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Computers and Software => Computers and Software - General => Topic started by: mk162 on December 20, 2012, 09:06:09 AM
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So I am working on setting up a really good backup system. I just installed a RAID 5 with 3 1TB drives, I will be adding a 4th later.
I am testing out backblaze since they include external drives on their service.
I am also going to download Acronis True image for each computer and have it create complete system restore points, Windows 7 backup is ok, but I have some issues with how it works. Like it's hard to control the size of the backup, it filled a 1TB drive and then was throwing error messages about not enough space.
Does this seem like a good setup? I thought about setting up another RAID at the house, but for the cost for everything I could use backblaze for 10 years. Not to mention this way it's totally offsite, not just 15 minutes away.
I still might put in a 3tb drive at the house and put in a VPN tunnel to back everything up there, it just wouldn't be a raid.
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A lot of the correct way to address this would have to do with the amount of data we are talking about. But in general here are my thoughts.
The main concern for me on "online" back ups is 2 fold:
Connection or the speed which you can upload/download "ALL" of your data in the event of a drastic issue on site (fire/complete drive failures/flood/etc). This is a issue 2 ways, what is your upload speed and how long will it take you to upload all of your data and how long will it take daily for it to keep up. That said will it affect your other needs for your internet connection. The other side is keep in mind some of these online service throttle the speed, so you could be waiting awhile to put 1tb in the cloud or retrieve it. If you create gigs a day like we do often it could be tough to keep up with it being able to be uploaded in a reasonable amount of time. Just something to consider.
The other issue is how much do I trust someone else with my data. I wouldn't discount this for a second. Seriously assume someone is looking at all your data. True or not, I wouldn't hand someone my data without being ok with them looking at it. Cause it very well could happen.
Now to address your original concern, yes that is a decent way to say redundant without heavy cost of server/etc.
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I've run few RAID 5 setups and for the most part they are more trouble than benefit. With four drives, you have four times the chance of something going wrong (actually a lot more than that). While I would love to give up on RAID all together, I've finally settled on mirroring and having to deal with the problems.
What problems you ask? For example:
in case of a crash some of the cache is not saved and the image gets corrupted.
Trying to recover the array, I've recovered the wrong drive before or even managed to lose the remaining partition by doing something stupid (we all do it, and as Mr Murphy guaranties, at the worst possible time. The added pressure of getting back on line does not help).
I've even had two drives fail within few days before we managed to get the replacement in.
battery on the RAID controller died and it lost the data during shutdown corrupting the array
controller failure, now stuck with two drives that don't work without identical controller and if the unit itself contains the array info, trying to recreate it can wipe everything out.
there's more, but I think you get the point.
I would mirror the two drives and take what's left home for an off site backup.
pierre
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A lot of the correct way to address this would have to do with the amount of data we are talking about. But in general here are my thoughts.
The main concern for me on "online" back ups is 2 fold:
Connection or the speed which you can upload/download "ALL" of your data in the event of a drastic issue on site (fire/complete drive failures/flood/etc). This is a issue 2 ways, what is your upload speed and how long will it take you to upload all of your data and how long will it take daily for it to keep up. That said will it affect your other needs for your internet connection. The other side is keep in mind some of these online service throttle the speed, so you could be waiting awhile to put 1tb in the cloud or retrieve it. If you create gigs a day like we do often it could be tough to keep up with it being able to be uploaded in a reasonable amount of time. Just something to consider.
The other issue is how much do I trust someone else with my data. I wouldn't discount this for a second. Seriously assume someone is looking at all your data. True or not, I wouldn't hand someone my data without being ok with them looking at it. Cause it very well could happen.
Now to address your original concern, yes that is a decent way to say redundant without heavy cost of server/etc.
very good points! I've been contemplating offsite backup and trying to decide which route to go. Based on this it makes more sense to backup to the house computer as everything can be back on site in an hour. Downloading GB's of info would take significantly longer than what it would take to drive home and get the drive.
thanx!
pierre
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with the internet speeds we have here, upload/download isn't a problem. Most of our art files are vector, so there isn't that much size to the files. I uploaded everything in about 12 hours. Download would obviously be much faster.
Also, if i had a complete and total loss of all data here, chances are I wouldn't care about download speeds since I would probably have to replace most computers and equipment here anyway.
