Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
If anyone never does bench work and only looks stuff up then they are making bad decisions in my opinion.
I can't agree here. Bench work has no bearing or utility in IT. It might be interesting, but it has no value. Name any bench, non-IT, skill that you have any ability to utilize in an IT job?
There are overlaps, of course, like any fields have overlap. Being a physicist, a mathematician, an accountant and a baker all have some amount of math overlap, but we don't say that they are the same jobs. Bench and IT have some basic overlaps, but the bench skills and processes have zero value to IT... in fact learning them would arguably waste time that should be spent learning useful IT skills - which might be the kinds of things affecting your decision makers in the example. The kind of problem that they had could easily arrise from knowing bench but not IT. Those kinds of capacity planning mistakes are exactly would would be expected if bench people tried to make IT decisions without understanding IT scope and needs.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
Well the video goes into it, but they are fundamentally different disciplines. One is a business discipline, IT delivers business solutions and only exists in the context of a business. Without business, there is no IT. IT is not about tech, but generally uses tech to provide business infrastructure.
Bench is pure tech, no business. It delivers technology as its deliverable and can function (and does) with no business at all.Okay I see what you are saying. I will just have to use your definition of IT and bench work I guess. The problem I can see is almost everyone sees these two disciplines are one and the same.
While it might seem bench is pure tech you can not buy it without money which is business and it is always for a business reason such as to make money by using it. That is still business and therefore some form of IT
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Remember that bench is "tech in a vacuum"... that is "tech without context."
Example of bench jobs include Geek Squad and datacenter techs who rack and stack.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
Okay I see what you are saying. I will just have to use your definition of IT and bench work I guess. The problem I can see is almost everyone sees these two disciplines are one and the same.
They are so wildly different, it's hard to believe anyone working in either does that. There really is extremely little overlap. In the enterprise space, they are not just totally separate disciplines, but have legal ramifications and in the financial space have full separation of duty concerns. IT isn't allowed into data centers, bench isn't allowed access to IT systems. They are extremely discrete.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
While it might seem bench is pure tech you can not buy it without money which is business ...
Now you are getting into the crazy realm and we are back to janitors and plumbers are not IT.
Bench exists without business, go to Geek Squad. Consumers buy tech and get tech work done with no business and no business context.
That's why GS does bench, not IT. They never make business decisions, they just sell what sounds cool.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
While it might seem bench is pure tech you can not buy it without money which is business and it is always for a business reason such as to make money by using it. That is still business and therefore some form of IT
Bench doesn't buy tech, bench works on tech in a business. They work on tech purchased by IT. If you stick to the definitions that I gave, it really does keep this clear. Bench doesn't make business decisions. If you feel that bench is doing that, check again, it's always IT making the decision (or no one making a decision and it is all just random... which is pretty reckless.)
Bench and IT really are totally clearly separated as roles and are trivial to separate into different people and skill sets. That most companies don't understand IT or bench at all, do both poorly and know nothing about them is exactly what is expected. Most companies can't figure out electricians, HVAC and other roles, either. That's just businesses doing business badly. Most businesses don't take the time to learn business, and most businesses fail. But that doesn't mean that those roles aren't there, just that they aren't being managed well.
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Some examples I gave in the video...
High end bench is enterprise datacenter workers. They swap failed RAID drives, cable systems, rack and stack, know how to load a rack for safety, know rails and power supply needs, know how to label and bundle cables, know how to handle air flow for servers (front to back, center aisle, etc.), know about UPS, generators, cooling, environmental monitoring, etc. They manage physical inventories, track systems, etc.
What they don't do is make decisions about the technology infrastructure. They work with it physically, but not logically. It's a very clear separation.
You see the same one with colocation. Colocation facilities do not have IT of their own, at least not that you interact with. They have bench. With colocation, you bring the IT, they bring the bench. That is specifically the role that you are outsourcing (along with the HVAC and electrical.) Those guys that rack and stack your servers, swap your motherboards or memory when they fail, watch for failed hard drive lights, etc. are high end bench pros. They might earn six figures, but they do it in a bench capacity, not an IT one.
