@scottalanmiller said in Network Services - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@valentina said in Network Services - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

are proxy servers used for security purposes? do they have other functions?

Yes, very much so.

They are also very commonly used to allow a single IP address to be used for many services. The most common example... a single proxy server with a single (expensive) public IP address can handle requests for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of websites. Behind the proxy server can be one or one million separate web servers each serving out applications or web sites or whatever and the proxy server can look at the incoming request and determine, based on the URL used, which server and port to send the request to behind itself.

Because of the above, they are often used for load balancing because they can send requests to different servers for the same application or site.

Proxy servers often have caches in them, too. So they quite often store simple, static information "at the edge" to deliver it faster while the application servers behind them do the heavy work for database requests and stuff.

Proxy servers are sometimes used to "hide" the true location of a server. Cloudflare famously does this so that attackers have no idea where a web site actually comes from, all they see is Cloudflare's proxies.

A proxy can also do things like handle SSL security so that web servers behind it (or other servers, proxy doesn't imply web) don't have to do that work, as well.

Hrm, I only have around 20 subdomains pointing to the same IP so far. If my home lab box was a little beefier I'd take this as a challenge. (Scott might as well be describing my home lab environment here.)

@scottalanmiller ahhhh the S.A.M.

@scottalanmiller said in Nearly All Job Postings Are Fake SAMIT Video:

@pmoncho said in Nearly All Job Postings Are Fake SAMIT Video:

My guess was it was totally fake or someone messed up the cut/paste job.

Or... both.

It was confusing to me and then I laughed because of all the talk of fake job postings.

@scottalanmiller said in The Difference Between IT and Bench Work SAMIT Video:

@flaxking said in The Difference Between IT and Bench Work SAMIT Video:

@scottalanmiller It is interesting that bench/IT cross discipline experience is so common, but it often happens from convenience/budget constraint or ignorance. (though sometimes it happens as a hobby) And thus being cross trained won't help you that much in advancing your career.

However IT/Dev cross discipline is super useful and there is an ongoing spike in demand for it. As well as being well paying. But Bench/IT is more common. That might be changing though. With the cloud providing another layer of abstraction from the hardware, and with learning Powershell scripting meaning you're starting to cross into Dev.

My personal belief is that DevOps is not the future of systems administration, only a stepping stone along the path. System admins aren't attempting to do something bespoke or unique, like developers are, so the use of development methodologies doesn't make sense abstractly within IT circles. Right now, a lack of advanced tooling for what admins need creates a need for DevOps, but only to fill an existing gap - one that I know of at least one company working to fill. Once the power of Devops exists without the need for developer knowledge or experience, I think that we will rapidly see that category disappear again.

I think you're probably right, when we're talking about interdisciplinary IT/Dev skills and the misnamed 'DevOps Engineer' role. Eventually that will be automated and abstracted away. At which point mixing IT and Dev will as inherently valuable as mixing any other discipline with Dev, and it would make more sense to be talking about the value of Bench/Dev vs. IT/Dev.

However the 'power of DevOps' is a whole other can of worms.

@scottalanmiller said in All SMB IT Are Generalists SAMIT Video:

@jaredbusch said in All SMB IT Are Generalists SAMIT Video:

@scottalanmiller said in All SMB IT Are Generalists SAMIT Video:

@jaredbusch said in All SMB IT Are Generalists SAMIT Video:

it is about time you got your editor to fix the preload image..

It's kinda random.

No, it is not. It never has been. It is only random when you have an editor that cannot read. Which is obviously an issue in and of itself.

There is a big old button there to put one of your choice on there.
0_1512157513426_215b9030-e57d-427d-bf7b-62872757a0e1-image.png

That's not the editor that picks that, that's the poster. And that is manually chosen every time, but only from the three choices, need to have someone make a title pic otherwise. Maybe just need to do that.

You are correct that I simply assumed the editor would post it to your channel for you. Seems silly to have to send it back and forth.

@scottalanmiller said in I Can’t Even for Job Postings:

We kind of do, a fake job posting list.

Then I’ll find it and contribute as o do my search 🙂

@biglittle said in Certifications for IT SAMIT Video:

I found this very interesting, since I'm switching to IT from education I always saw certifications as state mandated in order to even be considered for a position.

Oh yes, in many cases if you want a government IT job you will require certs. In fact, you'll be required to have certs from other industries. That's the degree to which government IT isn't considered professional. Government IT often pays a fraction of the industry and is not taken seriously. In NY state, for example, top level IT technical positions are often below entry level in pay. So below the professional scale.