With backblaze, if you use a passphrase they tell you to not lose it, because even they won't be able to retrieve your data.
With the RAID drives, I went with enterprise grade. With a fail rate at around 1.4 million hours. I was thinking of going raid 10 when I get the next drive, that is slick, FYI.
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With the RAID drives, I went with enterprise grade. With a fail rate at around 1.4 million hours. I was thinking of going raid 10 when I get the next drive, that is slick, FYI.
FWIW, many (but not all) of the RAID controllers I had problems with were enterprise grade ($3k per controller). . . Yes their rate of failure when up and running was lower, but part of the problem is in the system you are using, nut just the controller. For example, if the power supply fails your array is going to crash (as will a regular drive), but recovering a crashed array is more difficult than recovering a single drive.
In the end, chances are you will not have any problems, but I felt compelled to throw my $0.02 in!
pierre
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Raid's are amazing when they work. When they break though, almost nothing worse. Because it's not always fixable and you will likely lose data.
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I'd still +1 Brandt's point on security--Maybe they can't get your passphrase back, maybe they say that to cut down on idiot customer service calls.
Not sure if you have any local and friendly Linux wizards, but you can set up heterogeneous RAIDS in a dizzying array of configurations, and it's quite transparent--i.e. you can still 'turn off' the RAID and access each drive separately with a normal ext3fs like a single drive user would, and possibilities with integration on just about any type of network is unparalleled.
Probably won't help, sounds like you already dropped the coin on something pretty fancy, although it may help someone else considering it. Then again, those Linux gurus don't come cheap either. ;)
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i went with the advice of my IT guy that sets these up at other places. We had a server and he talked me out of that thing. It was overkill for us. Heck, it cost around $50 a month to run it.
This setup is a lot simpler.
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Why did it cost you $50 a month to run?
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i checked the power usage of the server and the cooling fans for it. Servers are energy hogs.
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what did you measure the power usage from?
was it the rating of the power supply?
my home server only uses about 125-150 watts even though it has a 450 watt power supply.
it has 5 drives connected to the motherboard.
i measured with a device called "kill a watt"
http://www.p3international.com/products/special/p4400/p4400-ce.html (http://www.p3international.com/products/special/p4400/p4400-ce.html)
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I measured it with a killawatt, then remeasured after installing the new setup. I am shaving off about 350 watts, not including the savings in cooling cost. I could have installed server on the system that is in there, no biggie, but I would have had to buy a new/used copy. I am happy with the peer to peer, wndows 7 p2p is actually pretty darn good.
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i checked the power usage of the server and the cooling fans for it. Servers are energy hogs.
Sounds to me like you had something way over kill. My server is about as big as a tall coffee cup and draws near nothing for power.
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it was overkill, that is why we dropped it. the nice thing was it came with server installed...so no extra cost there.
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i checked the power usage of the server and the cooling fans for it. Servers are energy hogs.
Sounds to me like you had something way over kill. My server is about as big as a tall coffee cup and draws near nothing for power.
Well, technically that isn't a "server"... that's a NAS at best.
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i checked the power usage of the server and the cooling fans for it. Servers are energy hogs.
Sounds to me like you had something way over kill. My server is about as big as a tall coffee cup and draws near nothing for power.
Well, technically that isn't a "server"... that's a NAS at best.
Ya man I dunno how it serves me web pages from anywhere in the world then. Or how it serves my files from to me from anywhere in the world. Or how it serves all our computers files. Or how it's actually got the term server in the product name at all. You certainly know more than HP and Microsoft, right? Haha
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what I had was a rackmount server. You can technically install MS Server on any machine, if it has the resources.
I decided to go the cheap route and go p2p, it's easier to setup for a non-technical person like me...and it's easier to work on...it's also a crapload quieter.
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we upgraded to a 5disk Synology NAS recently, I am going to setup the old 2 disk one at home and have it sync nightly to the one at work for backup
amazon s3 is just too expensive for backup, perhaps Backblaze is cost effective, this is something I will need to figure out in January
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i checked the power usage of the server and the cooling fans for it. Servers are energy hogs.
Sounds to me like you had something way over kill. My server is about as big as a tall coffee cup and draws near nothing for power.
