Prepping for an interview on Friday hopefully allowing me to get away from where I work now!

Just finishing off agreeing and signing a new job! Exciting news

Watching the British Inbetweeners, drinking Cobra, looking forward to asking GFs dad tomorrow over dinner and beers for permission to propose to his daughter. Fun fun.

Hi folks,

This position is based in London, Camden, UK. If anybody in UK/London knows anybody that could be interested feel free to have them message me. Probably good for somebody interested in training/law, or a recent graduate within law.

Location – Camden Town, London. Salary, £24k pre probation, £26k post probation. 20 days holiday plus bank holidays. Hours: 9am - 5:30pm with 1 hour lunch.

Company

We are a London based legal technology company specialising in the development and distribution of digital research platforms involving case law and legislation. Our partners and clients include law professionals in over 50 countries, including law firms, governments and academic institutions. With the recent release of a brand-new product we are looking for talented individuals to join our company at a very exciting time.

The Role

As a Training Executive you are a high achiever, with a passion for training, technology and the law and have joined our team based in Camden Town, London.

Your role will primarily focus on, but not be limited to:

• Organising, improving and performing customer training
• Planning and running online sessions for existing and potential customers
• Working and improving the customer helpdesk and becoming an expert on our platforms

Training is performed online and in person therefore national and international travel is required.

We track performance through a range of KPIs including, but not limited to:

• Customer feedback
• Helpdesk response time
• The volume of training booked and performed

This role is office based in Camden Town, Monday to Friday, 9am – 5:30pm with flexibility and travel required.

Key Attributes

Candidates should be:
• Confident in dealing and liaising with a variety of customers
• A strong and confident presenter
• Able to meet and exceed targets
• Able to work well within a tight knit team
• Efficient with their time management skills
• Able to communicate professionally, both written and verbally
• Able and eager to learn
• Familiar with MS Office

Any questions, feel free...

Best,
Jim

For real, if 55k is similar to what you make now, and the benefits are the same, but the drive is 4x longer, and you don't need to move jobs... Pass. Nope. Not for you. Working g for an MSP sucks imo.

"Dear xyz,
Thank you for the offer of 55k. I appreciate your offer but must decline. I am comfortable in my current role; to entice me to leave a comfortable job with a far longer commute I would need a fair increase in wages and benefits. I'd reconsider for 65k and 10% bonus, private healthcare and life insurance, and x days leave per year.

I'd be very excited to work with you but the finances must be financially viable. Sadly, 55k does not meet that requirement for me.

If you can reconsider I'd look forward to agreeing a contract. Otherwise I wish you luck in your search."

Boom.

Applied to a job earlier today and just had an email confirming an interview. The interview details say the format is an online meeting where I sit in front of a webcam and answer automated questions which may be reviewed later... and is scheduled for 2h 40m minimum... PASS... too impersonal to me.

From those, option 2.

Laughing my ass off at red tape. Get a project. Reach out to specific vendors and get get the pricing and options. List four good options, with a #1 recommendation suitable for us. Get together with the C levels, and get it shot down as 'C' levels want to verify what we actually need from the options (which I did already). C levels spend several weeks in meetings, internally, externally... and come back with the exact same #1 recommendation. Pfft.

I've only worked SMB. I'd like to try Enterprise some day but worry everything would be too impersonal. With SMB, some of them have been like a family. Real nice. I've worked some that were truly nasty though - I'd go SMB, but move until the right SMB is found.

Wow. Poor. Feel sorry for anybody applying.
"I want a performer! Not someone watching the clock!" - that says it all. Bad first impression!

^ it goes with saying they no doubt want somebody to work above their normal hours too all the time, be always contactable, never take holiday and be willing to only be paid peanuts.

@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

If they were renting from the 80s until 2014, they would have had zero.

This is unlikely to be true. Your point is valid, but it misses a lot of cost of lost opportunity.

Agreed there, for sure. But my point is where I am in the UK renting is more than mortgage. You don't have a monthly disposable difference to invest. You are at a net loss compared to the mortgage. Therefore, you don't have excess money to invest in other vehicles.

Like I said, I get it if rent was far less than mortgage. But where I am, its not.

@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@JaredBusch said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

Neglected a huge cost of owning a house in the U.S., property taxes. That would bring that $115,000 significantly higher as I currently pay ~$6,000 per year in property taxes. That comes to $120,000 over a 20 year loan.
So now I need to sell this house in 2041 for $463,000 (in 2016 dollars) just to break even.

And don't forget the huge sales tax and assumed real estate fees that will be on top of that sale. You tend to lose most of your money on the transaction overhead. That adds up quickly.

