SMB vs Enterprise
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
As Scott said - the biggest company that I personally worked at wasn't F1000 at the time, So we definitely didn't see that level of separation in Windows admin roles, or any other system. Our AIX team was 2 people for over 100 servers (I wasn't that involved, it could have been over 500 for all I know), and they handled everything on those boxes, setup, tear down, building storage LUNs, etc. But I definitely considered them AIX specialists. They didn't touch the network side of things other than plugging an IP address into their systems.
AIX is so reliable, you could probably get away with zero! lol.
That's generally true. For a normal company of 5,000 people, you'd expect zero staffers for AIX. AIX isn't even supposed to reboot and the hardware is all crazy RAS stuff. A single admin should be able to handle quite a lot.
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Breffni-Potter said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I've lost count of how many specialists there are who are having a harder time finding work than the generalists.
20+ years doing absolutely nothing but Microsoft Exchange? In a world of Office 365 and Google Apps, your options are limited.
Absolutely. Of course vendor agnostic specialists are usually in better shape. However, even vendor agnostic specializations like cyber security that have a high demand in enterprise may not have many SMB options. As SMB needs to have a generalist. All in all, there are more generalist jobs available.
I'm not sure that that last bit is true. The number of SMBs actually hiring IT people isn't all that high and dropping. It only takes a few generalists to oversee many SMBs and countless SOHOs. And if you look in SW, most of those people are either bench primarily with just a little IT in their day, or are buyers, not doers, and we can't really consider them IT but moreso administration (in the secretarial sense - kind of like a purchaser.) They don't do the IT, they just coordinate buying it. Nothing wrong with that, but that's not an IT generalist, it's more of a secretarial specialist. Certainly not all, just saying that the percentage of SMBs that actually bring on people to be IT or do IT isn't nearly as high as it seems.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
GPO... Building Servers... Patching... I see these as pretty simple things as a generalist. I cant imagine a team of people needed for any particular one of those just to focus on that one thing (Mind, I've not worked enterprise). Those people would surely do a range of tasks, not just GPO all day. To say - 'I'm a specialist in GPOs' sounds like a really limited job. Even with 1000 servers or workstations or more. It would be boring, and GPOs is mostly easy (for example). Especially once you have setup a test environment.
Unless you are the elite of the elite and working with tools like Ansible, it's uncommon for Windows Admins to get beyond about 30 servers per admin in production. Can you get higher density? Of course. But typically, you cannot. I've worked in a lot of environments in many countries and this is about where the standard barrier is (assuming they need full time operations, if they can be brought down anything outside of 9-5 then this number might climb to 45 or 50 pretty easily.)
Once you get much higher, it's hard to watch over them, do installations, check on performance, and so forth.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
Yeah, I am not sure what you were expecting? I am just using a very broad role (windows admin) as an example of how many sub specialist roles you might see in enterprise. I am pretty sure I missed some
Me neither, hence asking
Maybe i'm not a generalist, but just assumed I am. GPOs, Patching, Server Deployments etc, I do all of them... so am I a specialist!? lol
No, generalists do all the things that specialists do. You work in the SMB right? Then there is no chance you are a specialists. It's not "do you do these things" it's "do you also do these other things." You are only a specialist if these are the ONLY things that you do.
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@scottalanmiller said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Unless you are the elite of the elite and working with tools like Ansible, it's uncommon for Windows Admins to get beyond about 30 servers per admin in production.
That's ~where we are right now actually, slightly higher.
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
As Scott said - the biggest company that I personally worked at wasn't F1000 at the time, So we definitely didn't see that level of separation in Windows admin roles, or any other system. Our AIX team was 2 people for over 100 servers (I wasn't that involved, it could have been over 500 for all I know), and they handled everything on those boxes, setup, tear down, building storage LUNs, etc. But I definitely considered them AIX specialists. They didn't touch the network side of things other than plugging an IP address into their systems.
GPO... Building Servers... Patching... I see these as pretty simple things as a generalist. I cant imagine a team of people needed for any particular one of those just to focus on that one thing (Mind, I've not worked enterprise). Those people would surely do a range of tasks, not just GPO all day. To say - 'I'm a specialist in GPOs' sounds like a really limited job. Even with 1000 servers or workstations or more. It would be boring, and GPOs is mostly easy (for example). Especially once you have setup a test environment.
I always assumed specialist = totally difficult task, hence being a great skill. Not specialist = I just do GPO only all day in a team of people doing GPO all day, but cant do anything else like patching as I don't know (limiting).
Its like a builder. I can hire a builder to build me an extension. Many builders can build me that extension. When the builder finds asbestos stopping the work, they call in specialists to clear it out who have skills and knowledge, and the equipment, to deal with the dangerous material (the difficult, skilled part) an average generalist builder wouldn't have.
I'm not sure, probably wrong. Juts haven't worked in that environment.
