Creating Environments for Testing

I’ve said during rants about career options, building a lab to test is essential to your development as an IT professional. I‘ve pointed out where you can find a treasure-trove of IT books (http://it-ebooks.info/) and also where you can get free training (Microsoft Virtual Academy).  Using these two site resources you get the books and the training, now you can use the Microsoft Virtual Labs to get to play around with the technologies you read and learned.

Now the third part of your learning process should stem around practicing what you have learned. I’ve said in previous posts that you should establish a lab to test learned technologies so that you when you need to execute them in the real world, you’ll be more effective. Testing requires having some lab environment that mimics the real world. Unfortunately, this is where you can run into a few challenges trying to establish the appropriate environment. This is why I recommend using the Microsoft Virtual Labs - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs

Using Microsoft Virtual Labs

The main advantage is that is provides a ready-made environment so that you can practice what you learned.  You don’t have to spend any time setting up a test environment which is often the most laborious and costly side of testing. I’ve worked in support for a long time (too much in my opinion) and the need to have available environment to test customer issues that critical to understanding a resolving customer issues.

It can be costly and very time consuming to have enterprise solutions like SharePoint is testing format. Even if you are using virtual solutions (Hyper-V or VMWare), this is still an expensive technology because it takes lots of disk space and memory (RAM). This does not include the processing power needed to effectively run a “usable” installation. Sure you can get by using these methods with a simple SQL solutions or even a barebones SharePoint environment, but those are often not the best environment to test solutions that are of the enterprise variety.

One of the only downsides is that each virtual lab environment is that is expires in 90 minutes. That may not seem like a long time but it is generally sufficient to test when the all configuration has been done. The obviously con is that if you build out a lab environment with a lot of configuration that will be lost.  Therefore, it’s important that you factor that restriction in your testing. This is for testing issues that can be reproduced quickly or for learning and not for testing solutions that require hours to produce.

 

Becoming an IT professional

The IT industry offers excellent earning potential and presents very few barriers to entry. With average reasoning abilities, sound reading comprehension, and some patience, anyone can enter the field and become employable. Your success in the industry will largely depend on your ambition and area of specialty. As the industry continues to grow, there is a constant need for more IT professionals. While some believe that the market is saturated, my experience and the industry as a whole suggest otherwise. Any credible list of "Top Industries in the Future" should include IT (particularly programming) as a growth industry.

I have worked in the IT industry for over 20 years and have never seen a shortage of work or ideas that need implementing. To enter and thrive in this industry, there are four essential things to consider: get technical, avoid being non-technical, continue to learn, and learn to research.

Getting technical requires choosing a specialty and focusing on a set of technologies. Whether you decide on .Net programming, mobile development, system administration, or database development, your career path must have a focused approach. At this stage in my career, I am primarily focused on Microsoft Business Intelligence (MSBI), a growing and evolving technical area.

Avoid becoming an "administrative IT professional" by working only on IT processes instead of technology. You should understand IT processes, but focus on a specialty where you know the technology well enough to break it down at any level.

Continuing to learn is essential to staying marketable in the industry. Free technical discussion and learning sites, such as Microsoft Virtual Academy, and IT eBooks are excellent resources for continuing education. Reading books in your area of specialty with interest is essential.

Having your lab environment is crucial to practice, experiment and test. This is where your best learning will take place, allowing you to practice strategies, follow labs and exercises, and build the confidence needed to experiment in a safe environment. Virtual environments, such as VMWare or Hyper-V, are useful for creating a lab environment to practice your specialty.

In conclusion, IT is an evolving industry, and staying relevant requires continuous learning and skill improvement. Choosing an area that you are passionate about will make it easier to embrace continued learning. IT is a growth industry, and you can have a long and rewarding career if you are willing to evolve with it.