Well, technically that isn't a "server"... that's a NAS at best.
Ya man I dunno how it serves me web pages from anywhere in the world then. Or how it serves my files from to me from anywhere in the world. Or how it serves all our computers files. Or how it's actually got the term server in the product name at all. You certainly know more than HP and Microsoft, right? Haha
HP and Microsoft are good at getting money out of people. Sure, they have talented people--but it took Microsoft YEARS to even begin to rip off enterprise style *nix software--and poorly at that.
I'll give Apple props for that--at least they quit posturing and just stole something that works properly, and put their fancy graphics over it. ;D
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I'm sure given it's a real server he can also run AD, real DNS, terminal services, maybe he could opt to run Exchange on that server.
I go into many offices that label a box a server, but putting a fancy sticker on it doesn't do much for what it can do on the inside.
I'm with Foo though... I'll stick to the *nix boxes for quasi servers if not all out full blown enterprise class ones. I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around why MS thinks it's necessary to run a full blown GUI on a "server" when one should never really be physically logging into it.
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I'm sure given it's a real server he can also run AD, real DNS, terminal services, maybe he could opt to run Exchange on that server.
I used to run Advanced Server on a $400 Compaq computer. I guess thats a "real server" by your standards. Listen I know the difference but the fact is anything that serves a file could really be qualified as a server. You wanted to get "technical" so here is the technical definition for you:
A computer or computer program that manages access to a centralized resource or service in a network.
I go into many offices that label a box a server, but putting a fancy sticker on it doesn't do much for what it can do on the inside.
I'm with Foo though... I'll stick to the *nix boxes for quasi servers if not all out full blown enterprise class ones. I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around why MS thinks it's necessary to run a full blown GUI on a "server" when one should never really be physically logging into it.
I will tell you why MS has a GUI and this is just 1 example. It's because secretaries with mild computer knowledge may get appointed to run a network or portion of it. When I attended school to get my MCSE I was often in class with several people from the company Eastman (Kodak). This company was notorious for being a company that promotes within and these people know windows desktops. They wouldn't know the first thing about any flavor of Nix or how to use it and you know it. Teaching them would glaze 99% of them over before the first break in class. But teaching them Active Directory, permissions, sharing, etc wasn't near as hard with a GUI for them. Doesn't make windows better, but in that circumstance it sure does.
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I'm sure given it's a real server he can also run AD, real DNS, terminal services, maybe he could opt to run Exchange on that server.
I used to run Advanced Server on a $400 Compaq computer. I guess thats a "real server" by your standards. Listen I know the difference but the fact is anything that serves a file could really be qualified as a server.
Actually that is what I would call a quasi server... same software but not on enterprise class hardware therefor it's really not as stable as it should be to be called a true "server". FYI, I run a quasi server at my house and shop.
I go into many offices that label a box a server, but putting a fancy sticker on it doesn't do much for what it can do on the inside.
I'm with Foo though... I'll stick to the *nix boxes for quasi servers if not all out full blown enterprise class ones. I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around why MS thinks it's necessary to run a full blown GUI on a "server" when one should never really be physically logging into it.
I will tell you why MS has a GUI and this is just 1 example. It's because secretaries with mild computer knowledge may get appointed to run a network or portion of it. When I attended school to get my MCSE I was often in class with several people from the company Eastman (Kodak). This company was notorious for being a company that promotes within and these people know windows desktops. They wouldn't know the first thing about any flavor of Nix or how to use it and you know it. Teaching them would glaze 99% of them over before the first break in class. But teaching them Active Directory, permissions, sharing, etc wasn't near as hard with a GUI for them. Doesn't make windows better, but in that circumstance it sure does.
But not a single one of those tools should be run from the server itself. You should be running those tools from another machine and connecting them to the server.
Which of course *nix has those exact same tools. If you can't teach them to run the tool in *nix, then you can't teach them to run it in windows either. I would also suggest that that statement is completely accurate. Those people likely had/have no business in those classes, and you know that.
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Actually that is what I would call a quasi server... same software but not on enterprise class hardware therefor it's really not as stable as it should be to be called a true "server". FYI, I run a quasi server at my house and shop.