The reason enterprise organizations do this is because they understand the value of repeatable processes within an organization. In SMB it is difficult to have the time to focus on best practices for every single role you do. For example are you trained in vendor risk assessments? Are you asking the right questions and filling out a risk registry with possible risks? No. You are probably just have a chat, using your best judgment, and nothing gets documented. When you leave no one knows why that vendor was chosen or what weaknesses the vendor may have? Are they financially stable, etc?
Yes, specialists tend to do things really quickly. As a Linux specialist, I was able to oversee 600 of the most critical production systems directly and was the escalation path for over 10,000. That's 600 machines on which I did every live production task that there was, and we deployed hundreds of new applications every week and did full DR testing every six months. We deployed new systems every few days. We decom'd old ones every few weeks.
Systems take a bit of work once you have any number of them.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
Yeah, I am not sure what you were expecting? I am just using a very broad role (windows admin) as an example of how many sub specialist roles you might see in enterprise. I am pretty sure I missed some
Me neither, hence asking
Maybe i'm not a generalist, but just assumed I am. GPOs, Patching, Server Deployments etc, I do all of them... so am I a specialist!? lol
No. A Specialist does 1 or maybe 2 of those roles.
But why? They are easy roles. It is not special at all to be good at 1 or 2 of them. They are easy. I'd guess boring if all you do all day is any particular 1 or 2 of them. Specialist feels like the wrong word.
Yes, you do 1 or 2 of those things, but they are not difficult or special things. You are just solely dedicated to one of them...
A shelve stacker at a supermarket only stacks shelves all day... they are not a specialist. If you just do GPO all day, why are you a specialist...
Because you specialize in one thing. But I've never seen anyone be a specialist to that granularity. Normally specialist ends are system admin or Windows system admin. Anything below that is normally considered a task of the specialty.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Carnival-Boy said in SMB vs Enterprise:
They are. They're specialist shelf stackers. They'll be much better than you at stacking shelves because of their practice and experience. Their rate of dropping cans of beans will be much better than yours.
Ok, I can agree with this... but that means specialist != difficult. Specialist = dedicated to only one job, even if easy...
Am I on the right page now?
Who said it was difficult? Specialist means you specialize. Generalist means you don't.
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@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
Yeah, I am not sure what you were expecting? I am just using a very broad role (windows admin) as an example of how many sub specialist roles you might see in enterprise. I am pretty sure I missed some
Me neither, hence asking
Maybe i'm not a generalist, but just assumed I am. GPOs, Patching, Server Deployments etc, I do all of them... so am I a specialist!? lol
No. A Specialist does 1 or maybe 2 of those roles.
But why? They are easy roles. It is not special at all to be good at 1 or 2 of them. They are easy. I'd guess boring if all you do all day is any particular 1 or 2 of them. Specialist feels like the wrong word.
Yes, you do 1 or 2 of those things, but they are not difficult or special things. You are just solely dedicated to one of them...
A shelve stacker at a supermarket only stacks shelves all day... they are not a specialist. If you just do GPO all day, why are you a specialist...
Because you're specializing in GPO? Literally the definition of the word specialist. GPO is a massive beast with so many options and a vast amount of functionality that SMBs rarely touch even a fraction of it. The same goes for AD, patching, servers, etc... etc...
It's true, I never see generalists that realize all of the things that they could be doing with the tools at their disposal. They also often have very little need for it. The power of GPO is lost when you only have twenty users, for example. But when you have 100,000 users, GPO gets to be pretty important and complex.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
Yeah, I am not sure what you were expecting? I am just using a very broad role (windows admin) as an example of how many sub specialist roles you might see in enterprise. I am pretty sure I missed some
Me neither, hence asking
Maybe i'm not a generalist, but just assumed I am. GPOs, Patching, Server Deployments etc, I do all of them... so am I a specialist!? lol
No. A Specialist does 1 or maybe 2 of those roles.
But why? They are easy roles. It is not special at all to be good at 1 or 2 of them. They are easy. I'd guess boring if all you do all day is any particular 1 or 2 of them. Specialist feels like the wrong word.
Yes, you do 1 or 2 of those things, but they are not difficult or special things. You are just solely dedicated to one of them...
A shelve stacker at a supermarket only stacks shelves all day... they are not a specialist. If you just do GPO all day, why are you a specialist...
Because you're specializing in GPO? Literally the definition of the word specialist. GPO is a massive beast with so many options and a vast amount of functionality that SMBs rarely touch even a fraction of it. The same goes for AD, patching, servers, etc... etc...
I see. I thought when applied to jobs it had more meaning. So, I could leave and just focus on only one thing, something easy... like say, installing and restoring from Veeam Endpoint Free. Then I could call myself a specialist...?
Of course. If that's literally all you do all day and don't do other work, that's exactly what that means. No one will ever hire you for that, but you'd be a specialist.