So if your goal is "government IT" which is sort of its own thing, you'll need certs from non-IT to even be allowed to be hired. But it's often considered on the fringe or outside of "real" IT.

Keep in mind that while we often use IT Professional, as a term, IT are not professionals. Actual "professional" guidelines are actually considered insulting in IT. The idea that IT could be certified or that university education would be meaningful, the very tenants of professional work, are insulting in IT where things are performance based, not government pseudo-union based. A better term to use, at least in your head, is IT Practitioner, not professional. IT does not function if held to the standards of normal "professions". The education or certification needed for those fields are far too low to be useful in IT. The breadth of knowledge and continuous education needed for IT success are much higher than many other fields. This is why it is not considered polite or appropriate to compare IT Practitioners to something like doctors. The bar for being a successful doctor is embarrassingly low for IT, for example.

This article is not about IT. it is about tech workers.

This is a big differentiation. While all IT are tech workers, not all tech workers are IT.

@IRJ said in Where Do I Go Next from Destop Support:

I'd like to add that it is generally much easier to change positions when going to a new company. If you are valuable to the helpdesk or desktop support team, they may not want to let you go. Even if you do move from the helpdesk, you will always be looked at as the low man on the totem pole for your new team.

It is much easier to go apply for a desktop support job after having 1-2 years experience in helpdesk. Then after you have 1-2 years experience as desktop support, you can move to a networking or system position with a new company. If you move within the company the timeframe will be more like 3-5 years considering you have to L1-L3.

I agree completely with this.

I moved divisions to get away from the deskside support.

@art_of_shred said in What constitutes an IT Pro?:

@scottalanmiller said in What constitutes an IT Pro?:

In many US labor documents, they have to list "professionals and teachers" because teachers are "almost" professionals but can't be qualified for it exactly because they can't direct their own work in quite the right way to qualify, but they want them to be treated as professionals otherwise so state it in that way.

The standard professionals are doctors, lawyers, nurses (of a certain level), professors, pharmacists, civil engineers, CPAs and similar. You basically have to be forced into both base university education, must have a government or similar certification for work, effectively work in a high level government directed union like structure and work by "rules" rather than by "results." Very different than IT.

Correct: IT is not a "professional" industry. But, that's not what's represented in the term "IT pro". It's someone whose profession is in IT, the latter definition of "professional". If you say "I am in IT and therefore a professional", that would be flat-out wrong. But if you say your profession is in IT, then you are an "IT pro".

That then explains the initial discussion... it is "anyone who makes money in the IT field in any manner", there can be no further qualifications. The best volunteer expert in the world can't be an IT Pro, but the most entry level, unskilled, untrained person can be. It makes the term literally worthless in the field, which was my feeling on it. We should drop it as it has no positive outcome.

@fuznutz04 said in Comparing the Roles of Engineer and Administrator:

Good write up. I've seen this exact situation where a company will offer to change your title in lieu of a promotion. So wrong.

That is sadly way too common. To the point where certain titles make me just plain wary. Anyone with "directory" in their title I immediately assume was the most junior guy that was willing to work harder without more money for the best title he could think of.

see @deathofasellout ... joining a community like this is great. you've successfully got them riled up with your first post. good luck 🙂

Also.... getting resources on current and old technology and techniques is easy, these things are tested, documented, tried and true. They are well known. We can Google those things or talk to experienced people - knowledge on them is readily available. As long as we are training on current technology and techniques, it is trivial to get resources to gap us over on those occasions when we need to work on older ones.

For example, someone training on Windows Server 2016 can easy use Windows 2000. But a person training on Windows 2000 will have a much larger learning curve working on Windows Server 2016. And the person with the 2016 training and experience can bring valuable knowledge to working on 2000 (like how to use it to best prepare for updating later) that does not exist in the opposite direction.

@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

@guyinpv said in Logical IT Certification Progression:

al details. I don't regret buying or reading through any of them. Books on Windows, DOS, printers, networks, repair and troubleshooting techniques, system design and building, etc etc. All of that is good.

Answer questions posed at an interview.

Besides, bench techs don't think, according to @scottalanmiller, they work by script - aka, reading a script and doing what it says. Once you have to start making decisions, you're no longer a bench tech, you're in IT.

Not quite, but that's closer. Bench is about tech, about consumer gear or business stuff that falls into consumer spaces. IT is "Business Information Infrastructure."

Lots of bench people make decisions. Like if you are building a white box desktop for a gamer, the bench guy will likely make several decisions from CPU to GPU to RAM to case and power supply. It's not a script, but it is not BII, either.

hey - you're making it grey again 😛

There isn't nearly as many strictly hardware people anymore these days.

Not nearly, most are in datacenters now.