Keep in mind this is regional. We do not have the same situation in the UK as the US with selling houses. You only need to pay tax when selling if its a buy-to-let or a second home. If you are selling your home to move to another home, you don't get taxes here for that. You would pay a fee to the selling agent. But, the money is yours.

Buyers have to pay various taxes though.

@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

The prices in the UK for renting are above what you would pay for mortgage payments.

TODAY this is true. Unless that has always been true, then your logic doesn't hold. Looking at a momentary financial situation isn't a good way to invest for a lifetime.

This is why I ask if this is regional. Its been true in South East UK for a long time. My parents purchased in Greenwich, London, in the early 80s for £38k. They sold in 2014 for £1.1m. Looking at inflation 38k would be £164k in 2014. They were hugely up on the initial purchase ~£960,000. Sure, they had some maintenance, insurance, and other costs, but that is a huge amount.

If they were renting from the 80s until 2014, they would have had zero.

Even now, my place in 2019 was £270,000. Its currently valued at £340,000. In fact, I am going to sell soon and move. But that is £70k addition compared to if I had rented. If I rented, I get £0 from that £70,000. That 70k goes straight in to the pocket of the landlord.

I get it. It may not have always been like this. But where I am in SE UK, mortgages are going for 1,000 and rental for the house next door is £1,200 - £1,400. It just doesn't make sense to rent here right now. If I could rent this place for say £500 - £800 that could make sense. I could take the difference and put it in a fund long term. But, realistically - its just not going to make sense here right now.

Same for Liverpool, Aberdeen, Barcelona? I don't know. That is why I think its regional. If I have to rent for more than it would cost to own, then it makes sense to own here.

@JaredBusch said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

But, if I know I am going to be South East UK for at least a decade, owning is the only sensible financial choice.

Right, until you get sick long-term or have a divorce and you can't afford to pay your mortgage and you can't sell your house because nobody is willing to pay what you need to pay off your loans.

Renting is the SaaS of living arrangements.

Zero capital expense, zero risk, 100% agility.

Pretty much, shit happens.

If you are worried about possible future long term sick, get ASU insurance.
If you are worried about future divorce, well that sucks. Its still better to have 50% of a house than 0%.

There are lots of real world examples of shit happening. It still doesn't change the fact that renting is paying somebody else mortgage, when you could have your own and 'hope' to gain from it.

Everything has risk.

Yeah, but a shitty investment such as a single family home isn't worth that risk. It's a lot more financially responsible to rent your home and invest your capital in something better. Something that is not coupled to your living arrangements. Something you can sell and buy when the opportunity is right, not when you want to move.

If you like real estate there are plenty of things to own. Apartment buildings, commercial real estate for example.

The prices in the UK for renting are above what you would pay for mortgage payments. You are spending far more renting than you would not renting. That makes no sense.

See this is the thing people are trying to explain to you. Math doesn't work that way.

You are very confused if you think owning a home as an investment is a smart thing.

Owning a home is fine. Thinking of it as an investment is the issue of this topic.

I bought my house for $228,000 in 2016. I paid 10% down and the rest was a loan. I refinanced last year to take advantage of the lower interest rate and to drop my term to 20 years. I was 5 years into a 30 year term, so I gained 5 years on the payback also.

I don't' have my original amortization schedule handy, but for my refi I do.

My refi has an original balance of $205,986.
After making a payment of $1,168.34 for 240 months (20 years) I will have paid $280,401.60.

This means before any other expenses or values are calculated, I will have lost $74,415.60 over the term of this loan.

This is a shit ass way to start an investment return.

By the way, I only put 10% down on the original loan in 2016, because I knew the house needed remodeled. I drop approximately $25,000 to remodel everything in 2016.

So that puts me down $100,000 at the 20 year mark.

I converted the half bath to a full master bath in 2019 for $11,000.

So that puts me down $111,000 at the 20 year mark now.

I gutted 2 rooms and reinsulated them in the last 6 months for ~$4,000.

So that puts me down $115,000 at the 20 year mark now.

That means for my house to be a value as an investment, assuming I have zero other house only expenses (aka expenses that I would not also have as a renter), I would need to sell my house for $228,000 + $115,000 = $343,000 in 2016 adjusted dollars just to break even on my investment.

Edit:

Neglected a huge cost of owning a house in the U.S., property taxes. That would bring that $115,000 significantly higher as I currently pay ~$6,000 per year in property taxes. That comes to $120,000 over a 20 year loan.

So now I need to sell this house in 2041 for $463,000 (in 2016 dollars) just to break even.

Say somebody was renting your dwelling for 20 years from a landlord. They also would be paying $1,168 every month for 20 years. Where you are down $74,415, they are down $280,401.

Rent here in the UK is MORE than the cost of a mortgage. I'd get it if the renter was paying $400. They could take the other $768 and stick that somewhere with better interest than a house.

