Month: December 2009

I’ve had nothing but problems with my broadband since switching to Vodafone Ireland.

Yesterday I wanted to get onto the USA ESTA site to apply for a travel visa for my trip next year.  No matter what I did I could not get onto the site.  I reset the router.  I swapped out the router.  I changed the Vodafone DNS settings to OpenDNS.  I verified OpenDNS was OK by getting to the site from our Data Centre where I have OpenDNS configured as the primary DNS server for some of our systems.  I tried getting onto the site from 4 different physical Windows machines in my house and a Windows XP VM (IE6).  All failed to load the page.  The only thing left is the Vodafone network.  That leaves me no choice but to open a call with the dreaded “customer service”.

I got through a maze of automated questions designed to encourage you to end the call without speaking to someone.  Eventually I spoke to Sean Hunt, a young man who clearly depended on a menu system and had no logical understanding of the failings I described.  His requests:

• Can you reset the router?  I did that this morning and even replaced it with a non-Vodafone router.  No resolution.
• Can you change the DNS to Vodafone settings? That’s what they were by default.  I even switched them to DNS settings that I verified were working OK. 

Sean didn’t know what to do now.  I asked if this could be escalated.  The answer was no.  Could I speak to his superior?  No, he could arrange a call back.  I know I’ll never get a call.  In this case it appears that Vodafone’s customer service is not set up to be able to figure out what to do when the problem is not inside the house – as it clearly isn’t in my situation.

Why the hell can’t an Irish Vodafone Ireland do customer service right?  This is the second such situation I’ve had with them in the last few months.  I’m getting very tired of this.

2009; what an "interesting” year – and a I mean the Chinese “interesting”.  In Ireland we continued our triple recession.  The IT biz pretty much froze (died for some).  It rained pretty much non-stop.  And we got loads of new taxes.

2009 was a big year for IT Pros in terms of changes and new technologies.  Everyone predicted that virtualisation would be the big changing force this year.  They couldn’t get that one wrong.  Citrix, Microsoft and VMware all released new products on the world, all claiming to be the best.  The one thing we can say was that in a time of recession, anyone who did virtualisation right would save money, not up front but on the running and long term costs.  It added flexibility and allows IT to react more quickly.

Hardware sales suffered badly.  That really started in 2008.  Virtualisation means that we need fewer servers but we do change our storage methods.  As a result we saw prices rocket.  I’d estimate that HP added up to 50% to server costs in Ireland when they released the ProLiant G6 line up.

The cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) were everywhere.  Everyone’s an expert.  The one thing that is certain is that the majority of new ventures are selling their services online.  Hosting companies are changing their marketing.  Microsoft launched BPOS and Azure to try tap into this market and to keep themselves relevant as the sole software/OS vendor with a cloud “alternative”.  I say “alternative” because MS online services integrate with traditional on site installations.  That’s set to continue with the recent merger of the Server and Azure divisions.

IPv6 was not the tidal wave that was predicted by some.  ISP’s are far from ready for it so until then, it’s not going to be something we care to deal with.  Add in all the new terminology (for the sake of renaming – sounds familiar, eh?) and lack of clear widespread education make it scary for us IT Pro’s.  IPv4 shortages don’t seem to appear real to use in the western hemisphere.  I know that anyone seeking addresses just has a few loopholes to jump through and they get as many addresses as they want.

Server Core installations were a flop – at least locally here in Ireland and with international people I’ve spoken to.  The lack of manageability in the real world kills it.  Hardware management s/w requires a GUI and fixing things when they go wrong becomes a web search nightmare.  The reason we adopted Windows was ease of use.  Most folks I know (actually all of them I believe) who run Windows Server 2008 are running full installations now after dipping their toes in Server Core.