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@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Carnival-Boy said in SMB vs Enterprise:
They are. They're specialist shelf stackers. They'll be much better than you at stacking shelves because of their practice and experience. Their rate of dropping cans of beans will be much better than yours.
Ok, I can agree with this... but that means specialist != difficult. Specialist = dedicated to only one job, even if easy...
Am I on the right page now?
It absolutely can mean difficult. Do you think Exchange is easy? Exchange admins in enterprises are normally specialist. This is the only task they do all day, every day. I wouldn't call it easy.
It depends. Specialist isn't harder or easier than general. Good specialists work really hard, so do good generalists. Both have really easy jobs, too.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Carnival-Boy said in SMB vs Enterprise:
They are. They're specialist shelf stackers. They'll be much better than you at stacking shelves because of their practice and experience. Their rate of dropping cans of beans will be much better than yours.
Ok, I can agree with this... but that means specialist != difficult. Specialist = dedicated to only one job, even if easy...
Am I on the right page now?
It absolutely can mean difficult. Do you think Exchange is easy? Exchange admins in enterprises are normally specialist. This is the only task they do all day, every day. I wouldn't call it easy.
Yes, it can mean difficult, but, doesn't have to...
Thanks folks. Cool. I always assumes specialist = always difficult. Rare. Few people have the skills etc... not, can be easy or hard, but, has to be the only thing you focus on.
Not about the skills, it's about the focus. Example... if you tell someone you were a Windows Admin for the last 10 years (for round numbers) that implies that your job was 20,000 hours of Windows Admin time during that window. That's the amount of focused Windows experience that they expect from you.
If you are a generalist during the last ten years, they expect 20,000 hours of IT during that window of various tasks, some amount might be Windows administration, some might be networking, some might be databases and so forth.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Thanks folks. Cool. I always assumes specialist = always difficult. Rare.
Remember that CIO is the hardest job in IT, and that's a generalist.
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Thinking about this I would be a generalist, although I focus on Applications, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration.
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@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Thinking about this I would be a generalist, although I focus on Applications, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration.
Essentially anyone outside of the enterprise is a generalist. Specialists only exist, for all intents and purposes, in large and enterprise companies and/or in IT shops that provide speciality services. There is no place in the SOHO, SMB, SME or Medium markets for specialists in house.
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@scottalanmiller said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Thinking about this I would be a generalist, although I focus on Applications, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration.
Essentially anyone outside of the enterprise is a generalist. Specialists only exist, for all intents and purposes, in large and enterprise companies and/or in IT shops that provide speciality services. There is no place in the SOHO, SMB, SME or Medium markets for specialists in house.
Not sure if I would enjoy specializing. I really like the diversity of what I'm working on.
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@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@scottalanmiller said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Thinking about this I would be a generalist, although I focus on Applications, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration.
Essentially anyone outside of the enterprise is a generalist. Specialists only exist, for all intents and purposes, in large and enterprise companies and/or in IT shops that provide speciality services. There is no place in the SOHO, SMB, SME or Medium markets for specialists in house.
Not sure if I would enjoy specializing. I really like the diversity of what I'm working on.
I thought the same thing too, but I enjoy specializing more than I ever thought I would. In fact, I wonder why I was a generalist for so long.
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@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@scottalanmiller said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Thinking about this I would be a generalist, although I focus on Applications, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration.
Essentially anyone outside of the enterprise is a generalist. Specialists only exist, for all intents and purposes, in large and enterprise companies and/or in IT shops that provide speciality services. There is no place in the SOHO, SMB, SME or Medium markets for specialists in house.
Not sure if I would enjoy specializing. I really like the diversity of what I'm working on.
I like it, you get to really get into things and get in deep. It might feel less diverse in some ways, but in other ways it is more diverse.
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@scottalanmiller said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Thinking about this I would be a generalist, although I focus on Applications, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration.
Essentially anyone outside of the enterprise is a generalist. Specialists only exist, for all intents and purposes, in large and enterprise companies and/or in IT shops that provide speciality services. There is no place in the SOHO, SMB, SME or Medium markets for specialists in house.
Not sure if I would enjoy specializing. I really like the diversity of what I'm working on.
I thought the same thing too, but I enjoy specializing more than I ever thought I would. In fact, I wonder why I was a generalist for so long.
Being a specialist in Linux, as an example, means moving from doing lots of package installs and deploying filesystems to kernel tuning and tweaks that take a lot of research and knowledge. You get diversity in other ways, like learning about schedulers, kernel properties, slabs and stuff like that. Things that generalists rarely even realize exist let alone touch all fo the time.
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@coliver said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@scottalanmiller said in SMB vs Enterprise:
Unless you are the elite of the elite and working with tools like Ansible, it's uncommon for Windows Admins to get beyond about 30 servers per admin in production.
That's ~where we are right now actually, slightly higher.
You aren't in a business, though. So the need for uptime doesn't exist. That makes higher density a lot easier.
