We’ve been focusing on careers lately, but haven’t really drilled down into 'roles' specifically.. Instead of looking at some of the traditional roles out there for an IT Pro, we thought it'd be fun to investigate some of the weird, wonderful and down right bizarre job titles in the Tech Industry. What they are, what do they mean and who’s doing them?

Today’s world of work is going through a transformation, work-life balance is changing and ‘Flexible working’ is the latest buzz word around companies. Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International was interviewed by the BBC back in 2012 about the ‘new world of work at Microsoft’ where he gave a comprehensive review of flexible working at Microsoft.

This new approach to the way we work and manage could  help explain many of the humorous job titles we’ve gathered below, having a ‘flexible approach’ to working empowers employees to innovative, work smarter and potentially improve the way they interact with their customers or ‘evangelise’ their products. More often enough allowing certain employees to branch out and change their role to suit them.

We asked on social  “What’s the strangest job title you’ve ever came across..?” and received responses like "Professional technical specialist” and "Information Management and Technology Technical Engineer Specialist" great examples, more buzzwords than you can shake a stick at, but semi-acceptable when compared to some of the roles we discovered below.

Introducing the Bizarre job titles in Technology

David Shing, Digital Prophet at AOL

Image Source: AOL Advertising

David Shing or ‘Shingy’ as he’s better known as is AOL’s Digital Prophet. According to his AOL bio ‘He spends most of his time watching the future take shape across the vast online landscape. The rest he spends talking to people about where things are headed, and how we can get the most out of it.’ Cushty work for a Prophet - find some of his future teachings here.

James Mickens – ‘The Galactic Viceroy of Research Excellence’ at Microsoft.

Photos by Brian Smale / © Microsoft

Introducing the ‘Galactic Viceroy of Research Excellence’… bit of a mouthful, eh? We stumbled across James’ story last week. What a fantastic job title, but what does James do? According to his Microsoft Story, he’s a problem solving researcher, who has learned almost everything he knows from studying ‘Seinfeld’.

Matthew Shoup – Senior Hacker in residence at LinkedIn.

Image source: Fast Company

Starting off at LinkedIn in 2010, Matthew was a mere ‘Technical Marketer’. Nowadays though, he’s better known as ‘Hacker in Residence’ moving from a ‘fairly circumscribed job to a very free one. He wears a lot of hats, works on a lot of projects, and acts as a hub connecting a lot of people’ Fast Company's David Zax reports. Read more into life as a ‘hacker-in-residence’ in his Fast Company interview.

Dave Coplin – Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft

Image Source: BBC - The Bottom Line

According to his twitter account, Dave is the ‘Author of Futures, Technology Alchemist, Reimaginer of Business and Inventor of Pretentious Job Titles. Oh, and Chief Envisioning Officer for Microsoft UK.’ Which shortens to CEO of Microsoft, nice try . He helps organisations and individuals envision the full potential that technology offers a modern, digital society. Find out more about his role here - theenvisioners.com and watch his great Re-Imagining Work video here.

Sheryl Connelly – In-House Futurist for Ford Motor Company

Image source: Ford Media Center

We realise that ‘Ford’ isn’t a name you would expect to see knocking about Silicon Valley. Sheryl's role however seems to very tech-focused, hence why we've chosen to include her 'Futurist' role.  According to her Ford bio, Sheryl ‘has been serving as the in-house Futurist for Ford Motor Company for almost a decade. In this role, she tracks global consumer trends to aide in the discussion of long-term planning and strategy across the entire company, including design, product development and corporate strategy.’

Andrew Fryer – Technical Evangelist at Microsoft

Technical Evangelist, one of the perhaps more familiar roles from the list above. We have two of our very own, @edbaker1965 and Andrew Fryer A.K.A @Deepfat, who you can meet out on the road at our IT Camps  in the coming months. But what does he actually do? We asked Andrew to help explain the role of a Technical Evangelist.

“Evangelism comes from the Greek 'to bring good news', or to 'bring a message' and at Microsoft, an evangelist is there to explain technology, how the new stuff works and why it matters to IT guys, in my own case the broad church of 975,000 or so IT Professionals in the UK. That’s still sounds a lot like preaching but actually I listen more than I preach and I learn more than I teach to ensure that the blogs, webcasts and events I work on with the UK TechNet team are relevant.  For example if you’ve been to one of our camps you’ll know it’s you the audience that set the agenda and ask the questions and challenge us to make your attendance a good use of your time.  So my biggest reward is the thanks I get for helping IT guys get stuff done.”

So which of the above roles would you classify as Weird, Wonderful or Bizarre? Have you came across any others? Comment below or let us know via @TechNetUK

On a side note: we’ve got some free Microsoft Career Evenings in London coming up in the next month for you to check out. We’re not saying we can help you pave the way for a career as a ‘Digital Prophet’ or ‘Futurist’ but who knows... We’ll have career advice from industry experts, free drinks and dinner. Man of many Jobs Andrew Fryer will be playing the role of Careers Jedi, to find out more click on the banner below.

blinkbox turns to Microsoft Azure to power its TV and movie streaming service by switching from its own on premises set up. The shift to the cloud has already begun which will see its 20,000-strong movie and TV catalogue transcoded and run from Azure.

