Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020
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@IRJ said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@Obsolesce said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
The exams are following a career or job role based path.
Apparently, Microsoft sees a Windows Server administrator type of role as something the market is shifting away from. I see this in the enterprise completely, as anyone touching Windows Server services isn't spending most of their time there. It's all towards or in support of Cloud services. So it makes sense from that perspective. Someone who specializes in AD and associated services will, at least in the enterprise, spend most of their time with it in support of cloud services... making it work with Azure AD, other SaaS integrations, SSO, federation, MDM (LANless based), etc... you get the idea. That can basically be said regarding any traditional Windows Server based services.
However, I do see the point in that many SMBs only have a few Windows Servers and needs someone who specializes in basically what the old Server 2012-2016 server infrastructure MCSA/MCSEs covered because that's all they'll do there. But for how long? Who knows.... but what matters is that you realize what it is you want to do and how long you want to do it.
The market has been, and is, shifting. Embrace it now to stay ahead, move away completely from MS, or play catch up later. Up to you.
The new Azure role based certs have these levels:
Fundamentals
Associate
Expert
SpecialtyAnd what they cover reflect the job roles in the markets Microsoft obviously makes the most money from, future thinking in mind. Could they update the Server Infrastructure MCSA/MCSE path to 2019? Sure. (but what you are thinking of in those BARELY changes... most that stuff is the same as it was since 2008R2!) Even with 2012 R2, in those cert paths were starting to get a little "Cloud-y" back then. ESPECIALLY with 2016. At some point, you need to draw the line and cut them away. And in Microsoft's eyes, that time has come, I see it too, as well as many others.
Maybe Jim-Bob working at Kathy's Suburban Dentistry who keeps their 15-device Windows environment running on the single Windows Server they have in the closet may never see anything for awhile. But at some point, he may need to configure their new Dentistry SaaS app authentication via AzureAD from AADSync or some other means. Maybe not, but just trying to make a simple point. Or better yet, he may not even want to be there long enough and wants to move on to greener pastures.
But really, that's not what MS is creating their Certifications for. There's a much bigger market than that, and it totally makes sense to do what they are doing.
I have always found cloud services to be extremely costly. Seems like a bad news for us IT folk IMHO.
Cloud services have been proven cheaper for companies for a long time.
The more skilled the IT professional is the more efficient they can design a cloud environment. It's actually better for IT professionals that are plugged in because they become more valuable to their company or customers.
Whenever I have looked at this for our environment it just does not work out less. Owning our own server over the several years we have them costs drastically less. I have to hire IT services to manage on site, or cloud, so those costs are negligible. But, a server I own compared to one I hire for 6 years in Azure, is a lot less.
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Another thing to keep on mind is that for MS Partners to achieve competencies Azure based certs will now be required, which is another way MS is trying to give the market a push.
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@flaxking said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Another thing to keep on mind is that for MS Partners to achieve competencies Azure based certs will now be required, which is another way MS is trying to give the market a push.
We are partners and need to keep a load of certifications on developers to get certain benefits. But these changes seem a little much for my infrastructure folk. Why would I want to certify for Azure when we don't really use Azure. We use Windows server on-premise. If that is going to go away someday I would rather get Linux and slowly migrate out software to work locally with that rather than get our folk Azure certified when we wont be using it.
I expect MS are phasing out the on premise OS, pushing people to certify for Azure, then once on Azure, slowly push the prices up more.
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Here's a nice MS cert poster:
https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE2PjDI
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@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Why would I want to certify for Azure when we don't really use Azure.
Right? Zero training or certs for the huge majority of the industry that can't use Azure. And what about Windows on non-Azure, but still cloud? It seems like MS sees Azure as a Linux hosting platform and that Windows proper is at a dead end. That there is no cert or professional path for Windows as an OS really feels like a form of an announcement.
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@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
I expect MS are phasing out the on premise OS, pushing people to certify for Azure, then once on Azure, slowly push the prices up more.
The challenge here is that lots (easily most) companies can't consider things like Azure. The idea that the world is filled with cheap, available, and reliable Internet access is ridiculous. Even the US can't offer that. Even in major markets. Getting a house with good Internet here in Dallas is a challenge. We have customers struggling to get off of fractional T1 inside the Fort Collins city limits! We have some customers where they are stuck on 1Mb/s DSL with outages of weeks or months at a time.