Since you are the worlds for most expert know it all you should lobby for a definition change. I mean I have seen some enterprise stuff pretty unstable before, are those quasi servers too? The definition doesn't suggest it's stable or not, it suggests it's function. So you could make about anything be a server if you like. In fact you should be smart enough to know stability often comes from the load on it/number of users/what it is serving. A "server" serving files to the size of most of the shops here could be very stable with very little resources, and you know it.
But not a single one of those tools should be run from the server itself. You should be running those tools from another machine and connecting them to the server.
Should be? People always do things they "should" right?
Which of course *nix has those exact same tools. If you can't teach them to run the tool in *nix, then you can't teach them to run it in windows either. I would also suggest that that statement is completely accurate. Those people likely had/have no business in those classes, and you know that.
Of course nix does, but people don't do well always with change. I mean there are people that shouldn't screen print, embroider, run a business, walk in the street, or otherwise but they do. That's life.
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We ARE talking about MY definition right? I did say "That's what *I* call...
Anyway, if they are taking classes then they can be taught to do it right. Have you ever looked at AD? Not exactly something that someone that is comfortable with a "start" button and MS Word is going to be able to just hop right into and be able to wrap their heads around it. It is enough of a drastic change that it might be even easier to hand them the tools to a *nix machine and let them add new users via the web interfaces that LDAP utils can provide in *nix.
My point is that just because you can get around and are comfortable in Windows (or Linux) doesn't mean you can jump into an LDAP interface and be ok with doing any functions in there. Just like a person that knows windows and ms paint isn't going to just hop into PS and be able to use it worth a damn for anything other than applying filters.
I do agree with your last line: "I mean there are people that shouldn't screen print, embroider, run a business, walk in the street, or otherwise but they do. That's life." and my hopes are that all the rumors of suicide due to the pending "end of world" were true... just a few less of "those" people walking the streets. ;)
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<gun shot sound> And they're off!
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<gun shot sound> And they're off!
Looks like at least one of you guys missed the rapture as well. :p
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I don't think the Mayans were aware of an invented, unbiblical Protestant idea called the rapture, but I don't know enough to be sure ... Probably know as much as anyone commenting on it today pretending to know something they don't. Then again there are crazier things - Constantine and Moses lived to 700 years old since Constantine was alive in 1000a.d. requesting more copies of the bible to be made for his growing metropolis (oh wait, I mean determining the canon of the bible that had already been closed by Pope Damasus I in 381, 620 years prior) - wink.
Now that that commercial is over, ill let you and Brandt get back to business :-).
Merry Christmas boys and girls.
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<runs across the track and smacks the mechanical rabbit>
As far as the definition debate goes, I think of Wiki's first line as quite reasonable: In most common use, a server is a physical computer (a computer hardware system) dedicated to run one or more services (as a host),[1] to serve the needs of the users of other computers on a network. Depending on the computing service that it offers it could be a database server, file server, mail server, print server, web server, gaming server, or some other kind of server.
To get to the actual differences here, extremely efficient GUI's have been in existence for decades now--but with either mainstream flavor of 'window manager' (what many consider erroneously to BE the OS) is a bloated feature dump, getting bigger and bigger, version after version. If you're wondering why people would be put off by large amounts of graphics intensive computing on a 'server' (whatever your definition is,) -- the server has been the last bastion of truly performance-based computing without any *inherent* need for the resource waste inherent in GUI-only systems. The server does not need the GUI to perform it's tasks adequately, and in fact, the GUI is taking up valuable resources.
For those who may have never had the privilege of a computer history lesson from someone who didn't sell software, Xerox/PARC developed the GUI--not Apple and not Microsoft.
They tested it with monkeys. The goal was not performance based, but rather the sacrifice of what were, at the time, vast amounts of performance for large gains in ease of use.
I'm not saying the GUI is a horrible invention, any more than the television is. I wouldn't want to give up previews, interactive tools for layering, or try to map algebraic coordinates to 'draw' a design with weighted curves. I occasionally see a TV show that doesn't make me wish I had that portion of my life back.
But it could certainly be argued that the massive amount of GUI integration in every facet of computers as well as embedded devices has led to ignorance and the waste of resources, similar to some of the effects of television at the scale it is consumed--or even what is considered 'internet' now, but in reality, is just a digital form of the same type of 'service'.