 
Read the full story at Microsoft News Centre UK

  By Claire Smyth, MVP Lead for UK and Ireland.

The rapid rise of cloud computing and the use of cloud services has provided an ever-increasing array of opportunities in IT: datacenter transformation, new data insights, people-centric IT and more modern business applications. To help IT professionals learn how to drive more efficiency and deliver new forms of value through the cloud, MVPs in the UK and Ireland have created an online event that brings together ‘real-world’ answers and hands-on experience to help businesses implement their own Cloud OS environment.

In September 2013 the MVP community in the UK and Ireland delivered the first Microsoft MVP Cloud OS Week!  Throughout the week these technical experts shared their real world knowledge with IT professionals and developers from across the UK.  The 5 day event focused on Microsoft Hyper-V Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server 2012, System Centre 2012 and Windows Server 2012 -  providing attendees a clear understanding of Microsoft’s vision for the Cloud OS platform.

MVPs continue to be the ‘real-world’ experts that help businesses understand how to move to the cloud and also help to realise the benefits of scale, speed, and agility while still protecting existing investments.  Building on the success of the MVP Cloud OS Week, we are pleased to bring you MVP Cloud OS Online. 

What is MVP Cloud OS Online?

On the 31st March and the 1st April 2014, MVPs will be releasing a series of online training videos that articulate how to rapidly build and deploy apps, flexibly manage IT services, and support real-time analytics across all forms of data. They will also highlight how the Cloud OS supports people-centric IT, allowing employees to bring their own devices and enhancing anytime, anywhere productivity.

Get a sneak peak of what to expect from a few of our speakers:

MVP Aidan Finn, “The MVP Cloud OS online videos will be a rapid tour of the new functionality in Windows Server 2012 that can revolutionize the design of infrastructure and services in your computer room or data centre.”  Find out more about Aidan Finn

MVP Kevin Greene, “Learn what’s new in System Center 2012 R2 - Operations Manager (SCOM) and how to use this new functionality to pro-actively monitor and manage your datacentre fabric and web applications.” Find out more about Kevin Greene

MVP Damian Flynn, “My session as part of MVP Cloud OS Online talks about  ‘What is the Azure Pack?’ Quite simply, it is an amazing framework positioning “Windows Server” and “System Centre” to be delivered as a true set of IT Services in the elusive “single pane of glass”. The future is now, the future is “Microsoft Cloud OS”, and the Front door to this new era, is the Azure pack. Let the building begin.” Find out more about Damian Flynn

How to get involved?!

• Visit the MVP Rocks UK and IE YouTube channel on 31 March and 1 April
• Alternatively, register your interest in viewing the MVP videos to receive an email reminder.

To accompany each MVP Cloud OS video the presenter will be available on Twitter to answer any questions that you might have.  Please use #UKMVPCLOUD to tweet your questions and comments.  You can also contact me @ csmyth@microsoft.com

The sessions:
The agenda for both day’s is shown below. You can see when each video will be released, the topic that will be covered and the MVP speaker. Please remember these videos are pre-recorded and will be published and available to view online at the time slots listed below.

31 March: Transform the datacentre

1 April: Empower People Centric IT

Which session are you most looking forward to? Let us know via @TechNetUK

Remember to tweet your questions and comments to #UKMVPCLOUD during each session to hear directly from MVP Cloud OS presenters.

As a wise individual once said, “Don’t change yourself for the job, change the job to suit you”. This is a piece of advice that we’ve taken to heart recently, but don’t read into that, this isn’t a public resignation post. Rather, if you’ve read Andrew’s blog post on Careers Advice for the IT Professional along with a number of other articles focusing on careers, you’ll know that recently we’ve been placing a heavy emphasis on helping IT folks like you excel in the workplace.

Writing blog posts is all well and good, but for the most part they’re a fairly one-way conversation. That said, I encourage you to comment below, even if only for the satisfaction of proving me otherwise! In the meantime, we’ve been beavering away preparing a number of pilot Career Evening events, so that you can come along and have a chat about where you’re currently at, where you see your career going and how you’d like to get there.

So, what went down?

We held the first of these events in London earlier this month, focusing on careers in SQL and SharePoint, and were thrilled to be joined by thirty-odd attentive individuals from a range of industries and backgrounds. This variety of experience was also reflected in the speakers we lined up for the evening, including representatives from the worlds of Training, HR and Consultancy, an Apprentice, an MVP and everybody’s favourite Microsoft Evangelists!

Couldn’t make it? We’ve got your back.

If you were unable to join us on the night, but are keen to find out more about the areas we covered, help is at hand. For your reading pleasure, we’ve summarised each of the presentations below, including a little extra comment from Tom on Apprenticeships. You can also download the PowerPoint presentations as .PDFs below if you’d like to dive a little deeper. The slides include a number of handy links to further resources, so are definitely worth exploring.

• Linda Smith, Product Manager at Global Knowledge.

After providing an introduction to Global Knowledge (GK), Linda discussed the learning delivery methods available and the importance of certification as evidence of your skills, which can be invaluable whether in role or seeking a new positi on. She then covered the range of SQL Server and SharePoint certifications available, including MCSA, MCSE and MCSD and their associated exams. This was followed by a review of the Instructor-Led training available and the exams to which each course corresponds.

