Looking for the next big transformation

Seeing a post from someone about the possibility of finding something beyond IT inspired me to write down my thoughts (though this turned out to be more of my "life story" in IT). All my life I've been fascinated and drawn to computers. But it was always how they worked, the hardware, putting them together, and being fascinated by the way you could command them to do things as you needed. I knew I wasn't interested in being a software developer - I was OK at coding, but after two all-nighters in a row in college, and watching those who just lived in the computer lab, I knew it just wasn't for me.

I enjoyed talking with people and figuring out problems, and so the helpdesk was a great spot to start. Very soon though, I found myself bored, and thought that maybe helping lead others in the technology space would be interesting. I found though that managing people, while a very interesting challenge, took me away from the technology that I really loved. But when I found a world of infrastructure and systems, I really had found what I wanted to do. Figuring out the best way to hook them together, and to lay a foundation to make the software run better and efficiently, and most of all with a high level of stability was the most intriguing of all.

I found that I could manage a multitude of computer systems, all at once, pushing settings and options with group policy, and pushing out software and configurations with Microsoft SMS. It seemed amazing to me to be able to wield that sort of control, and fix hundreds of system problems at the same time (and figuring out why something didn't work was half the fun - thanks SMS 2.0 pre SP2!). That seemed to be the first "era" of infrastructure management in my personal career. Transformation #1

The next challenge I found was that no matter how you configured these systems, we were still dealing with slow network connections for those who were outside the home office. We were hearing reports from users that opening their mail (Lotus Notes!), was taking upwards of 5 minutes! (Haven't we gotten spoiled these days?). We had a basic Citrix Metaframe server back then, but I realized that we weren't using it to the potential it had - I found published applications! I set up a demo and the users were thrilled that this new Lotus Notes that popped up on their desktop would open in 20-30 seconds the first time, and <5 seconds afterwards. And it worked so much better! Soon I had a farm of over 10 servers serving dozens of applications to hundreds of users! Transformation #2

I loved Citrix, and it was super interesting, however I was still at the same company I started my IT career in, and I started to get the itch to see how things were done at other places. I may have quit, but other circumstances intervened anyway, and so it was time to move on. I was able to have a short stint at another company, and I was able to work on bettering a lot of their infrastructure, however, I felt too confined by the size and scope of my position. So I was able to find another opportunity (WAY closer to home too which was a massive plus!)

The next challenge was interesting - a company which had once been much bigger, but had shrunk rapidly, especially in IT. It felt a bit chaotic to me at first. It seemed like there were all these things we "used to do", but when I came on board, we were just holding everything together with duct tape and bailing wire. It was fun to start to get our arms around the org again - back to GPO's, SMS (2003 by now), adding a service desk system and other ways to knit the infrastructure back together. It was a manufacturing environment and there was always intense pressure to keep the costs down, do more with less, etc. But it was a lot of fun too - it felt like a very small group of people, but we did have some resources (and needs) of a large organization.

But the need to keep costs down were always at the forefront, so when I saw we had close to 100 servers, but the budget to replace about 10 a year, and systems breaking all the time (sometimes pretty catastrophically), I knew this wasn’t sustainable and thought there had to be a better way. By this point I had been playing around with VMWare on the desktop for a couple years, and I found this other product - ESX. I put together a basic demo, carving off some space on an existing SAN, and standing up vCenter and a few ESX hosts. We were able to take a system which was on old failing hardware and migrate to this - and it worked better than I even imagined. Then we started to go all in on this technology. I loved it - I learned everything I could about it - all the ins and outs. I printed out all the technical manuals / user guides / admin guides, and highlighted, took notes, took classes. And then convinced the IT Director (learned how to do NPV calculations in Excel at that time), that we should spend our money on 3 new hosts with lots of RAM and a new ISCSI SAN. By the time I left my position we were just almost 100% virtualized (probably not a big deal now, but back in 2009, that was pretty unusual). Transformation #3

When I moved into the Infrastructure Manager role, I was ready to re-exercise my leadership / management muscles. I also realized that I was in a small enough group that this meant (and pretty much necessitated) that I wouldn't need to give up on technology - that I could do both. And the big benefit is that I could give up the parts of technology that I wasn't quite as good at, to pass on to those who were better, or at least more interested in pushing those technologies forward. But I still always loved VMWare. And I think I was getting much better at leading people which I still enjoyed. But all good things must end, companies get sold, and once again, time to move on.

Next challenge - a much bigger company (I thought, but really the actual company was about the same size as what I was used to), and I thought a whole new set of issues. However, it really was much of the same - I was waiting for the NEXT BIG THING. Which never really came. Fantastic people there, and I really enjoyed working there, but I never felt like the challenge was quite the same. Honestly, they were a much more mature organization than I had ever been in - a lot of systems, and structure, that I had never had. Which was great, but I don't think I was quite ready for the calm that it was - I had gotten used to chaos a bit. I managed VMWare, and hopefully made it better. And helped with storage, and hopefully made it better. But I was used to such a broad scope, and I felt so narrow and confined. (It might have been my own doing, but nonetheless, I never quite felt like it was right IT wise.) But I miss the camaraderie, BBQ’s, fun get togethers, etc. of sharing life together, much more than the IT work itself.