Owning may not be a great option, but its still better than renting. In 20 years you hopefully have a house you can sell worth at least $205,986. Then renter doesn't.

How is that better than owning where the rent cost == mortgage cost?

I can pay a bank 1,168 dollars every month for 20 years and hope to have a house I can sell for 200k+. Or, I can pay a landlord that money have after 20 years have sweet fuck all... hmmm, sure, I will rent.

@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

But, if I know I am going to be South East UK for at least a decade, owning is the only sensible financial choice.

Right, until you get sick long-term or have a divorce and you can't afford to pay your mortgage and you can't sell your house because nobody is willing to pay what you need to pay off your loans.

Renting is the SaaS of living arrangements.

Zero capital expense, zero risk, 100% agility.

Pretty much, shit happens.

If you are worried about possible future long term sick, get ASU insurance.
If you are worried about future divorce, well that sucks. Its still better to have 50% of a house than 0%.

There are lots of real world examples of shit happening. It still doesn't change the fact that renting is paying somebody else mortgage, when you could have your own and 'hope' to gain from it.

Everything has risk.

Yeah, but a shitty investment such as a single family home isn't worth that risk. It's a lot more financially responsible to rent your home and invest your capital in something better. Something that is not coupled to your living arrangements. Something you can sell and buy when the opportunity is right, not when you want to move.

If you like real estate there are plenty of things to own. Apartment buildings, commercial real estate for example.

The prices in the UK for renting are above what you would pay for mortgage payments. You are spending far more renting than you would not renting. That makes no sense.

@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

But, if I know I am going to be South East UK for at least a decade, owning is the only sensible financial choice.

Right, until you get sick long-term or have a divorce and you can't afford to pay your mortgage and you can't sell your house because nobody is willing to pay what you need to pay off your loans.

Renting is the SaaS of living arrangements.

Zero capital expense, zero risk, 100% agility.

Pretty much, shit happens.

If you are worried about possible future long term sick, get ASU insurance.
If you are worried about future divorce, well that sucks. Its still better to have 50% of a house than 0%.

There are lots of real world examples of shit happening. It still doesn't change the fact that renting is paying somebody else mortgage, when you could have your own and 'hope' to gain from it.

Everything has risk.

@Obsolesce said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:

@Jimmy9008 a house is not automatically an asset. In most cases when buying a house with a mortgage, it is considered a liability. It can take a long time to become an asset, if ever at all.

Perhaps this is a location issue? I don't see this at all in the UK.

In most simple terms. I can pay £1,000 mortgage and buy my house brick by brick, raising my percentage ownership monthly, or I can pay a landlord £1,000 per month for them to use the cash I pay them to own more of their property.

In the first example, I am going to eventually own the house. At the end of the term it may be lower value, higher value, or the same value, but it will be worth some value. In the second example, I have nothing. The landlord does.

Sure, there are probably edge cases where this isn't true. But, if you know you will be somewhere for 5 - 10 years the best option is to own. Renting is best when you are mobile. If I know I want to be in London for 12 months, then Wales, then Germany, then France... yada yada, then owning makes no sense. But, if I know I am going to be South East UK for at least a decade, owning is the only sensible financial choice.

This topic is fascinating.

I am UK based (South East) and believe owning is a far better than renting, at least in the current climate in my location. I bet this is regional though. My mortgage is £1,000 per month on a fixed interest rate. There are a few places close to me that have been up for rental recently in the region of £1,200 per month. Similar size dwelling.

They came off the rental market very quickly and now have tenants, I would assume they went for the money being requested. In this case, month by month I am buying an asset. Renters however are not. The money they use to rent the property goes to the landlord.

In the future, I can hopefully sell my asset. An asset which has potentially increased in value. The renter, they cant sell anything. They have £0. Say the house was £500k 5 years ago, and I paid a £100k deposit. In that 5 years, say I paid off £50k. Say the house is still worth £500k even now. Still, great - I've now got £150k of a £500k asset. I can sell and I am £50k up from 5 years ago. The renter, yep - they have £0. What they have done is paid £50k+ of the landlords mortgage for them. Lets say I am lucky and that house increased in value to £550k, even better, I now own £200k of a £550k asset. That is even better. Sure, there is a risk the price could go down, which does happen from time to time. Even if the value of the house went down £100k to £400k, I would still have been £50k up. Meaning, the house would have had to have lost £150k in value to equal £0 like the renter. That is how I see it anyway.

The renter does have the benefit of being able to move at short notice, no house maintenance, and stuff like that. But, if you know you need to be somewhere for a long time, and have the deposit and wage to get the right mortgage, I don't see how renting is better than buying.