• Emma Broadway, Staffing Manager at Microsoft.

Emma shared the employer’s perspective on finding your next role, with a whole host of great tips on how to conduct your job search, market yourself to potential employers and present yourself at interview.

• Tom Davis, BI Consultant at Adatis & Microsoft Apprenticeships Ambassador.

For his session, Tom gave an overview of the Apprenticeship programme and discussed the many benefits (both professional and personal!) of undertaking the course. I think it’s fair to say the room found his talk particularly inspiring, so instead of my interpretation, here’s a few words from the man himself:

 “The Microsoft Apprenticeship is the result of Microsoft’s commitment to increase UK IT Skills, an area in which the UK is rapidly falling behind other countries across the world. The apprentice spends 12 months based at a Microsoft Partner firm (e.g. Adatis) whilst receiving training and qualifications from a learning provider, at the end of which they are fully qualified as an MCP IT Professional, have a number of Level 3 (A-Level Equivalent) Qualifications, 12 months workplace experience, an average salary of £20000, with no University debt and a 90% chance of continued employment with their Apprentice employer. There are a number of different pathways on offer, including Desktop, Database, Server, Developer and Telesales, all focussing on different job functions to meet different role requirements.”

Sounds pretty great, right? For more information about Microsoft Apprenticeships, visit the Get On website, and check out Tom’s slides below.

• Steve Smith, Owner of Combined Knowledge, Co-Founder of the SharePoint User Group & SharePoint Server MVP.

The final section of the evening was more of a discussion than it was a presentation, with Steve sharing his experiences of taking the plunge into business ownership and the importance of involving yourself in the tech community. As the owner of Specialist SharePoint training company Combined Knowledge, Steve highlighted the virtues of gaining deep technical knowledge in a specific area and the importance of carefully selecting the path you want to take. He also explored the importance of Job vs. Salary vs. Lifestyle, an area you can read more about in Andrew Fryer’s recent article on optimising your work-life balance.

Download Linda, Tom and Steve’s sessions.
Download Emma’s session.

We received a raft of great feedback from everyone who attended, in particular requesting that we put a stronger focus on product roadmaps and how future changes might impact your choice of career path. We’ve learnt a great deal running this first event, so you can rest assured the next two will be bigger and better.

Next Time…

The next Career Evening will take place on Thursday 3^rd April, in just over a week's time. We’re going to be covering the world of datacentre and client infrastructure, with sessions from System Center industry experts, learning partners and recruiters. We’ll also be hearing from Zach, an Apprentice and IT Technician with Inframon, as well as poster-boy for Microsoft’s Britain Works programme! To make sure you don’t miss out, register at the links above.

The deal is you bring yourself and a desire to develop your career, we’ll bring dinner and drinks. So, the only question that remains is, what delicacies would you like to see at the next event? Let us know in the comments, or give us a Tweet.

When we think of our 'dream job', then it’s all about finding something we're good at, we get paid to do and of course we love doing. We were lucky enough to spend some time with Matthew Reynolds, Head of IT at Southampton Football Club, we asked him a few questions on what he does, as well as how he got there. As you’ll see from this interview, it’s not the only cool job Matthew has held.

So Matthew, what does Head of IT at Southampton Football Club mean?

Operationally, I am responsible for providing the availability & capacity of all IT services at the club, which accounts for about 30% of my role. I look at IT risk across the business as well as project manage the larger IT transformation projects. As a member of the Senior Management Team I spend the rest of my time focused on strategy, direction of the business and the IT roadmap.

Can you talk a little about you career progression to this role?

I’ve always had a love for computers and my first PC was an IBM PS/2.  I studied Computer Aided Engineering at university and when I graduated I joined an engineering company in Portsmouth.  As a CAE Systems Engineer, I was responsible of managing their CAD workstation estate.   This gave me the first real insight into how computing can be at the heart of an organisation.

I then found a role at a Formula 1 team called Arrows Grand Prix International. Arrows had a very small IT department and my main responsibility was CAD support. As there were only two of us, we ended up doing a bit of everything and I was regularly sent to Grand Prix and Test as IT support. Being thrown in the deep end, I had to learn about NT Servers, routing and networking very quickly.

Two years later on I joined Williams Grand Prix Engineering as an IT Support Specialist. My first major project was to move the company from NT4 to Windows Server 2000 with a new feature called Active Directory. The migration was very manual as there where limited tools to help you in those days.

During my time at Williams we were partnering very closely with HP. One of the technologies we worked on was wireless networking and how we could use it as a competitive advantage against the other teams. Working with HP I managed to develop a solution that sent all of the car data back to the garage from the grid, prior to the race. Traditionally if engineers wanted the data from the ‘install’ lap/s they would have to plug their laptops into the cars on the grid and view it locally. This new solution shared the data and allowed for more eyes back in the garage to view this information.  The partnership with HP had many other rewards including a technology refresh, giving us the latest innovations in compute power to work with and thus gave the team a performance advantage.