On the product side we can’t say anything without mentioning Windows 7.  Windows 7 is being referred to by many as what Vista should have been.  Ardent haters of Vista are loving Windows 7.  And finally we get a quiet admission by some MS folks that they got Vista wrong.  MS didn’t have effective 2 way communication with the community or their customers.  We know they value the opinions of the USA Fortune 500’s but even they didn’t widely adopt Vista – those headline whitepapers and announcements about big corporates adopting Vista are bull.  Corporates take forever to implement change.  What would have been more correct was that their software assurance entitled them to run Vista on every machine and a few IT/marketing people probably had it running.  Windows 7 is proving to be different.  I’m hearing stories of widespread implementation by international organisations.  And 64-bit computing on the desktop appears to really have arrived.  I think MS got it right by listening to everyone, not just the head in the clouds opinions of Fortune 500 Frankie.

Windows Server 2008 R2 also arrived to less of a fanfare.  There are two stories to Server 2008 R2, a clear evolution from the technically successful Windows Server 2008.  The first is “better together”.  Most of the new features included in the Ultimate/Enterprise (only) editions of Windows 7 are only available when you pair them with Windows Server 2008 R2.  The other big story for Windows Server 2008 R2 is virtualisation.  Hyper-V now includes Live Migration (aka VMotion) and Cluster Shared Volume (CSV, aka VMFS).  New improvements and hardware integration add better performance and increased scalability to theoretical levels.

Exchange 2010 came out with a pathetic whimper at TechEd Europe in Berlin in November at a keynote launch event that even the best spin-meisters in Microsoft couldn’t sell to us.  The keynote was dreadful and universally slammed by the delegates. Half the audience walk out by the midpoint.  Exchange 2010 was launched but it was easy to miss.  Apparently it’s pretty fantastic and there’s lots of early interest.  I think the real impact of it probably won’t be seen until June 2010 when Office 2010 is released.  It’ll probably be joined by SharePoint 2010.  I don’t see why MS aren’t getting these obvious timings sorted out.

What about 2010?  What’s the big story going to be?  Damned if I know.  My crystal ball has a crack in it after it fell through and shattered my Ouija board.  I think it bumped me on the head on the way down, hence the concussed rantings.

Virtualisation will continue to be a big story.  MS Partners are starting to accept Hyper-V as a viable platform thanks to Windows Server 2008 R2.  I talked with one reseller this week who are hardcore VMware resellers thanks mainly to their tight partnership with HP (who make a mint from VMware support contracts).  They’ve started to lose deals now because alternative providers are offering Hyper-V and lower costs.  I’m hearing more and more that service providers are expanding or introducing virtualisation, and particularly, Hyper-V skills.

Where Hyper-V goes, System Center goes.  That means Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 R2 and Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007 R2, both of which were released this year.  The danger here is that non-expert consultants will be deploying non-customised implementations and not handing over skills to the on-site staff.  System Center is the real difference maker for Microsoft virtualisation.  It not only manages the virtualisation but can take control of everything else.

Data Protection Manager 2010 is currently a beta release.  It appears to have evolved based on customer feedback.  It is also adding CSV support for Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V clusters, something that is missing from most file system integrated management and security solutions right now.  I think the timing of the release is a bit late: expect it around April 2010.  Ideally MS should have released a CSV and Live Migration aware backup solution at the same time as the new version of Hyper-V.

We saw the first hints of Configuration Manager v.Next.  I would guess public betas will appear in the Spring of 2010 and it might make it out by TechEd Europe in November.  That’s purely a guess.