Note though, I am not saying owning is a good investment. I am saying I believe it is compared to renting. You could take the £100k above and invest in a fund such as Vanguard global fund. The average increase for the UK for housing is 4.3%. If you can find a fund that on average beats the average of the housing market, then that could of course be a better investment than owning.

In locations where renting is far cheaper than a monthly mortgage payment, then I would see renting and investing in a fund as far better than owning. Just, in the south east the rental price is above what people are paying for a mortgage. The problem is folk building the 10% required deposit where wages are low and rent is high. It sucks for a lot of folk that they pay more rent than a monthly mortgage. Its crazy.

@pete-s said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@jt1001001 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@jimmy9008 We have a use case involving a legacy client/server app that we've determined we're going to have to go VDI for in order to secure it. One lousy app for approx 5 users that I hope we eventually move away from. We are currently reviewing Azure VDI for this and it so far will fit the bill though we had to go throught a lot of "hoops" to configure networking, VPN back into our infrastructure, etc. We have not yet presented budget numbers to the bean counters but Im hoping when we do they will see the $$$$$ wasted for 5 users and will force them to a new product.

What other products do you plan to look at? Still VDI or something else? Any experience of VMWare Horizon?

We have around 600 - 1000 users globally (mostly developers) on the VDI I need to replace. The company dictates that the VDI must be in the same datacenter as the rest of the developers environments, so I don't think Azure VDI would work for us because of that mandate.

If you have a solution that works, and at the moment VDI is a must, then it makes no sense to change the fundamentals of what you already have. That's just an unwarranted risk.

So keep Citrix and VMware as is. Just replace the hardware and consolidate it. You are only averaging 16 cores per physical server and 370GB RAM per server if my math is correct. You could easily cram 3 to 8 times as much into each server. 128 cores per server is nothing special today as well as several TBs of RAM. AMD is the leader and the way to go.

You could replace your 20 servers and have 384 cores and up to 12TB of RAM with only three Dell R6525 or R7525 dual CPU servers. You might want 4 or more though. But no need to go to blades when you only need a couple of servers. No need for complex hypervisor management solutions either when you only have a couple of servers.

Use vSAN instead of SAN for the VDI. With the proper drives these servers are certified for ESXi and vSAN. You should use U2 NVMe drives and avoid SAS. It will outperform your old SAN - by a lot.

Since you have 1 PB of data, storage for non-VDI workloads needs to be researched. I think I would want to separate VDI from the rest. Gut feeling would be to have completely separate physical environments for everything VDI related and the rest. Consolidation is good but overconsolidation can be too risky.

This could be a great option. New servers with more horse power, running the existing software stack. One problem is that due to another departments projects the underline storage is going from this solution. The storage is being ripped out leaving 20 servers, which need to be replaced, without any of the 1PB storage.

I was considering Dell PowerMax for this storage presented over iSCSI to a server on the Dell VXRail, also running the VDI.

@dafyre said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:

@scottalanmiller

I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.

I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.

If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)

Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.

Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind

More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.

I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.

Well, I think @scottalanmiller already explained much better than I ever could that VDI Modernization is a contradiction in terms. If you're stuck using VDI, then you by definition are not modernizing.

As to different platforms to run it on, that's why I suggested Scale or Starwind to run the Citrix solution.

Oh come on, seriously. How on earth is that a contradiction in terms. I like this forum but some time people on it can be ridiculous with rubbish like that. You can modernize many things in a wide range of ways and saying that a 'VDI cannot be modernized' as that is not how you think something should be done is just pure rubbish.

You are running Windows Server 2008r2, and are considering migrating to Windows Server 2022!... that is not modernizing... your workload should be SaaS/Cloud! Yeah, BS. You can modernize without being SaaS/Online services.

Oh! You want to modernize and move from HDD/Spinners to NVMe... well tough luck, you cant modernize like that dumbass... your storage should be a blob in Azure.. Local storage, pfft. No way is that 'modern' anymore!

You want tomodernize your compute and use PMEM. Oh shoot! That cant be modernized as you should be using a VM in AWS. BS!

You can take outdated infrastructure and modernize it in many ways - just because ya'll believe in narrow minded dogmatic BS like 'my way is the right way' you think this is a contradiction in terms. LOL. WOW.

You can take old VDI infrastructure and modernize it. Contradiction my ass! If this is what I can expect from this forum I may as well post on Spiceworks. Gosh.

So, are you even considering basing things on Scale or Starwind as your underlying solution, or are we just ignoring half of what I say?

If you're serious about checking out other platforms, I can vouch for Scale. I had them at my last job, and they now have two x 3 node clusters and the guys there are extremely happy with it.

Do they support their stack using ESXi? We have to stay standardised to that.

Be it a ton of servers backed by a physical SAN, a ton of servers backed by a vSAN, be it a ton of servers with local storage, or whatever - we have to run ESXi.