The next move was to an established manufacturer doing very well on the grid, they were called Renault F1 Team.  A young driver called Fernando Alonso was also showing a lot of promise.  Renault's mission was to win the world championship and there was a large focus on performance projects.  Budgets weren't so much of a concern providing your project remained feasible and I took the role of IT Trackside Project Leader, responsible for the mobile IT infrastructure that was sent worldwide.  

There was a huge modernisation programme to support the team with their vision. The data that a car generated had increased as well.  In the early 90's a full weekend's race data used to fit on a 1.44MB floppy disk and now in the late 00's we were generating 1GB to 2GB of data.  Interestingly the exponential growth of data continues and in 10's it peaked at 20GB of data per car.

My first project was to improve the trackside operations by updating their aged infrastructure.  This equated to the replacement of 30 servers, provisioning over 20TB of storage and configuring a new network as well as provisioning faster communication. This allowed for data to be transferred from Grand Prix to headquarters in real-time.

After nearly 7 years at Renault F1 Team and two world championships later, I had the opportunity to join Southampton Football Club. They were at the beginning of their journey, having just been promoted to the Championship.  In a similar way to the Renault F1 Team they had a vision for success and I could see that there was more to come.

I was tasked to rebuild the IT capability to support the business strategy for international growth. The business was seeing major disruptions due an unreliable IT infrastructure, there were regular email outages and a large percentage of time was spent being reactive. In the first 90 days I put together a 5 year plan to transform and modernise the 10 year old capability.

Year 1 was spent rebuilding the foundations. Email was moved to the cloud and a new network, storage and compute capability was born utilising the latest Microsoft Hyper V technology and HP converged infrastructure. Our desktop fleet was replaced, high speed links installed and Wi-Fi went live across all sites.

I am proud to say that the Saints now have a stable infrastructure to now build solutions upon. This year IPTV went live. Giving the club a central TV solution, providing real-time advertising and providing the fans a great experience across all of the stadium. IPTV will be extended to our new Stapolewood training facility to support player development.  We are also about to see a Unified Communication and Collaboration solution launched.  This will give the coaches and training staff instant communication tools such as the ability to carry out live scouting and video conferencing.  It will also provide access to medical records in a secure environment. 

What do you see as the biggest technology game changers over the last 10 years?

It has to be the rapid evolution of compute power and connectivity.  In the past we wanted to maximise the performance out of our systems and we spent a disproportionate time tuning for optimal capacity.  Now it is about how we apply the technology to provide a strategic advantage to the business.  It’s no longer about keeping the lights on but the strategic benefits IT can bring to the business.  Someone once said to me “IT is the business and the business is IT”, this sentiment reinforces the importance of information technology and the value it brings to any organisation.

What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve ever been given

Think big, be passionate and aim to be better in everything you do.  Life is a learning curve and sometimes things don't go as planned, but along your journey there will be chances.  You must take these opportunities when they arise and your hard work will be rewarded.

We’d like to thank Matthew for taking the time out to speak to us this month and for providing fantastic insight into his career journey.

Are you interested in furthering your career in IT? The TechNet team are running upcoming IT Career Evenings in London. Network with peers over some beer and pizza and get a better understanding of what a Career with Microsoft Technology looks like.

‘IT Pros Unplugged’ is a running feature we’ve kicked off this month which highlights personal IT Pro stories be it day to day insight, or personal progression articles much like Matthew Reynolds recent article.
For this article we thought it would be interesting to tell the story of an IT Apprentice at one of our partner companies, someone who is just starting off in a career in IT.

Meet Reece Gillespie, IT Desktop Support Technician and Firebrand Apprentice.

So Reece, your job title is IT Desktop Support Technician – but what do you actually do?
My main responsibility is responding to the needs of internal staff when it comes to issues involving Desktop and networking technology. This can also include helping out with phone support as we utilise VOIP technology.
I am also currently shadowing my manger to learn more about server maintenance. One thing I definitely don’t do is make the coffee…

How did you get this job?
I found it through the National Apprenticeships website via their job search database. After reading the job description I submitted an online application before being called by Firebrands apprentice recruiter.
After a brief telephone interview, I attended a face to face interview with my current Line Manager. I made it through to a second interview with Firebrand’s Director, Stefano Capaldo, before being offered the role.

Did you go to college or university? If so, what did you study?
I went to college, to study a level 3 diploma in networking. But I didn’t like the teaching methods; I prefer learning through hands on practical work, which was why I found the idea of an IT apprenticeship with Firebrand so appealing. As well as learning, I actually get experience in the job I want to be doing, best of all, I get paid to do it!

Tell us a little more about your apprenticeship programme and any other ‘on the job’ training you might have?
I am currently partaking in one of the 12 month IT apprenticeship programs with Firebrand, with the aim of being employed at the end. As part of the program, I get on the job training as an IT technician, alongside studying for my Level 3 Diploma in ICT Professional Competence and a Level 3 Certificate in ICT Systems and Principles.

The best thing about the program is that I can work towards achieving 6 industry specific certifications from Microsoft and CompTIA. Because Firebrand’s training is accelerated, every 9 weeks I can do 1 week of intense training, get a new certification or two and be back at work the following week putting my new skills in to practice.

Do you have any certifications and if so could you tell us what they are and why you took them?
I have the following certifications:
· CompTIA Strata in PC Fundamentals – this taught me the basics of the internal workings of a PC.
· MTA in Operating Systems Fundamentals – like the name implies this certification proves I have a basic understanding of Microsoft operating systems and how they work.