Cloud computing for real world businesses is a pipe dream still. It sounds so weird when big California businesses claim everyone is moving to cloud, and in the real world we are still wondering when universal broadband is going to happen.
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@IRJ said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Cloud services have been proven cheaper for companies for a long time.
This isn't true. In fact, many of the companies that have claimed this in the past have turned around and said that now they realize that this wasn't true.
Run the math, when you are ittsy bittsy, yeah, cloud is the only option. But even at NTG's size, it stops being. The cost of cloud is astronomic for typical real world workloads.
The cloud was never meant to be cheaper for running normal workloads, that was never how it was promoted and its not how it is designed. It's cheaper for very, very specific workloads that are extremely niche. Ninety percent of companies can't leverage cloud age all and most of those that can, don't benefit from it except possibly on speciality, isolated workloads.
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@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Whenever I have looked at this for our environment it just does not work out less.
We have hundreds of customers and consult for everyone from operations with just a couple people to the Fortune 10 and the number of customers that can go to cloud is literally... zero. Literally.
Either because it is insanely costly or, over half the time, simply is impossible and don't work because they can't get reliable connections to it (without building their own ISPs, of course) it just doesn't come up, at all. We have a handful of isolated workloads where VPS services are used to get certain locations or redundancy or whatnot, but zero mainline workloads can be put there.
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@IRJ said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
The more skilled the IT professional is the more efficient they can design a cloud environment.
That goes both ways. The more skilled an IT pro is, the less "getting the skills from someone else" is valuable. Certainly the more you bring to the table overall, the more value you have. And flexibility is important. But many "cloud skills" are also ways to word "lacking platform skills" and having the ability to efficiently run traditional workloads remains valuable and the more you can do that, the more you are worth to your company, too.
So yes, the more skilled you are... the better you can make either kind of environment.
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@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Owning our own server over the several years we have them costs drastically less. I have to hire IT services to manage on site, or cloud, so those costs are negligible. But, a server I own compared to one I hire for 6 years in Azure, is a lot less.
Exactly. Assuming you have the relatively rare circumstance where you have a company that has the option of going completely cloud (I'd guess this is about 15% of companies that get this option in the US and around 1% globally)... it takes such a tiny amount of workloads to make cloud really expensive. Very, very few companies run totally bespoke software, or have development departments that can rewrite everything for cost effective cloud computing. Like .2% maybe. For all normal companies, you have to run software.
It's weird when you talk to software firms, they will often act surprised that companies can't just run everything on cloud, or even on extreme architectures like serverless computing.
Then you talk to real world IT and the actual struggles are getting software with a web interface or that can run over a WAN or that don't need a fat client. The disconnect between how people think cloud will work and what real companies deploy is huge. The idea of cloud is great, but the reality is so different.
I work with several industries that have so many barriers to cloud it's laughable. From their needed physical locations to their uptime requirements to their ISP options to the available software available in the industry - any of those pieces would stop them from even considering cloud, and for almost every company, it's all of them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Whenever I have looked at this for our environment it just does not work out less.
We have hundreds of customers and consult for everyone from operations with just a couple people to the Fortune 10 and the number of customers that can go to cloud is literally... zero. Literally.
Either because it is insanely costly or, over half the time, simply is impossible and don't work because they can't get reliable connections to it (without building their own ISPs, of course) it just doesn't come up, at all. We have a handful of isolated workloads where VPS services are used to get certain locations or redundancy or whatnot, but zero mainline workloads can be put there.
What F10 are you consulting?
Containerization and FaaS have made development and deployments insanely easier and less costly.
Statements like zero of your customers can "go to cloud" whatever that means are ridiculous.
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@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Statements like zero of your customers can "go to cloud" whatever that means are ridiculous.
Not in the least. Thinking that every customer can afford to go cloud just because it's the cool new term is what is crazy. Why would they pay all that money and gain nothing? It's just not valuable for real world businesses. Some, of course, but not the majority. And of the ones it makes sense for, almost none can use it for everything.
Remember, I led the move to cloud on Wall St. Built the first cloud there. It was great, but only for certain workloads. Big workloads, important workloads, and it was massively beneficial. But the majority of the workloads couldn't use it. Just didn't make sense. Whether they needed more predictable performance, faster performance, or just didn't scale in that way... even in that environment wasn't practical to pay the overhead of cloud or it couldn't meet the needs.
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@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Containerization and FaaS have made development and deployments insanely easier and less costly.