No amount of knowing your business financials, understanding Linux vs. Windows, knowing database structures, ability to script, grokking DevOps or so forth would alter their jobs.
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Another way to think of things... I do a lot of writing, videos, etc. Nothing I write has any use to someone in bench (other than letting them know that the A+ and Server+ are their certs and not ours.) I talk about business needs, IT planning and thought processes, best practices for IT. Someone in bench, at any level, would find it all... useless.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
How would knowing tech fix the decision process? They already know that they need to do proper research before making a decision and don't do it. So more knowledge would be useless if the process is flawed. And the issue you mention, is purely one of process.
Okay I can give some examples, simple as they are. A VP from another department asks for a super powerful laptop and is given the same model as our users except with an i7 processor. The memory (4gb) and 7200 rpm hard drive stay the same. I hear this person on the phone explaining that the upgrade of processor from an early version i7 to the 6700 or so version is their best use of money for the laptop.
I hear same person asking what a cache is and do they ever need it.
Another member of management does not think that a better video card will help process large photoshop images faster in the marketing department.
Another member of management thinks we should give pc's with hardware raided 7200 rpm drives(2 of them) to our council because that will be best use of money. Same situation as before but I think they both have it wrong.
Anyway my point to this is if they knew bench work that would also mean they understood how the technology worked on a basic level. I understand knowing how to grease a cpu is not helpful specifically but a well rounded bench person would not make these same mistakes. All these people look things up but do not understand what they are seeing I guess.
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In the automative field (which I know a little because I studied automotive engineering and manufacturing at university for a time) we have similar separations.
Someone working as an auto tech (bench) knows what parts to order from the dealer, which third party parts can work instead, what tools to use to replace parts, how to trace wires or test seals, how to safely put a car on a rack, how to change a tire, etc.
Someone working in automotive engineering (IT) might not know any of that stuff, but has to know aluminum tensile strength designations, how iron fails under stress, the cost of raw materials and aerodynamics.
The one designs the mess that the other gets to work on later, they are certainly related in that one designs and the other works on cars. But their job roles are extremely different at the end of the day with different classes, degrees, even schools. Different employers, titles, career options and so forth.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
Anyway my point to this is if they knew bench work that would also mean they understood how the technology worked on a basic level.
This is where we keep disconnecting. Knowing bench does NOT mean knowing how the technology works. How it works is IT. The problem with the people in your example is that they don't know IT. Bench has nothing to do with the situation. This is a basic IT failing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
In the enterprise space, you have facilities people who put computers on desks and plug them in. Because even that stuff is not bench. In the same way that the bench shops doing maintenance are not IT. It's all clearly separate.
In small shops, IT does lots of other jobs because they lack the staff to do it and someone has to do it and since IT waits on it, IT does the work, it just makes sense. But that's in no way the same as it being an IT job.
Far removed example: you use the company restroom and it is running low on toilet paper. So you restock the toilet paper since you are there and notice that it is low. That doesn't make stocking toilet paper an IT function, even though IT did it.LOL ok good example. I understand what your saying here and it does make sense. I was just saying that many other people, supposedly IT management for many years say that bench work and above is IT. It was what I was told by management before I got to current job.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
I understand knowing how to grease a cpu is not helpful specifically but a well rounded bench person would not make these same mistakes.
A well rounded middle schooler wouldn't make these mistakes. That doesn't make that bench, it just makes it basic computer knowledge.
A well rounded sixteen year old knows that more torque means more acceleration until the tires tear off. The issue is people making decisions without knowing the basics. Bench does not mean basics.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
The issue is a lack of IT knowledge and a lack of IT processes to look it up when needed. The issue you mention is an IT one, I'm unclear how you are connecting it to bench. Why would a bench tech have any of that knowledge or know how to apply it?
Even when they look it up they do not fully understand because they have never been hands on with the tech. A good bench tech would know how the tech works and who best it applies to.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
LOL ok good example. I understand what your saying here and it does make sense. I was just saying that many other people, supposedly IT management for many years say that bench work and above is IT.