I am currently working towards:
· CompTIA A+ and N+ certifications – upon completion I can prove I have advanced knowledge of hardware and the basics of how a network functions.
· MTA in Networking Fundamentals – similar to the N+, I will learn about networks, the hardware used, how they are set up and all the associated protocols.
· MCSA: Windows 7 – I am working towards exam 70-680 in configuring Windows 7, completing this exam is one part of the way to getting me MCSA certified.

Who is your biggest inspiration – who do you admire in your field of expertise and why?
I’d have to say my Manager, Bevan. He’s doing the job that I want to be in, and every day he’s helping me learn to become who I want to be, so that one day I can get that job that I want.

What’s your specialty?
I’m best with Microsoft operating systems and software programs, I’ve been working with them for years.

What frameworks and tools do you work with?
We use Spiceworks as our main helpdesk system. Staff enter tickets about the problems, and then I go and fix them. We also use the Cisco Meraki system, which allows us to manage our network from the cloud. I also work with SharePoint, where all our big tools and projects are kept.

What’s the most useful tool you use, what do you use it for and why is it the best?
It’s got to be Spiceworks, the system keeps track of mine and my teams performance, whilst helping me keep up to date and organized with all of my tasks.

How many people are on the same team as you and what do they do?
I work in a team of 4 where we actively work to support Firebrands global IT systems.
We have first, second and third line support. I have a similar role to the rest of the team, but they work on higher level projects and more advanced issues related to the network and our servers.

How do you collaborate with other teams like admin and marketing?
I collaborate with our Web Developer, helping out with the website. I have also attended a couple of events, such as the Skills Show where we ran a stall with Microsoft Learning.

We know there’s no such thing as an average working day, but could you run through an example day from the past couple of weeks?
When I come into the office the first thing I do are my morning checks. These include checking the office display screens which show our sales information, ensuring they are all up to date and functioning.
Next I will do routine checks of cables round the office to spot any potential hazards. Following this, I will go to the server room and make sure all our core servers are online and functional for the day ahead.
Then it’s time for Spiceworks, where I check any recent or high priority issues and ensure that all new and unassigned tickets are responded to and assigned to the correct team member.
In an average day I probably get through about 15-20 support tickets, this can range from ‘have you tried turning it off and on again’ to a complete PC re-build following a system failure.
Although, one thing I’ve learnt in my time with Firebrand is that every day brings something new to learn.

Which websites, publications, forums and events do you go to for resources like industry news and technical support?
The Spiceworks forum is pretty good for technical support and news on new technology. I also use the TechNet platform, they have loads of resources on all the operating systems and technology I work with on a daily basis.

What do you do in your spare time (if you have any!)?
When I’m not working, you can find me on my Xbox One dominating the FIFA world. I’m a big Arsenal fan as well, so I’m regularly off to the Emirates to watch my team.

What project are you most proud of and why?
I recently implemented a PDF editing solution across the business. This was the first time I was given full responsibility for a large project. I had the task of finding the new PDF editing software, deploy the program across the company and then make sure all staff members were trained up and familiar with using the new program.

What’s the most ridiculous situation you’ve been in at work?
Our core switch went down, and the failover switch went a few minutes later. All the systems and regions went offline. As I was on-call, our Dubai office rang me at 5:30am to let me know all the systems were down. I had to remotely log in before notifying my line manager, giving him detailed information of the issue.
I met my Manager in the office and the systems were back online before all other Regions started their business day.

What are your career goals/Where do you want to be in 5 years time?
I still want to be working in IT, preferably in third line support. Ideally at some point   I want to be an IT manager, but I haven’t planned much beyond that.

More information on Firebrand’s IT Apprenticeship program
Whether you’re looking to become an IT Apprentice, or you’re interested in hiring one, you can find out more on Firebrand’s Apprenticeship website.
Firebrand currently offer 4 specialist programmes which prepare apprentices for the following job roles –

• IT Desktop Support
• IT Support Technician
• Systems Engineer
• IT User Support
• IT and Network Administrator
• System Administrator
• Server Support
• Help Desk Support Technician
• Web Developer
• Programmer
• Mobile Application Developer
• Each programme includes 3 to 4 Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) certifications.

Do you have any useful advice for Reece, who is starting off in a Career in IT? Why not comment below, or tweet us at @TechNetUK

Are you interested in furthering your career in IT? The Microsoft TechNet team are running free Career Evenings in London, with presentations from industry experts, Microsoft HR and some of our apprentices.  For a full round up and for information on how to register, see here. 

Join us for two days of IT Camps for the Enterprise 8-9th April @ Lotus F1^® HQ

If there is one thing I have learnt from my time at Microsoft it is that we are all different. One area where this is obvious is that we all have different approaches to learning.  Some people like to read the manual, some people need to be shown by others, and then there are those who just jump in an play.  There’s no right answer here, but in many cases we are using varying combinations of all three.

One of the problems for the hands-on kind of people is that some of the technology requires a lot of kit to play with. Formula One is an example of this – all kinds of testing have restrictions on them and of course live testing in a real car is also very expensive, so teams like Lotus F1^® have wind tunnels and complex computer simulations to learn about how to design the best car. 