Perhaps what Kevin was trying to get at makes more sense, perhaps you're even more confused now. I apologize if it's the latter.
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Sorry N.O. Boys... I'll check back after 3.13.13 (I think someone referenced Revelations having something to do with THAT "end of the world.")
Foo, you nailed it. It's insane that what once happened so clumsily on an OS that could comfortably fit in a 2 gig partition and 512mb of ram (windows 2k) now needs over 120 gigs and 4 gigs of ram to accomplish pretty much the same clumsy task. And barely 10 years passed.
Even on the high end is photoshop better than it was 10 years ago? Yeah... Is it 8-60 times better? Not really. I bet Dan turned out some great work 10 years ago and if you put it up side by side you probably couldn't tell which version was used. Though I'm sure it's faster and easier for him to get the same results... but do they happen 8-60 times faster (and not due to hardware, because if you put PS 6 or 7 on a modern system it would likely be as fast as CS6 (32 bit) on the same system.) Some of the tricks and tools they upgraded I'm sure help. But not as much as the resources they are hogging up.
Even in such a "graphical" task some things don't need such a GUI... resizing to 600x800 doesn't require you to see the image, this is why linux has command line tools to accomplish such tasks and why PS has "batch processing", though the command line tool runs circles around PS's batch processing on the same hardware. Unzipping files doesn't need a GUI. The list is many... but like Foo said, I'm not looking to go back to Command Line Only... but there are tasks where the GUI just gets in the way and hogs up way too many resources for it to make sense.
I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine to see such simple things get so bloated. I download things that are 100+mb in mere seconds and I think of how these things are just put out there so nonchalantly and no one bats an eye at downloading them and I go back 15 years in how that would have literally taken me a week to download.
I remember when Adobe After Effects (key frame animator/editor) as a 70mb download. It did incredible things back then and now it is 3gigs. Yet, not even close to that much more impressive. It's impressive but the size shouldn't be exponentially larger than the improvements.
If some how hardware would have been halted at 10 years ago, I fully believe that we wouldn't be THAT much further behind in what bells and whistles they would be programming in but at a WAY more efficient rate.
All this cheap powerful hardware has just made programmers lazy and with updates/patches so easily downloaded/handled they have also become more sloppy. It drives me crazy. Technology got better and our products had to rise to match, but in the program world the opposite happened.
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We ARE talking about MY definition right? I did say "That's what *I* call...
Anyway, if they are taking classes then they can be taught to do it right. Have you ever looked at AD? Not exactly something that someone that is comfortable with a "start" button and MS Word is going to be able to just hop right into and be able to wrap their heads around it. It is enough of a drastic change that it might be even easier to hand them the tools to a *nix machine and let them add new users via the web interfaces that LDAP utils can provide in *nix.
My point is that just because you can get around and are comfortable in Windows (or Linux) doesn't mean you can jump into an LDAP interface and be ok with doing any functions in there. Just like a person that knows windows and ms paint isn't going to just hop into PS and be able to use it worth a damn for anything other than applying filters.
I do agree with your last line: "I mean there are people that shouldn't screen print, embroider, run a business, walk in the street, or otherwise but they do. That's life." and my hopes are that all the rumors of suicide due to the pending "end of world" were true... just a few less of "those" people walking the streets. ;)
Your comment was that technically it wasn't a server and that it was a Nas. Interestingly technically you are wrong. So now you are trying to make it about what you call it rather than what its tecnically called which was your original arguement. So I corrected you with the actual definition of a server.
How a company decided to run their network isn't my problem. Many companies choose MS. AD I agree isn't super easy to pick up. But very green people did it with training just in my own classes, so it's fair to assume it happend all over the world. I haven't yet argued that I thought personally that ms was better choice than a flavor of nix for ME, I only said MS was smarter than you and that some or many companies pick MS because its familar to some extent. Also people are trained to do brain surgery too in this world. Anythings possible I hear, try offering a employee a double in pay to jump in to network management, that is if you wanna see motivation......
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<runs across the track and smacks the mechanical rabbit>
As far as the definition debate goes, I think of Wiki's first line as quite reasonable: In most common use, a server is a physical computer (a computer hardware system) dedicated to run one or more services (as a host),[1] to serve the needs of the users of other computers on a network. Depending on the computing service that it offers it could be a database server, file server, mail server, print server, web server, gaming server, or some other kind of server.