I'm going to guess, that this is the problem in your mind that is making it hard to follow my logic. Look at what you stated, maybe unintentionally, you said "bench and above." I've tried to be clear, but I know it is hard to explain, that bench is NEVER about being below IT, that's a total misconception. Just as an automotive tech is not "below" an automotive engineer. In fact, the highest paid role is the auto tech working for a top racing team - they easily earn double a top automotive engineer's salary.
Bench isn't a level, it's a different career. One that runs parallel to IT, not below it. It's not what you do until you get to IT, it's just a different job. If we think of bench as being "basic" or "below" in relation to IT, then of course we would perceive those skills as needed. But both IT and bench have the same "level" at their beginning points. And they share the most basic "how things work" knowledge with any power user. But they diverge once they become fields.
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
Even when they look it up they do not fully understand because they have never been hands on with the tech. A good bench tech would know how the tech works and who best it applies to.
I think I was a decent bench tech and I can guarantee that bench doesn't teach you that. Because bench never sees systems running, they really don't know how things relate to each other. They see what works and fails, but not work works well or poorly. Bench rarely would be exposed to enough of the full stack to have any useful insight there.
But any competent IT person definitely would. Being hands on doesn't make any difference unless maybe you are an extremely current, extremely technical white box desktop designer for video gaming or something. It would be insanely niche within the bench space to get any exposure to useful knowledge. And it would be exclusively bench that wasn't in a business and, just as IT often does bench work because it is handy to do so, outside of business bench often does the IT work for the same "flipped" reasoning.
Bench would not have any insight, not realistically, into something like how CPU cache interacts with certain applications. They might know what the CPU cache is and does, but knowing how it affects the end users makes it IT experience that would matter.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
It would not. Use your example as a guide. Like I keep saying, no amount of bench knowledge would have changed anything in the situation. They'd still be just as clueless, still not know what they need, still make the same decisions. Bench knowledge would not help.
Ahh I see we still have a disconnect here in our thinking of bench and IT. I am thinking of it from a little higher level than you are. Your definition of bench includes people with no knowledge of how the overall system works while I was including that.
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A major bench job that I managed on behalf of Dell in the ~1990s was doing motherboard replacements for laptops. Laptops were failing because of bad capacitors and they needed to be replaced proactively at large clients. So my teams would travel on sight with boxes of parts. We would go desk to desk, open up the laptop and inspect the capacitors. If they were the bad ones, we'd remove the motherboards and swap them out - which took a lot of physical expertise, but no technical knowledge of the laptops. We didn't have to know what they ran, how they were used, if they had a business need, who the user was and so forth. We had to identify electronic part numbers and replace certain ones.
That was bench work. Zero business knowledge, decision making or interaction. We were pure tech. But even being well paid, relatively senior bench workers, we never used the laptops when they worked beyond powering them on and running a diagnostic routine. If it passed, we were golden. That the OS worked, what it was or whatever was of no concern. Our involvement started with the physical tech and ended there.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
They are so wildly different, it's hard to believe anyone working in either does that. There really is extremely little overlap. In the enterprise space, they are not just totally separate disciplines, but have legal ramifications and in the financial space have full separation of duty concerns. IT isn't allowed into data centers, bench isn't allowed access to IT systems. They are extremely discrete.
They certainly do which is where my own biases come from. They come from management themselves who believe this. However, this has all been small businesses where an IT person does anything connected with the systems
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@jmoore said in Where Does University Need to Focus for IT Students:
Ahh I see we still have a disconnect here in our thinking of bench and IT. I am thinking of it from a little higher level than you are. Your definition of bench includes people with no knowledge of how the overall system works while I was including that.
It's not that bench people would never know the full stack - it's that their job would never include it. Any random person might take an interest and know more than their job definition says. For example, in my previous post, an IT person might know all about the capacitor issue. It's common for IT people to find bench interesting, to some extent. But it's still bench, just something they want to know more about.
But bench work would never have a reason to know more about the logical needs of the system. It doesn't help their job in any way.