Getting hold of the kit itself and putting in the time to try things out can also be hard for IT Professionals. It can be hard to justify or get away from the front line and take time out to stand back from it all to assess new ideas and technology. This is especially hard for System Center because it needs lots of time to setup and requires more resources to test than most standard laptops or cloud servers have. System Center is such a big suite and, to really get it right, requires a setup with all the components working together which can take a lot of time. Not only that but many businesses are trying to get to grips with how to extend IT infrastructure through the use of cloud services, which is very new and requires understanding of new concepts as well as the tools themselves.

So we’d like to help with a bit of hands-on assistance in getting your head around the art of the possible in a modern software defined data centre that has a secure connection to cloud services for DR and scale. 

To have your full attention we will need to get you away from your desk which may require some justification and encouragement. So we had a chat with the Lotus F1^® team and they are letting us run our IT Camp at their HQ in Enstone.  This is a two-day event with day one focussing on your data centre and day two stretching the data centre into the public cloud with Windows Azure.

The event is designed for those of us working in larger organisations running over 200 VMs where concepts like ITIL compliance process, automation and scale are important.  There is also some very cool engineering from Lotus F1^® on display  and we have asked their IT guys to down tools and tell you about their world.

Register to secure your place at the upcoming event at the home of Lotus F1^® team using the below links.

Here is some anonymous feedback from those who attended these camps in London last week:

"Great in-depth look into System Center. Real world experience from trainers is great!"

"Good overall introduction into Windows Azure, the hands-on demo's were well labelled and easy to follow"

"Very knowledgeable and charismatic presenters, with a great mix of labs and presentations"

Lotus F1^® team HQ, Enstone

Tuesday 8th April - Re-discover Datacentre Management with Windows Server and System Center

Register here using invite code 44D558

Wednesday 9th April -  Journey to the Cloud with Windows Azure

Register here using invite code D220FD

If you're not a racing fan, or the Lotus F1^® dates don't suit, we're also running sessions at Old Trafford, Southampton FC's St. Mary's Stadium.

Old Trafford Stadium, Manchester

Tuesday 15^th April – Re-discover Datacentre Management with Windows Server & System Center

Register here using invite code 7421BF

 Wednesday 16^th April – Journey to the Cloud with Windows Azure

Register here using invite code 509146

Southampton FC's St. Mary's Stadium

Wednesday 30^th April – Re-discover Datacentre Management with Windows Server & System Center

Register here using invite code F76F8B

Thursday 1^st May – Journey to the Cloud with Windows Azure

Register here using invite code 16F557

We're looking forward to meeting you out on the road!
Have you signed up for an event? Let us know via @TechNetUK or by commenting below.

The following post is from Quentin Clark, Corporate Vice President, Data Platform Group.

“Today I am very happy to announce SQL Server 2014 has been released to manufacturing and will be generally available on April 1.

SQL Server 2014 is the culmination of thousands of hours of hard work from Microsoft engineers and thousands of hours of testing and input from our preview customers. The result is an important component of Microsoft’s overall cloud-first data platform. The platform delivers breakthrough performance, accelerated insights through tools everyone uses and the ability to scale globally on-premises and in the cloud – letting our customers get the most from their data.

This release of SQL Server is significant in that, in addition to delivering key hybrid scenarios, it rounds out our journey to embrace in-memory technology. Several years back, we began exploring the changing hardware landscape – memory being one of the key areas of focus. Today, our in-memory technology spans the core workloads in the data platform: business intelligence as part of Analysis Services, Excel and Power BI for Office 365; complex event processing with StreamInsight; in-memory columnstore in SQL Server and our data warehousing product; and now with SQL Server 2014 – in-memory transaction processing.

The completeness of Microsoft’s data platform and the strength of its mission-critical capabilities are the reasons our customers increasingly build on and deploy SQL Server. It has garnered market share and industry recognition because it meets the increasingly demanding needs of business customers of all sizes. SQL Server is the most widely-deployed database in the world and continues to gain revenue share at the expense of our competitors. Our data platform has surpassed our competitors in key technology areas like cloud, in-memory and business intelligence. With SQL Server 2014, we’ll continue to build on that momentum with an enterprise-ready, mission-critical database.”

Read the full announcement here.

Or read the official Data Platform Insider blog round up here.

Save the date – April 15th!
 “Accelerate Your Insights” Watch the Accelerate your insights keynotes live from San Francisco, California on April 15th – you’ll learn how to drive your business in real-time, from apps to insights, using all your data, and how the latest advancements in SQL Server 2014 and Power BI for Office 365 turn potential into real possibilities.