Hoping for a new set of challenges, I took the jump to a MUCH larger company. I think everything happens for a reason, so I won't say it was a mistake. But I did NOT enjoy my time there. It was way too far away (long commute), and I always felt like no one was willing or able to step up and fix anything. There were a lot of broken things, but everyone was in their own silo, and there seemed to be no appetite to fix anything holistically. And I was in a contractor position, which I thought was just a way to move into a full-time position, but I didn't feel like there was any path to moving up. Then (fortunately for me) the entire IT team got outsourced to another company - I felt like it was the perfect time to cut the ties to that ship and float off in a different direction. (But I'm still sad that I've never been on a cruise ship - I will need to remedy that sometime!)

Moving on to my next challenge - hmm... what do I do here? I never felt at home at this one. I liked the job OK, I liked the position, but I always felt like an outsider. I never felt like I was really needed - I was just there to help keep the lights on. It was strange - everything was new and yet nothing was. I was working with technologies which I was only familiar with, so it was a lot of learning, but I was just learning on how to do the same things with different technology. A different tool doing the same sort of monitoring, a different tool for virtualization, but same sort of virtualized infrastructure. Same hardware, different vendor. Everything I was taking on I felt like I was learning on - I didn't have anything to fall back and shine on, and I didn't feel like I was contributing in any major way. If I left, I felt like nothing would be different. It was only when I actually went to leave that I felt any differently - and realized that they felt differently about me too, and thought I was actually doing a good job... go figure. Happily, I was leaving because I got called to my next adventure - where I am right now.

Another area of chaos, but in a much different way than I had been used to. Massive growth, massive change. So much going on all at once - trying to keep on top of it all. And a place where I could instantly come in and make a positive impact! I'm loving this opportunity - things weren't falling down all around me due lack of resources, and yet there were many areas where help was needed. I’ve gotten to work across a huge broad swath of technology and responsibilities. I get to use so many skills that I already had amassed, both in the same way I was used to, and new ways that I needed to learn, while at the same time learning whole new ones. A large, growing, and dynamic environment, where I'm actual able to learn, grow, and still lead and mentor others without the burden of the responsibility for doing so as my primary job. I'm still excited about it... and yet... where's Transformation #4? In truth, I'm still searching for it.

The world has become all about "the cloud." This is where the next transformation stems from. But why am I not as excited about it? All along in my IT career, I've been able to find new technology, and learn where it applies, how to adapt it. I can delve in and understand at fine detail what is necessary to make the technology run, how to make it better, what is required / best practice. In short, I understand what is going on "under the hood". I'm not a network engineer, but I know exactly what is going on when a computer starts up and sends that first discover packet for DHCP, what runs at what layer in the OSI model, and if something fails, where it might fail. I know the requirements around VMWare, and I know how to best configure ISCSI so that it is redundant across multiple network interfaces, switches, storage NICs. I know intimate details about how SCCM works, which logs to check when you have a failure, etc. And countless other examples. I've learned all of these things and have the experience to troubleshoot and apply as necessary. However, in the cloud, someone else does all that. We just become the consumer of the technology. If it doesn't work, maybe we Google an error message - and then generally have to open a ticket with Microsoft or AWS. If you need more storage or more compute resources, you click a button.

I came into IT to be challenged, to solve new problems, and to transform how others are able to use technology to get their work done. Now it seems like the skill you need is matching the need to the name of the technology provided to you. Do you need Aurora? DynamoDB, Elastic Beanstalk? LightSail? Greengrass? Or maybe you need Azure Confidential Ledger, AKS, Quantum, Pipelines? How do they work? Don't worry about it - we'll take care of that for you. Need more? All it takes is more $! Sure, there is still a level of skill needed if you're going to do IaaS and do it all yourself, but how much sense does that make? It's generally more expensive than doing it on prem, unless it causes you to eliminate the local datacenter (and all the infrastructure people along with it). So, it's really just a temporary gateway into the right service provided by someone else. Where's the fun in that?

I'm so happy with what I'm doing now - it's a lot of fun, and it's truly an interesting challenge every day. But I miss that ability to find the next transformation. I love learning, but thus far it feels lately like I'm just learning a different way to do the same thing I already knew how to do. As we move to the cloud this seems to become more true day by day. And of course, the ability to do anything really transformational in technology diminishes as we get further and further away from the technology. Back in 2002 as I was just getting started in my IT career, the push was for outsourcing everything - I figured if that was the case, I would just go work for wherever the work was being outsourced to. I think along the same lines with the cloud, except with those companies it is hard to imagine a scenario where you do anything except a very narrow scope of tasks. They are so big it is impossible to be good at the breadth of skills needed. To succeed you must know one skill very well.

So maybe my days in IT are numbered. I wish it wasn't so, but I don't know that I'm going to find that transformation within IT again. Maybe the only option is to do a major transformation of myself into something completely new. Or maybe it will just be a minor transformation of myself, remaining in the world of IT where I will be able to completely embrace the cloud, be excited about it, and understand how I can use it to solve new problems once more. Time will tell, but I'm ever grateful for the past 22 years of getting to solve interesting issues with computer systems, and I’m looking forward to whatever is coming around the corner.