To get to the actual differences here, extremely efficient GUI's have been in existence for decades now--but with either mainstream flavor of 'window manager' (what many consider erroneously to BE the OS) is a bloated feature dump, getting bigger and bigger, version after version. If you're wondering why people would be put off by large amounts of graphics intensive computing on a 'server' (whatever your definition is,) -- the server has been the last bastion of truly performance-based computing without any *inherent* need for the resource waste inherent in GUI-only systems. The server does not need the GUI to perform it's tasks adequately, and in fact, the GUI is taking up valuable resources.
For those who may have never had the privilege of a computer history lesson from someone who didn't sell software, Xerox/PARC developed the GUI--not Apple and not Microsoft.
They tested it with monkeys. The goal was not performance based, but rather the sacrifice of what were, at the time, vast amounts of performance for large gains in ease of use.
I'm not saying the GUI is a horrible invention, any more than the television is. I wouldn't want to give up previews, interactive tools for layering, or try to map algebraic coordinates to 'draw' a design with weighted curves. I occasionally see a TV show that doesn't make me wish I had that portion of my life back.
But it could certainly be argued that the massive amount of GUI integration in every facet of computers as well as embedded devices has led to ignorance and the waste of resources, similar to some of the effects of television at the scale it is consumed--or even what is considered 'internet' now, but in reality, is just a digital form of the same type of 'service'.
Perhaps what Kevin was trying to get at makes more sense, perhaps you're even more confused now. I apologize if it's the latter.
I agree with most of this except I still don't know why we all ended up in a debate on GUI in a data redundancy thread. But I guess this site wouldn't be right if a thread didn't end drift drastically.
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We can agree there about sloppy programming. I do feel a lot of wasted bloat for mild improvements in software is the norm today.
Hardware is pretty cheap though.
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Your comment was that technically it wasn't a server and that it was a Nas. Interestingly technically you are wrong. So now you are trying to make it about what you call it rather than what its tecnically called which was your original arguement. So I corrected you with the actual definition of a server.
How a company decided to run their network isn't my problem. Many companies choose MS. AD I agree isn't super easy to pick up. But very green people did it with training just in my own classes, so it's fair to assume it happend all over the world. I haven't yet argued that I thought personally that ms was better choice than a flavor of nix for ME, I only said MS was smarter than you and that some or many companies pick MS because its familar to some extent. Also people are trained to do brain surgery too in this world. Anythings possible I hear, try offering a employee a double in pay to jump in to network management, that is if you wanna see motivation......
Sure, I guess I got caught up in the semantics. I still wouldn't personally identify that as a "server" from an IT stand point, no matter what label they through on it. Like a smart car isn't really a car, it's a tin can on wheels at best. ;)
I guess what I saw in the MSCE classes were a good bit different than you. I saw people needing to go step by step through adding a new user to a computer in basic computer management (not AD) and STILL having problems. The thing is, just because they sold the class and taught the students doesn't mean they would be able to function in the real world. My brother worked at a big jewelery manufacturing plant and the value of paper certs went WAY down after a few bozos got certs and then couldn't perform the duties required. That isn't an isolated example either. Certs can simply mean you are good at memorization and test taking.
I had this kid trying to take my gig at an oil field company once... he told a guy that he didn't realize was going to come and tell me exactly what he was saying, "Kevin just gets this stuff.. but I'm going to school to learn it the right way!" LOL. All I could think was, if all the answers were in a book then there would be a book on the shelf and not and employee on the books. Eight years later and I'm still at the gig... not sure where that kid is... but I'm sure his paper degree/certs got him a few jobs here or there.
You show me an intelligent person that can think outside the box and I will hire them regardless of experience and certs ANY day of the week over someone that can't think outside the box and lives in books. Computer problems never go "by the book". ;)
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Sure, I guess I got caught up in the semantics. I still wouldn't personally identify that as a "server" from an IT stand point, no matter what label they through on it. Like a smart car isn't really a car, it's a tin can on wheels at best. ;)
Now this is a first ive seen, you admit you were wrong. I like it, kudos there. Label or no label it does a fine job for a small shop like mine and it certainly doesn't cost a lot or cost a lot to run. I can live with that.