If we are to believe the marketing from any of the cloud services providers, we don’t really need any in house infrastructure to run a modern business, as our e-mail, collaboration and line of business systems can all be hosted for us.  However in the UK there are several challenges not least the appalling lack of connectivity, so while any business may move some of its services to the cloud there will still be a need for some in house IT infrastructure. So in this post I want to look at using the art of the possible for small and medium sized businesses and my definition of small is where physical hosts + server Virtual Machines(VMs is less than 100).  I have covered the 'how to' do some of this on my own blog, I've provided relevant links to keep this post short and sharp

10.  DHCP Failover: - a simple mirrored pair of servers for DHCP means that if one fails the other takes over

9. VPN & Direct Access: it’s just another role that you can turn on to provide secure remote access to your infrastructure.  You don’t need to do anything on the remote clients to get this to work.  I mention both because to use Direct Access the remote machine needs to be domain joined and running Windows Enterprise edition (7 and later).  On the other hand a VPN can be used by any tablets and phones running any old or new OS.1. Basically life is good if you have Windows Server 2012 or R2 as there are two key utilities to make managing your servers really easy, Server Manager In fact form a monitoring perspective you can do a lot with just one 2012/R2 server.

8. Active Directory: We may well have a domain controller or two and one stop management in the Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) which includes an AD recycle bin as a safety net (you do need to enable it though )

7. Remote Desktop Services:  You can provide secure virtual desktops with or without a VPN provides a Windows desktop from wherever you can get an SSL connection.  RDS covers both the good old terminal services style session based virtual desktop as well as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure based on a collection of VMs each running Windows 7/8/8.1 on top of Hyper-V.

6. PowerShell. For those who like to have procedures in place for doing things in predictable way then PowerShell 3/4 (depending on which OS you have) is a lot lot easier to learn and once you get it you’ll be wondering how you managed without it.  I don’t have one post on this I have a series called Lab Ops.

5. Multi-server management Multi-server management. Windows Server 2012 & R2 have remote management setup by default, so it’s the work of a moment to add all your servers into Server manager to see what they are doing, how they are doing it, and to run the appropriate tools to manage whichever role they are running. You can also manage older servers (as early as 2008) though not quite to the same extent.

4 . MinShell and Server Core MinShell and Server Core. Now that we can centrally manage servers  (maybe from a Windows 8/8.1 desktop with the Remote Server Administration Tools) I can rip the management tools out of the other servers so they run like server core or have a MinShell to save patching, memory and make them that bit more secure (i.e. no IE!).

3. Deduplication. We probably need to store data on our servers and by turning on this feature on you could save up to 80% of your disk space on a non system volume.  Just make sure your backup provider supports this before enabling it

2.  Hyper-V. You may not be a fan but Microsoft’s type 1 hypervisor is sitting inside of Windows Server waiting for you to give it a go.  Server Manager doesn’t care whether your servers are physical or virtual, and your PowerShell skills will become even more useful

1.  Like most Microsoft software there prerequisites for installing Windows Server, and one that isn’t often mentioned is YOU.  If you are going to use this new OS effectively you are going to need to understand it and I would recommend a few MVA Courses like this Jumpstart, downloading it and building your own lab and if you are serious then get certified!

Find out more about Microsoft Business.

I was lucky enough to track down SharePoint expert John Timney last month (in-between numerous speaking gig’s, might I add) and persuade him to pen down his experiences and daily adventures to kick-off our IT Pro ‘A Day in the Life’ series.

This is the first in a series of up close and personal insights into a day in the life of an IT Pro.
Find out why John is a “stickler for process and best practices and a demon for an audit trail” and more below.

John Timney – Managing Enterprise Architect, SharePoint MVP, Karate Instructor and father of two.

Follow John via:
Blog : http://www.johntimney.com
Twitter : @jtimney

Your Job title is ‘Managing Architect’ – but what do you actually do?

My official job title is ‘Managing Architect’, which really just means I am an experienced Enterprise Architect with lots of breadth and depth. I normally end up with specific job titles on different clients like “Enterprise Assurance and Strategy Lead Architect” to focus the role a bit.

I’m an IT Pro at heart, and as I’m focussed on Microsoft technology with a bit of a passion for SharePoint I tend to work across large scale SharePoint On-Premises or Hybrid programs.

How did you get this job?

I’ve been working with SharePoint since its first release, and when an opportunity came up to join Capgemini PLC working as a Senior Architect I applied and was successful. I had worked at British Telecom PLC for about fourteen years doing Solution and Enterprise Architecture type roles previously. My current role is a natural evolution from starting life as a developer working on Artificial Intelligence programming and then as VB and Java coder, to moving through the different project delivery roles of Solutions Architect, Design Authority and into the EA space as my experience grew.

How did you get skilled up? Did you go to college or university? If so, what did you study?

I studied for a MA in Information Management at the University of Nottingham in England following a BA Honours at the University of Lincoln. To be fair, a lot of my experience comes from real world project delivery but education certainly set the foundations for a career in IT.

So what’s your specialty?

Governance – I love it. I love the rigour that is required to do complete end to end governance across all facets of a program of work.I’m a stickler for process and best practices and a demon for an audit trail. This comes from many years working for Government clients where you are always faced with the potential for an ad-hoc audit. It does however teach you why this carries value when an auditor is breathing down your neck asking “why” you followed a specific approach. I love the way Governance is finally taking a real place in programs but it is remarkably late to the table and too few IT Pros currently understand it at the holistic level needed for large programs. “If the root be in confusion, nothing will be well-governed” is a quote from Confucius (551-479 BC). That makes me smirk often, as it’s the same problem occurring centuries later.

What’s the most useful tool you use, what do you use it for and why is it the best?