For me 2009 has been extremely busy.  Early in the year I was focusing on running the Irish Windows User Group.  We ran events or were involved in promoting events every month of the year and covered lots of material.  We finally found a sweet spot on when to time our events to get good numbers attending and we added a virtual audience by using LiveMeeting to webcast live and record the events (thanks GITCA!).  We helped promote the Microsoft Ireland TechDays Tour for IT Pros in the Spring and toured Galway, Cork, Dublin and Belfast.  I got to speak about Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V/VMM.  The speaking continued at user group events, Minasi Forum 2009 in Virginia Beach, PubForum in Dublin, the UK/IE MVP open day in Reading and I got to present at the MS Ireland community launch events for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010 in Galway, Cork, Belfast and Dublin.  That first Galway event was “fun”.  Everything fell apart in the morning for the afternoon event.  Lots of ingenuity, hard work and some seat-of-the-pants stuff got everything working in a great interactive event.  My lasting memory of Cork was pushing heavy cases full of PC’s and monitors and stacked with servers and iSCSI storage around a maze of a hotel, dodging stairs, walking miles, etc so that we could avoid stairs that separated two rooms that were 50 metres apart.

In the Summer I started work on my four chapters in Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2 for Sybex/Wiley.  That took a lot of time.  A lot of the material was originally written for two terminated Server 2008 books and had to be re-written to focus on Server 2008 R2 but also include Server 2008.  I had no idea how much editing and reviewing would follow.  I literally finished the last of it (that I know of) last week.  The book will be released in February, according to various sites that I’ve browsed.  The Mastering Windows Server books are usually the top selling server books so it’s a great honour that Mark Minasi asked me to be involved and that I get to be listed as an author.

In the summer I was renewed as an MVP (one of 4,200 of them globally, 12 in Ireland) by Microsoft.  My expertise was switched from Configuration Manager to Virtual Machine.  It was appropriate; I hadn’t worked with, and therefore spoken/written about ConfigMgr when I was granted my status for it.  I’d been all Hyper-V and VMM and that has continued.  I work with it and so I write about it and speak about it, sharing my experiences and real world insights.  Later in the year I was accepted as one of 140 members of STEP, a MS Springboard program.  That got me over to TechEd Europe in Berlin where I staffed the Springboard booth for four half days.  And more recently I’ve been added as a member of the System Center influencers program.

The book may have finished but I’m still flat out.  Work is busy.  After work I’m blogging (The blog went from 125,000 hits to over 250,000 hits this year and the RSS feeds are red hot), tweeting or organising stuff for the Windows User Group (with a focus lately on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2).  Add on a new project where I’m doing some technical reviewing on a virtualisation project and my time is well consumed.  I’ve had almost zero time behind my camera or to get out and about.

I hope 2009 has been a good one for you and hope 2010 will be too.

We just had a government national budget today – I won’t be able to sit for a while.  I’ve been listening to the radio most of the day while working and I heard one good point from the talking heads.  One “expert” said that some of the new tax funds should be pooled for training of future new skills.  Here’s the scenario.

We have around 12% unemployment.  IT has gone into recession.  All sectors have been making staff redundant.  There’s nowhere for students to go after graduating college (what we call non-university third level institutions) or university.  There no where for re-educated working people to go to get that first piece of experience.  If our economy is to succeed then we’ll need these additional skills.  We can’t have a 205 year gap in skills that never developed.  I doubt Ireland is unique in this.

For any recent/near graduate who might read this I have some bad news for you.  Sure, you’ve gotten A’s in all your exams and your parents are proud and your lecturers called you a genius.  But …

You Know Nothing!

I’m sorry; I know that hurt but it’s true.  Your college education simply laid a foundation.  You probably learned about the OSI model in 5 different classes over 4 years like I did.  You probably learned about Token Ring like I did.  The reality is that you have few skills right now that a real business can use.  You’re simply putty that something will be made from.  For the first part of your career you will likely achieve little of consequence.  The same is true for anyone who got an MCSE (or whatever the hell that’s called these days!) on a re-education program.  You are what we call a paper-MCSE.  Lots of facts and answers for questions that have little real world use.  It’s a good start but unlike those TV adverts in the UK, you will not be earning £45,000 per year from day one.

Here’s how it normally goes.  You get a job where you answer phones, run cables, etc.  You’ll pick up a little as time goes by.  If you’re good enough then you’ll be delegated with more work, maybe a small project.  Then a larger piece of work and a role in a larger project.  It takes time; it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.