I guess what I saw in the MSCE classes were a good bit different than you. I saw people needing to go step by step through adding a new user to a computer in basic computer management (not AD) and STILL having problems. The thing is, just because they sold the class and taught the students doesn't mean they would be able to function in the real world. My brother worked at a big jewelery manufacturing plant and the value of paper certs went WAY down after a few bozos got certs and then couldn't perform the duties required. That isn't an isolated example either. Certs can simply mean you are good at memorization and test taking.
OH I never suggested that certs mean everything, plenty of people with college degrees and certs out there that beyond book reports and memorization they had no real talent. Fully agree with that. This particular company is pretty interesting, they are very hard to get a job with, they are a HUGE company here and they pay better than about anything around here. They promote within, many were moved into the network admin department before even taking the classes. They are not picking just any random but yes some of them have very little if any network knowledge. I seen some of them taking Network + and A+ before they hit a MS classes. We did have what I consider to be a very good teacher and most people seemed to grasp it except for the occasional random generally not from their company. Keep in mind it's not like all of these people where being put in charge of the network, they were working with a in place admin team. This is a huge company, 1000's of computers to manage, 1000's of resources, etc.
I had this kid trying to take my gig at an oil field company once... he told a guy that he didn't realize was going to come and tell me exactly what he was saying, "Kevin just gets this stuff.. but I'm going to school to learn it the right way!" LOL. All I could think was, if all the answers were in a book then there would be a book on the shelf and not and employee on the books. Eight years later and I'm still at the gig... not sure where that kid is... but I'm sure his paper degree/certs got him a few jobs here or there.
That's all a degree/cert is worth for some people, is the foot in the door or a higher pay level. We all know many companies will look at a person on paper before even talking to a person. I would imagine without certs and degrees you may not even be talked to for some positions regardless of actual knowledge. That's just a reality in life. Seen that over and over. My aunt was a human resources person at a hospital. She actually didn't have the title though, because she doesn't have a degree, thus they do not pay her as well. They flat told her this over and over. Even though she was DOING the job. In fact she did the job for 30 years and retired, but never got the official title. "Semantics" as you say. Cost her 100's of thousands over her career I would assume.
You show me an intelligent person that can think outside the box and I will hire them regardless of experience and certs ANY day of the week over someone that can't think outside the box and lives in books. Computer problems never go "by the book". ;)
I agree. But the only way you and I will be able to make choices about hiring it to continuing to run our own businesses. We wouldn't have the credentials to make those choices at most places, but I assume like me you can live with that as well!
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I tell these kids that all the time. Don't look at me as anything but an exception to the rule and the only way I am doing as well as I am is because I own my own business. I could do what I do and make as much as I do working inside another company. I don't have the degrees that they want to see.
That being said, my brother doesn't have a degree or certs and he's doing well for himself as a data analyst at a decent sized local bank. They are looking to get into software development with a few of the concepts they have and he will be running it. But again, exception and certainly not the rule.
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I tell these kids that all the time. Don't look at me as anything but an exception to the rule and the only way I am doing as well as I am is because I own my own business. I could do what I do and make as much as I do working inside another company. I don't have the degrees that they want to see.
That being said, my brother doesn't have a degree or certs and he's doing well for himself as a data analyst at a decent sized local bank. They are looking to get into software development with a few of the concepts they have and he will be running it. But again, exception and certainly not the rule.
Oh ya, always exceptions to anything. Some things are right person, right time, and it can really work out well like that. I am actually glad I didn't get a degree, I would have had other opportunities in my life that I may have never ended up doing what I do now. I am sure id be under less stress but it wouldn't be as rewarding as what I am doing now. I wouldn't tell everyone to go out and start their own business, it's not for everyone for sure. Some NEED those degrees or they will get no where.
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Just to clarify, the GUI was an incidental topic, but I was referring to the random bloat so people can get more ignorant, and gear gets more expensive. Didn't mean to get too off topic. Although I'll take credit for derailing the topic if you guys keep agreeing like this. I truly think there's a lot more to agree on than otherwise, although it doesn't make for very exciting reading. ;)
Enjoy the holidays.