The current state of the Information Technology field is more competitive than ever. The number of job seekers far outweighs the number of jobs available. Currently IT employment is harder and harder to obtain. New job seekers continue to enter the market but the overall number of opportunities are shrinking. This is definitely a sellers market so to speak. In order to compete against other job seekers you really have to make yourself stand out in a crowd.
Over saturation of prospective employees has allowed businesses to set qualifications at an all time high. The possibility of getting employed without experience is not looking good. Recent graduates hoping to land a job might have a hard time achieving their goal. Companies are looking to consolidate job duties into positions that can perform multiple functions. Sure there are still jobs out there that allow you to specialize in a specific area but more often than not you will need to possess a wide range of skills. Programmers are expected to know more than one language or maybe even some back end administration. The competitiveness of job seekers has propagated this new trend and it doesn't look like it will go away any time soon.
So how might you differentiate yourself during these cut throat days of working in the IT field? One way to make yourself stand out in the crowd is through certifications. A 4 year college degree is a great thing and a wonderful starting point. After graduation the next step is real world employment. The problem is most companies want someone who has experience and you can't obtain experience without being employed. Just getting a company to call you back once they look at your resume has become difficult.
Certifications in the technology field can give you the edge needed to get your foot in the door and start your career. A industry recognized certification can help validate your level of comprehension in the eyes of an employer. A certification can be the difference between getting a call and getting a thanks but no thanks letter in the mail. There are a large number of certifications provided by a vast amount of vendors and organizations. Being certified in a specific technology gives potential employers a "security blanket" in a way. Your certification validates your skill set and automatically lets people know that at least you know what your doing to some extent.
Obtaining certifications can be a daunting task. Some certs will require a long list of exams which measure various levels of your comprehension. You will need to study the material and most likely work with the specific technology enough to understand various intricacies. The nice thing about becoming certified is that you only need time and the money to take the exams. There are some certifications that strictly require hands on experience, however, most of them you can obtain as long as you have enough money to sit for the exam.
All certifications are not created equal. Since there are multiple vendors offering various certs some are more marketable than others. If you hope to work on computers then perhaps the A+ certification would be of interest for you. However if you want to work with computer networks then perhaps the Network+ cert is more appropriate. Although an employer looking to hire someone to work on their network would probably prefer a CCNA instead.
A system administrator might hold the MCTS certification which would make them a strong candidate for an available job. Then they are informed they did not get the job because someone who holds the MCITP has applied for the position. If you were wanting to be a Linux administrator you might obtain a variety of certifications such as Linux+, LPIC, or RHCE.
The number of certifications can be overwhelming. Whatever you choose to do in the IT field a certification certainly cannot hurt. There are some in the industry who view certifications as merely a piece of paper but there are also those who view them as a required level of understanding. To help yourself stand out in the crowd becoming certified is an excellent challenge.
If you have the opportunity to continue your education and obtain various certifications then take full advantage. I personally am quite satisfied with my current employer but that does not stop me from pursuing more certifications. Currently I hold the SCSA for Solaris 9 & 10, Security+, and C|EH certifications. I hope to one day obtain the CISSP but it will not be easy by any means.
I encourage you to work towards obtaining certifications for yourself. The fact that employers prefer and a large amount of job seekers have obtained certs should be a wake up call. These pieces of paper are becoming more important than ever before. Work on them for yourself and your future because they can open a lot of doors that might otherwise be closed in this tuff economy. This information might not be anything new to you but you should realize that if you are not trying to get ahead you are falling behind.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Linux Process Prioritization
It can become annoying while waiting on your Linux system to complete a long process. Whatever the process might be you can help speed things along and give more cpu shares to your task. The top command lets you see the current processes running on your Linux machine. One of the columns you will see is the PR which stands for priority.
The lower the PR number the more cpu shares your process will get. The way to manipulate process priorities is with the nice and renice commands. For example, I have VirtualBox running an installation on my system. The top command is reporting alot of free cpu % because VirtualBox is getting it's resources capped due to the current priority.
sudo renice -20 pid
The pid will need to be the id of the process you are wanting to manipulate. In this case we are running renice and setting a priority of -20 (the lower the better) on our process id. Once complete our PR value changes from 20 to 0 and our NI value changes to -20. This dedicates more cpu power to our task and will hopefully cut down on the time it takes for our process to complete.
The same thing can be done to lower the importance of a process.
sudo renice 20 pid
The command above will raise the priority of the process matching our pid. The effect of raising the PR value will cause the process to get less system resources. This can be handy if your running a large task and want to use the system for other things at the same time.
Please note that nice and renice are common Linux/Unix tools however the syntax of the command is not always the same. The example above was from an Ubuntu system. On other distrobutions you might have to add flags such as -n or -p to make this command work. When in doubt check your manpages
man renice
The lower the PR number the more cpu shares your process will get. The way to manipulate process priorities is with the nice and renice commands. For example, I have VirtualBox running an installation on my system. The top command is reporting alot of free cpu % because VirtualBox is getting it's resources capped due to the current priority.
sudo renice -20 pid
The pid will need to be the id of the process you are wanting to manipulate. In this case we are running renice and setting a priority of -20 (the lower the better) on our process id. Once complete our PR value changes from 20 to 0 and our NI value changes to -20. This dedicates more cpu power to our task and will hopefully cut down on the time it takes for our process to complete.
The same thing can be done to lower the importance of a process.
sudo renice 20 pid
The command above will raise the priority of the process matching our pid. The effect of raising the PR value will cause the process to get less system resources. This can be handy if your running a large task and want to use the system for other things at the same time.