I think for any IT Pro, for any Enterprise Architect, for anyone working in IT the best tool you can have is a solid and experienced network of peers. Technology can augment that, a good Yammer network can count for a lot, a carefully chosen select user group can add to that, and polite use of social media can reinforce those networks and relationships. Nothing beats being able to reach out to individuals who are as passionate as you about technology to prop you up in areas you may not have as much depth in, and being available to them is equally as rewarding. It’s the foundation for the Social value chain and where you can see a real return on investment.

         “I think for any IT Pro, for any Enterprise Architect, for anyone working in IT the best tool you can have is a solid and experienced network of peers”

We know there’s no such thing as an average working day, but could you run through an example day from the past couple of weeks?

There really should be no such thing as an average working day for a good IT pro, and they should always be seeking to challenge and evolve their skills at pace with the market. I’ve spent the past few weeks working on two things, a supportability GAP analysis of a large scale SharePoint platform to ensure a comprehensive support mandate exists for a globally dispersed client implementing a really exciting o365 and on-premises hybrid architecture for a few hundred thousand users, and a Governance Strategy for a new SharePoint Centre of Excellence (CoE) defining how governance will be applied to all the work the COE will perform.

I actually do a whole range of activities from Design Assurance, validating the architecture or solutions for the Solution Architects streams, Goal and Strategy Alignment and Roadmap Services planning with clients, through to Release Management and Business Change alignment. I also assist in recruitment, interviewing new potential recruits either for Capgemini or for our client projects.

My day can be really varied as I tend to move up and down the delivery stack, talking to the developers although I no longer write code) to help steer design thinking about custom work, dealing with the migration teams to validate and help align migration strategies, working with the other Enterprise Architects to align the services roadmap and talking to end users about business process reengineering to formalising BYOD strategies or accessibility compliance. It’s a real mixed bag and I can be leading on triage for a priority support incident one day to talking to different client about mobility strategies the next. It is really a demanding role but the reward is I get to work with people from the shop floor up to the CTO/Director level which keeps you well balanced.

As I’m well aligned to the Microsoft stack, I think it is a lot more fun but also of real value to be vendor focussed as it allows you to retain a deep understanding of different Microsoft platforms and the direction Microsoft might be taking it.

What project are you most proud of and why?

I was involved in an almost green field delivery of large scale SharePoint at the Department for Education in the UK as the Enterprise Assurance Lead Architect. This was a great opportunity to help reshape the technology organisation to drive change in the way process and technology was adopted across a whole government department, and a very important one. It was a very holistic programme, considering things like interface design, accessibility compliance, SAN consolidation as well as SharePoint and all the necessary wrap around services like geographical disaster recovery. As well as being a great team to work with they were very forward thinking and passionate about success, embracing entirely new concepts at the time like Virtualisation and utilising Microsoft technology to its best.

The program itself won the E-Government excellence award in the Leadership & Professionalism award category presented by UK Prime Minister David Cameron. So that tends to stand out as a pretty good programme of work fondly remembered.

What was your most embarrassing tech moment? How did you save face?

I’m really quite bad at remembering the names of people, and spent a whole day calling a Director of IT I had just met, entirely the wrong name. This went on all day through a whole set of workshops and meetings and no one corrected me. That was pretty embarrassing but I did go and apologise and he never seemed to mind. In the words of SharePoint I’m “working on it”.

‘John’s Workstation Chaos’

What do you like to do in your spare time (if you have any!)?

I’m a SharePoint MVP, so spend a lot of my spare time supporting the SharePoint community. I do quite a lot of public speaking about IT Pro related subjects and organise the UK SharePoint User Group in the North of England. I also speak at International Conferences and events like SharePoint Saturday. The SharePoint Roadshow or SharePoint Connections when I get the opportunity.

l will be speaking at the European SharePoint Conference in Barcelona this year about “Why SharePoint Projects Fail” and covering the hot topic of “Bring your Own Disaster”, a twist on the challenge of BYOD. I’m also speaking at quite a few User group events this year and I’m just completing a speaking deck for a session on “The Value of Goal Alignment in Successful SharePoint Projects”.

When I have time, I spend a lot of it researching technology related to my area of expertise and have co-authored a few books in my time, and enjoy that when time is spare. I’m also a Karate instructor and love to spend time in the Dojo or in the gym which helps to keep me fit but also is an escape from IT and necessary to stay sane! However, with two young kids life can be a bit manic.

Finally, where do you want to be in 5 years’ time?

I think we’ll see such an aggressive pace of tech over the next five years it will be difficult to predict but I can’t see my role changing that much, the type of work I do will always be in demand regardless of the technology shifts that we face. Cloud, the mobile market and new ways of working will drive change, and with it the IT Pro will need to evolve their skills base and renew their place in what is a rapidly evolving market. If you are resilient you will embrace those changes and face off to them. I’ll still be working with Microsoft software, be it cloud enabled, on-premises or both through hybrid.

Got a question for John? Pop it in the comments bar below, or reach out to him via Twitter.

Have you been working on some cool projects? Perhaps you’ve got an interesting role or even a few funny experiences as an IT Pro you could share? If so, you’re an ideal candidate for our ‘Day in the Life’ series – why not get in touch?