But this is where the problem is right now.  NO ONE is hiring.  There is next to no work out there.  I can’t imagine how bad it must be for this past years graduates.  They must feel awful after spending 4 years in classes, studying and doing continuous assessment and exams.  My class was mostly employed before we left our last exam – I got my job offer the week before our finals.  Graduates were in amazing shortage back then so we were thrown right in.  I was doing exams one week and the next I was porting code from Solaris to HP-UX in a team of 1 leader and 3 graduates.  I just can’t imagine your predicament. 

Anyway … back on topic.  The expert on the radio suggested we needed a national program for interns.  Company’s can’t afford the entire cost of staff.  The country can’t afford to have people sitting on the dole doing nothing and learning nothing.  What if we had a program where we met half way.  What if the person worked 20 hours a week and did work-related studying for half a week?  The government could reduce dole payments fairly and the company could have a part time staff member at a low cost.  The idea here is that eventually the recession will end.  Hopefully the company would then be in a position to hire and would want to take on the intern as a full time employee at full cost. 

I would add to the program: the program should be contingent on the person continuing to learn and achieve professional certification/passing grades in the training program.  That protects those who are investing in the intern, i.e. the tax payer.  The company should also be requiring the intern to be doing real work, i.e. not flattening boxes …. I’m not ruling out coffee making because we once had one poor chap who had to get us coffees and breakfast sandwiches every Friday morning for nearly a year.  It was a tradition in the department that the rest of us enjoyed 🙂

Who gains?

• The country because an educated person is developed into a skilled person.  The person that we invested in throughout their education stays in the country and hopefully will become another taxpayer.  They’ll also add to the educated workforce pool adding to our attractiveness to inward investment.
• The company because they’ve been able to take on skills and mould them.  That intern might just become a full time employee if the company can turn a corner.
• Finally, the intern.  They get real world work, not just lessons from 20 year old IT books.  They’ll work with more skilled people in their field and learn from them.  Potentially they’ll gain professional certifications while working and can see the relevance in the questions and answers, making the neurons create relevant pathways.

I would like to see something come from the additional taxation we’ll be paying from midnight tonight such as this.  But I’m afraid that instead of investing in these graduates we’ll see continued wastage.

If you are still in college now and are interested in a career in IT then do a few things to give yourself a leg up:

• Try to get a PC or laptop with as much disk and RAM as possible.  This will allow you to run some sort of virtualisation for labs.
• Seek out your Microsoft representative for your college and get your hands on MSDN Academic.  That gives you access to all the MS licensing for test and development purposes.  It’s great for labs and learning.
• Find out if your college has a professional certification program.  If you have the time then do what you can on the side.
• Check out the library for certification prep books.  MS Press is a good start.
• Yes, look at the Linux stuff too.  Learn about Cisco networking and firewalls (Todd Lamle is a good read).  If you’re a dev then learn about things like .NET, Silverlight, C# and Azure.
• If you’re post college then see what the local government training agencies can do.  Bring in suggestions.  Fás in Ireland used to do MS training and exams.  I know they cut down the numbers of their exam centres a lot about 5 years ago which was a pity – even though I was working I did my exams in there because they usually had more openings and their office was close to where I was living.

Best of luck if you are in this situation and keep on learning.  I promise it works out for the best if you do – it worked for me when I was out of work for a while and it was what pushed me up to be a senior engineer instead of just another IT admin type.  Hopefully the same will happen for you in whatever field you want to work in.

I am seriously impressed with the folks in Redmond tonight.  I brought up something in an MVP chat that I thought might be an issue.  Within 60 minutes a senior engineer who was involved called me up on the phone and gave me a clarification to make sure I could give accurate information on the subject in question.  I can’t imagine anything like that from any company other than Microsoft.

Thanks Carmen and Mike!