Please note that nice and renice are common Linux/Unix tools however the syntax of the command is not always the same. The example above was from an Ubuntu system. On other distrobutions you might have to add flags such as -n or -p to make this command work. When in doubt check your manpages
man renice
Solaris 10 installation
After fighting with the shortcomings of OpenSolaris I have decided to install Solaris 10 inside of VirtualBox. Once the installation is complete I will have a running instance of Solaris 10 with a ZFS root file system. This virtual machine will be used to create future articles regarding the magical things you can do with Solaris.
The Solaris 10 installation is straight forward and much like any common Linux distrobution. You are asked a few questions about your system and then presented with an installation type. I chose the entire distrobution option in order to get a graphical desktop on this virtual machine. If this was a production system I would have selected the core installation option which is a much smaller package set. If you do choose the core option for your system you will have to add in additional packages from the installation media if you want to use features such as zones.
The downside to choosing the entire distrobution is the added packages that you most likely won't need or use. These packages then get inherited by zones when you create them. This adds to the package counts for your local zones when they are created. When it is time to perform system patching you will need to account for extra time on systems that have chosen the entire distrobution option. More packages will add to more patches that your system needs to stay up to date and secure. Just some things to think about if you are going to be serious about your Solaris system.
The ZFS root filesystem option must be chosen after booting from the installation media. You will need to specify 3 or 4 for your initial installation choice if you wish to select the ZFS filesystem later on during your system installation. Once completed I will have a virtual machine running Solaris 10 on x86_64 with ZFS. The traditional UFS filesystem will work fine but you will have to setup partitions (slices) for your system. With ZFS the entire disk is allocated to the root pool and can be divided on the fly later on using various system commands to create filesystems under the ZFS root along with other tasks such as applying partition limits.
Oracle now owns the rights to all things SUN. Even the SUN website now redirects to a page containing an oracle header. Oracle has stated they plan to continue investing in Solaris which will most likely "SPARC" growth of this operating system.
The Solaris 10 installation is straight forward and much like any common Linux distrobution. You are asked a few questions about your system and then presented with an installation type. I chose the entire distrobution option in order to get a graphical desktop on this virtual machine. If this was a production system I would have selected the core installation option which is a much smaller package set. If you do choose the core option for your system you will have to add in additional packages from the installation media if you want to use features such as zones.
The downside to choosing the entire distrobution is the added packages that you most likely won't need or use. These packages then get inherited by zones when you create them. This adds to the package counts for your local zones when they are created. When it is time to perform system patching you will need to account for extra time on systems that have chosen the entire distrobution option. More packages will add to more patches that your system needs to stay up to date and secure. Just some things to think about if you are going to be serious about your Solaris system.
The ZFS root filesystem option must be chosen after booting from the installation media. You will need to specify 3 or 4 for your initial installation choice if you wish to select the ZFS filesystem later on during your system installation. Once completed I will have a virtual machine running Solaris 10 on x86_64 with ZFS. The traditional UFS filesystem will work fine but you will have to setup partitions (slices) for your system. With ZFS the entire disk is allocated to the root pool and can be divided on the fly later on using various system commands to create filesystems under the ZFS root along with other tasks such as applying partition limits.
Oracle now owns the rights to all things SUN. Even the SUN website now redirects to a page containing an oracle header. Oracle has stated they plan to continue investing in Solaris which will most likely "SPARC" growth of this operating system.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
China, Microsoft, and why you should be afraid
Google getting hacked in China has been all over the Internet this last week. There has been speculation that the Chinese government is the party responsible for hacking Google and up to 30 some firms operating in China.
The initial blame went to Adobe but upon further review it was revealed that the hackers gained access to these systems through a 0 day exploit in the Internet Explorer web browser.
First of all......... Google what are you doing using Internet Explorer at work???
Now we have got that out of the way lets take a look at this a little deeper.
The technology sector moves quick and forgets even faster. Had I not been an open source advocate for over 10 years I probably would have forgotten all about the headlines from 2003-2004 when Microsoft GAVE CHINA A COPY OF THE SOURCE CODE! This has been covered before but everyone in today's tech sector must have just forgot. This attack in China against Internet Explorer should not be a surprise by any means. It most likely took them a few years to review the code to find exploits such as the one that was used to compromise and monitor all of these systems.
This attack was noticed and tracked back to the source ( Chinese Government ). The best hacks are the ones which occur without being detected by the victim. How long would this have gone on if it was not discovered?
Other countries are recommending people get rid of Internet Explorer because it has so many security issues. With the code used for the attacks now available online combined with no fix from Microsoft, when will the rest of the world (specifically the United States) learn from these mistakes and leave Microsoft behind?
If this was insightful, click on our ads.
The initial blame went to Adobe but upon further review it was revealed that the hackers gained access to these systems through a 0 day exploit in the Internet Explorer web browser.
First of all......... Google what are you doing using Internet Explorer at work???
Now we have got that out of the way lets take a look at this a little deeper.
The technology sector moves quick and forgets even faster. Had I not been an open source advocate for over 10 years I probably would have forgotten all about the headlines from 2003-2004 when Microsoft GAVE CHINA A COPY OF THE SOURCE CODE! This has been covered before but everyone in today's tech sector must have just forgot. This attack in China against Internet Explorer should not be a surprise by any means. It most likely took them a few years to review the code to find exploits such as the one that was used to compromise and monitor all of these systems.
This attack was noticed and tracked back to the source ( Chinese Government ). The best hacks are the ones which occur without being detected by the victim. How long would this have gone on if it was not discovered?
Other countries are recommending people get rid of Internet Explorer because it has so many security issues. With the code used for the attacks now available online combined with no fix from Microsoft, when will the rest of the world (specifically the United States) learn from these mistakes and leave Microsoft behind?
If this was insightful, click on our ads.
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