween the Computers, Websites and Other Technology and "Off-Topic", mods please move if this is needed.

I'll kick it off....

I'm an IT Analyst/Manager, served in IT for a good 20 years, main expertise would be Networking, Cisco, Cisco Meraki, all flavours of Windows Server and Enterprise WiFi Solutions (Ruckus, AirTight/Mojo, Meraki). Certified in everything mentioned. Also have to deal with Procurement and Project Management for a large part of our Cloud/Datacenter offerings.
 
I had my own IT business in SA between 1994 and 2004 doing everything from general computer repairs and sales for your average joe to network installation and maintenance for the likes of VW and BMW.
Certified in nothing and mostly self taught but got the job done.

Ended up as a Business Sales / Assistant manger for PC World when I moved back to the UK until 2009 and now run my own ecommerce business specialising in laptop chargers and batteries.
 
I work for a global lawfirm in IT.

Desktop support, AD, Citrix and bespoke legal apps including Filesite DMS.

Started IT in 1992.

MOS accredited in various Office apps.
 
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I've been an applications analyst/IT manager within the social housing sector for the past 10 years. However I've recently moved into a software developer role, now writing bespoke packages (pl-sql, javascript) to enable integration with our oracle housing db and web portal services.

Alongside that I'm developing a custom gui and interface which enables us to customise exactly what we want our ops to see and enables them to view and work with datasets from systems across the organisation on one platform.
 
Technical Consultant, detailed knowledge of virtualised environments, networking, all operating systems, Office 365 etc.
Which means it's varied, interesting. Currently doing a lot of large virtualised projects in datacentres, from design to instalation, but basically anything from small 10+ clients to 8000+ client infrastructure support etc

Merakis are interesting with the integrated switching etc. I of course have the free MR18, not so sure about the licencing plan where they stop when you stop paying.
Top end we use Aerohive AP's a lot, amazing bits of kit. Firewall built in, excellent configuration and reporting. Best bit is you can use them as a wireshark agent, direct the traffic to wireshark running on your laptop anywhere, don't have to be on the Lan.

Best bit of kit recently spec'd and installed was one of the cheapest, Dell FX chassis with a couple of blades, a pair of 10Gb switches and a Dell MD3 storage array, 20 disks, 4 SSD's for cache all connected over 10Gb. Blindingly fast small virtualised environment for a tiny cost.
 
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I work in life sciences, but also ran my companies (very simple) network and systems in the late 90s/early 2000s. I have very little to do with IT these days outside of supporting friends and ex-colleagues.
 
Byker28i said:
Merakis are interesting with the integrated switching etc. I of course have the free MR18, not so sure about the licencing plan where they stop when you stop paying.
Click to expand...

I did the CMNA at Cisco Headoffice and have a compliementary Meraki Switch, Firewall and MR32 Access-Point running my network at home, love the kit and have been told by Cisco that once my license is nearing expiry they'll send me new kit. Can't complain at that! Unfortunately the MR18 will stop functioning upon the license expiring and license may not be financially viable as it will be technically old-kit, however the MR12 unit was successfully ported to OpenWRT, maybe they can do this to the MR18 soon....


Byker28i said:
Best bit of kit recently spec'd and installed was one of the cheapest, Dell FX chassis with a couple of blades, a pair of 10Gb switches and a Dell MD3 storage array, 20 disks, 4 SSD's for cache all connected over 10Gb. Blindingly fast small virtualised environment for a tiny cost.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I had a meeting with Dell where they talked about the FX series but unfortunately not had a chance to play with one yet, we've got an M1000e Chassis here coupled with a some M600's and an Equalogic PS-M4110, also have a PowerEdge VRTX here but the less said about that the better!
 
VRTX chassis are fine if you need a single box install. You can see where they were coming from and they work ok and are very cost effective for small installs. Everything integrated.
We have used Equallogics (lots of), but these are being phased out for the MD range.

We're very agnostic when it comes to hardware. We can recommend what we think is best, but a lot of clients want specific, especially juniper, cisco, hp etc. Dell kit is very good, very cost effective and the support is excellent. They've bought a lot of companies to provide integrated solutions
 
I'm in IT but probably undecided as to where I would like to ultimately end up. I was PM at Overclockers, then PM in distribution, then went over to MSI components and then ended up at ATEN who specialise in KVM as a whole, proAV and PDU. Still finding my feet with ATEN but ultimately I hold high hopes for this adventure. They say staff make a business.. without structure the best staff can't make anything so I'm glad to be somewhere with a clear vision.
 