True for non-cloud installs as well, though. And only true for cloud when you have completely reliable networking. Hosted FaaS is a real challenge if your ISP drops.
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Containerization and FaaS have made development and deployments insanely easier and less costly.
True for non-cloud installs as well, though. And only true for cloud when you have completely reliable networking. Hosted FaaS is a real challenge if your ISP drops.
No it's not. Because you can just go somewhere else. It's a real problem when it's locally hosted and your ISP drops and no customers can access it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Remember, I led the move to cloud on Wall St. Built the first cloud there.
To be transparent, I 100% do not believe this is true.
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What did you use to provide the infrastructure?
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How did you manage scaling without the needed APIs?
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What year was this?
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@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Containerization and FaaS have made development and deployments insanely easier and less costly.
True for non-cloud installs as well, though. And only true for cloud when you have completely reliable networking. Hosted FaaS is a real challenge if your ISP drops.
No it's not. Because you can just go somewhere else. It's a real problem when it's locally hosted and your ISP drops and no customers can access it.
That 'somewhere else' is also more expensive though... Doesnt mattwr if its AWS, Azure, Google Compute, or another... It costs a more. Local hosted doesn't mean one bad ISP will destroy service for customers. We have out infrastructure in our facilities in London, Aberdeen, Barcelona, Middle East, Singapore, Houston, Calgary, Toronto and Singapore. I can lose any site and that will have no impact to customers. Still a lot cheaper than cloud.
Last time I looked, a single one of my calculation servers came to around 80k GBP. High core count, multiple TB of RAM. In Azure, over 6 years, MS were coming back with something in the range of £450k ex VAT. Insane difference.
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@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Last time I looked, a single one of my calculation servers came to around 80k GBP. High core count, multiple TB of RAM. In Azure, over 6 years, MS were coming back with something in the range of £450k ex VAT. Insane difference.
...again, legacy thinking will almost always lead to increased costs.
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@Jimmy9008 said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@scottalanmiller said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
Containerization and FaaS have made development and deployments insanely easier and less costly.
True for non-cloud installs as well, though. And only true for cloud when you have completely reliable networking. Hosted FaaS is a real challenge if your ISP drops.
No it's not. Because you can just go somewhere else. It's a real problem when it's locally hosted and your ISP drops and no customers can access it.
That 'somewhere else' is also more expensive though... Doesnt mattwr if its AWS, Azure, Google Compute, or another... It costs a more. Local hosted doesn't mean one bad ISP will destroy service for customers. We have out infrastructure in our facilities in London, Aberdeen, Barcelona, Middle East, Singapore, Houston, Calgary, Toronto and Singapore. I can lose any site and that will have no impact to customers. Still a lot cheaper than cloud.
Last time I looked, a single one of my calculation servers came to around 80k GBP. High core count, multiple TB of RAM. In Azure, over 6 years, MS were coming back with something in the range of £450k ex VAT. Insane difference.
That's completely different than the scenario he's talking about.
80k seems like an insane cost for a single server considering we did CFD, thermal, acoustics, and mechanics solves on a 20 node cluster made up of servers that were around $8K a piece.
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For instance, each box had dual 20 core CPUs and didn't need a ton of RAM. There were a few clusters but the had to be shared by all of the engineers so it slowed everyone down. With AWS you can fire up a few c5.18s and pay $3.45 an hour. So a normal job for the engineers would cost around $165. But there's no maintenance of clusters, no infiniband to maintain, no waiting for other jobs to complete in the queue, and no OS maintenance. Create your AMI and spin up patched machines when necessary.
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@stacksofplates said in Microsoft plans on retiring the MCSA,MCSD,MCSE certifications in June 30,2020:
For instance, each box had dual 20 core CPUs and didn't need a ton of RAM. There were a few clusters but the had to be shared by all of the engineers so it slowed everyone down. With AWS you can fire up a few c5.18s and pay $3.45 an hour. So a normal job for the engineers would cost around $165. But there's no maintenance of clusters, no infiniband to maintain, no waiting for other jobs to complete in the queue, and no OS maintenance. Create your AMI and spin up patched machines when necessary.
What kind of calculations are that? I thought all HPC clusters ran on GPU power. A server with a couple of Nvidia V100 GPUs are expensive. Also infinitely more powerful than regular servers.
PS. Seems like a Nvidia V100 GPU card is about $6K each.