Been in IT for a few decades, currently work for a large American company mostly known for its CDN business, but I'm in the Cloud Enterprise Business Unit. Funny to see the changes over even my time in the industry (I remember checking out the desktops for y2k bugs, and the old terminals too).
 
Telecoms - initially supporting Tandem NonStop systems and now doing capacity management on all types of OS (including NonStop). Still amuses me when we get vendors trying to sell stuff and I ask if they support NSK. Answer is usually 50/50 between "no" and "what's that?"
 
Byker28i said:
VRTX chassis are fine if you need a single box install. You can see where they were coming from and they work ok and are very cost effective for small installs. Everything integrated.
Click to expand...

We had multiple failures on our VRTX chassis, systemboard was swapped out at least 4 times with Dell admitting there was a known fault in the REV1 systems which affected multiple components. With regards to SAN's I want to push to Compellent SC-Series but can't justify it just yet....
 
Neilc28 said:
We had multiple failures on our VRTX chassis, systemboard was swapped out at least 4 times with Dell admitting there was a known fault in the REV1 systems which affected multiple components. With regards to SAN's I want to push to Compellent SC-Series but can't justify it just yet....
Click to expand...
Interesting, I'll bear that in mind. I know we've delivered at least 3. Not heard of issues yet.
 
Not an IT person but a programmer. 'C' and assembly language (x86 and x64) mainly, targetting Windows and linux for the server side stuff. Some PHP and MySQL when I have to. Don't let me anywhere near coding a gui though, as my idea of a good user interface is documented by man gcc.

Also by default end up looking after all the office network stuff and the ESXi host. Not certified in any of it, my only qualification is an engineering degree, everything else is self taught.
 
I deem experience more valuable than certification in most cases as a lot of certifications can be 'cheated'.

It's personal preference but when recruiting I always test the candidate instead of just believing the certifications and would consider both certified and non-certified candidates equally (assuming they have experience of course!).
 
Been in IT for around 16 years doing support, Infrastructure admin, service delivery, service management currently in broadcasting
 
Been in IT for 25 years.

Currently work for one of the 'Big 4' banks as a 'Source Matter Expert', whatever that is, building data warehouses on Teradata
 
come from a UNIX background, starting back in 1997 at a UNIX vendor on software support - looking into live running kernels etc. Worked for one of the main backup companies for a few years. Now work in technical pre-sales for a large american-run storage/data management company. Still remember my uber technical days with fondness :)
 
Interesting read... just wondering why so many people in IT have photography as a hobby.
 
Lots of support type jobs for me (since 1991!). Ex Mac Genius, currently a network manager.
 
I'm currently unemployed after taking voluntary redundancy.

Been working in IT for 17 odd years, my last role was working for a UK retailer/clothing label as 2nd/3rd line with a specialist lead in infrastructure. Basically if any kit beyond desktop needed fixing, deploying or upgrading it was my responsibility.

Windows server, exchange, sql, wsus, hyper-v/esxi, networking, firewalls, san/nas storage, IBM as/400, pbx phone systems.. Etc etc etc
 
Worked for 10 years as a voice engineer, working on Avaya/Nortel PBX's, IVR's CTI etc. Moved over into a non technical role now PMing but still in IT
 
Front end developer here, although I've moved more into the automotive industry.
 
I'm a Telecoms Tech on an Oil platform in the North Sea.
I work 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off.
It's a good job but I'm the only Comms Tech on board so if there's any issues or problems pretty much on my own to sort it, no help from other team members.
I have to manage the Telecoms section offshore so do all the Work orders, permits, faults and maintenance and attend all the meetings, I'm also first line IT support on the platform.
I'm offshore for Xmas and New Year this time.
 
gerry s said:
Interesting read... just wondering why so many people in IT have photography as a hobby.
Click to expand...
IT folk tend to like techie toys and cameras are as techie as it gets.

I wrote my first lines of ForTran in 1970 and eventually finished a Computer Science degree in 1977. I then had a variety of programming jobs before moving into various support roles until the industry left me behind about ten years ago and I became a sales assistant selling 'sporting goods'. But I was always interested in photography and got my first SLR for my 18th birthday.
 
I'm a windows surveyor ! Been in business 25 years
 
gerry s said:
Interesting read... just wondering why so many people in IT have photography as a hobby.
Click to expand...
Snapsh0t said:
IT folk tend to like techie toys and cameras are as techie as it gets.
Click to expand...

For me it's the complete opposite. Being techy all day, photography gives me a creative output. It's why you'll always see me supporting 'the image is the important thing' rather than the 'I need to upgrade because'...
 
I'm an operations specialist for microsofts buggest azure customer.

Before that I was a operations manager & network manager for a few places
 
Byker28i said:
For me it's the complete opposite. Being techy all day, photography gives me a creative output. It's why you'll always see me supporting 'the image is the important thing' rather than the 'I need to upgrade because'...
Click to expand...

Pretty much this for me, love going out with the camera after I've been gazing at numerous screens all day, unfortunately when I get back from a shoot I struggle to find enthusiasm to post-processing as it means more time in front of the computer!
 
gerry s said:
Interesting read... just wondering why so many people in IT have photography as a hobby.
Click to expand...
Are you sure that is true? I appreciate that "so many" is undefined but this thread is heavily skewed to produce "IT photographers" ;-). .
 
I've worked in IT for a total 14½ years. I switched from IT into Professional Photography 12½ years into the IT career. With some considerable success, after a rocky start. My work and my business was even featured in a glossy industry magazine. When I switched location for familial reasons, I found myself driving all over the country for gigs and turning considerably less profit. So I'm now working in IT again.

I've worked in QA/Development/3rd line and out of hours support in a waterfall environment. I moved into .NET development with XP and then became a delivery manager using scrum. At that point my career change ensued. Now I'm supporting a reasonable number of desktops, office infrastructure, two data centres and dealing on a daily basis in everything from firewall configuration to RBDMS and distributed 'noSQL' type DMS.

Neilc28 said:
Interesting, I had a meeting with Dell where they talked about the FX series but unfortunately not had a chance to play with one yet, we've got an M1000e Chassis here coupled with a some M600's and an Equalogic PS-M4110, also have a PowerEdge VRTX here but the less said about that the better!
Click to expand...

We've almost completed a hardware refresh in one of our datacentres using 13th Gen Dell kit, including FX2s with FC630 sleds. They are a good compromise between density and us retaining redundancy in the application tier. We've had some issues that have all been resolved by Firmware updates and Dell support have been second to none. Configuration for all the Dell servers including the FX2s sleds and chassis is maintained in source control and pushed out via racadm using Server Configuration Profiles - which is nice half way house between doing it all manually and setting up a provisioning server. My only gripe is the Network IO Aggregators in the FX2 chassis (e.g. FN410T) cannot be configured in the same way and we have to configure them by hand.

*I wasn't good enough at the outset but my work continually improved and I still have clients who contact me occasionally and ask me to pick up a camera
 
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Currently IT Services Manager for last 3+ years, previously Network Engineer, Support Analyst, IT Technician... Now it gets boring and want something new (all family, friends, neighbours keep asking to fix their computers!) :) do you get many requests like me?
 
All the time! Half tempted to start a friend's and family support contract, cheap rates, but not free, that's how much I get harrassed!
 
I work for a Global Manufacturing organisation in a team of 6. We assist/manage an offshore team to support around 12000 virtual and physical Windows servers worldwide. I've been Wintel for around 10 years and also spent some time managing our SAP Basis team as well as training our Service Desk.
 
I've been a software engineer for Cisco working on core parts of IOS-XR since leaving university. It's really interesting stuff but also interesting to read the different places a career in IT can take you.
 
Started off as an Electrician for 6 years, then moved in IT in 1994, started like this

Field service - swapping servers monitors general break fix
Tier 1 2 and 3 support
IT Manager for 10 years

I then moved into consultancy for one of the big 3 IT Firms Specializing in Skype and Microsoft technologies.
I'm now a dual role as in
Enterprise Architect and Lead Architect for UCC so Skype/Exchange/SharePoint/O365 and Cisco UCaSS.

I much prefer the IT Managers role, however since moving into Consultancy i rarely leave home so home/work balance is great...just miss talking to people, i do travel globally though and have meetings and general workshops.
 
Mine is mixed, as having done a comp Sci degree, I got a completely unrelated job in acoustic consultancy. I learned MS SBS2003 from scratch when getting the company to have their own server and centralise their storage and email etc. I took voluntary redundancy when the financial crisis took as I was more IT focused than acoustics focused and went to work as 2nd line IT support for a managed service provider supporting lots of small and medium businesses in the south of England. SBS2003, 2008, 2011. Citrix XenApp, exchange 2003, 2007 and 2010, sonicwalls, rebadged ISP services, Ms office, printers general network administration etc.

Glad to get away from the it support industry and back in to a non-sweatshop industry, I went back to the acoustic consultancy and rejuvenated their old servers and it is all now centos Linux, which is fun and easy to manage. Only a company of about 5 though.
 
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