IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[el_oh_el]

Brehs...

I'm in a SQL server course presently and I am in dire need of assistance. To all my programming/DB heads, pardon the basic-ness of the following request however I've searched high and low and honestly the reading material in the course alludes me..

Here's the issue:

"Assuming that today’s date is 12/2/2025, create a temporary field that calculates the total service time (in years) of each
employee.

In the same query, use a CASE statement to identify employees who are over 54 years old and have over 20 years of service time with the company. Identify them as “Potential Retirees”".

For reference, these are the tables and column I at least KNOW this data will derive from

Table Names: Employee

Columns needing to be manipulated: employee.HireDate, employee.FirstName, employee.LastName


Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!!

Sounds like it should be too hard..but then again I am only using java and c# so far in classes.
Is a Case statement similar to a Switch?

 

[Panther]

So the calls for my first IT gig are starting to roll in... Hoping something good sticks soon

 

[Silkk]

So the calls for my first IT gig are starting to roll in... Hoping something good sticks soon

What city you applying in?

 

[Panther]

What city you applying in?

Atlanta

 

[FreshFromATL]

Just a heads up...

Big Data or Business Intelligence >>>>

 

[FreshFromATL]

Brehs...

I'm in a SQL server course presently and I am in dire need of assistance. To all my programming/DB heads, pardon the basic-ness of the following request however I've searched high and low and honestly the reading material in the course alludes me..

Here's the issue:

"Assuming that today’s date is 12/2/2025, create a temporary field that calculates the total service time (in years) of each
employee.

In the same query, use a CASE statement to identify employees who are over 54 years old and have over 20 years of service time with the company. Identify them as “Potential Retirees”".

For reference, these are the tables and column I at least KNOW this data will derive from

Table Names: Employee

Columns needing to be manipulated: employee.HireDate, employee.FirstName, employee.LastName


Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!!

Here you go breh, I'm assuming you have an employee.BirthDate column as well to get the date the employee was born? But anyway, I ran this code on my SQL Server database in which I have a similar employee table and it worked fine. I used a variable to hold the fictional date, a DATEDIFF function to get the employee's total service time and gave the column an alias of "TotalServiceTime", and last, I used a case statement to determine whether the employee had the status of "PotentialRetiree", if the expression returns TRUE, "PotentialRetiree" is placed into the column, if FALSE, nothing is entered. Also I gave that column an alias of "RetirementStatus"

DECLARE @today AS DATE = '12/2/2025'

SELECT employee.HireDate,
      employee.FirstName,
      employee.LastName,
      DATEDIFF(Year,employee.HireDate,@today) AS [TotalServiceTime],
      CASE
          WHEN (DATEDIFF(Year,employee.BirthDate,@today) > 54 ) AND (DATEDIFF(Year,employee.HireDate,@today) > 20) THEN 'PotentialRetiree'
          ELSE ' '
      END AS [RetirementStatus]
FROM employee

 

[HabitualLineSteppa]

Here you go breh, I'm assuming you have an employee.BirthDate column as well to get the date the employee was born? But anyway, I ran this code on my SQL Server database in which I have a similar employee table and it worked fine. I used a variable to hold the fictional date, a DATEDIFF function to get the employee's total service time and gave the column an alias of "TotalServiceTime", and last, I used a case statement to determine whether the employee had the status of "PotentialRetiree", if the expression returns TRUE, "PotentialRetiree" is placed into the column, if FALSE, nothing is entered. Also I gave that column an alias of "RetirementStatus"

DECLARE @today AS DATE = '12/2/2025'

SELECT employee.HireDate,
      employee.FirstName,
      employee.LastName,
      DATEDIFF(Year,employee.HireDate,@today) AS [TotalServiceTime],
      CASE
          WHEN (DATEDIFF(Year,employee.BirthDate,@today) > 54 ) AND (DATEDIFF(Year,employee.HireDate,@today) > 20) THEN 'PotentialRetiree'
          ELSE ' '
      END AS [RetirementStatus]
FROM employee

Thanks fam!

This is what I needed! An explanation WITH code! I don't have a DOB column (we were given age instead) but I'm gonna run this as soon as I can...

The IT brehs stay coming through in the clutch

 

[FreshFromATL]

Thanks fam!

This is what I needed! An explanation WITH code! I don't have a DOB column (we were given age instead) but I'm gonna run this as soon as I can...

The IT brehs stay coming through in the clutch

No prob...just make sure modify the first part of the expression in the case statement where I used a BirthDate column and insert the needed logic for your solution there instead.

 

[HabitualLineSteppa]

No prob...just make sure modify the first part of the expression in the case statement where I used a BirthDate column and insert the needed logic for your solution there instead.

Absolutely... Pos rep given

 

[gho3st]

Virtualization is one of those "black box" IT disciplines that is very hot because most people do not understand it and it is something you have to work with for awhile to get good at. It is very hard to study for on your own and can be very expensive. I have a VCP and a VCAP and the lab I built cost me around 1500 and I took a lot of shortcuts, and i spent that out of my own pocket. My company paid for classes and test but if they had not, just the VCP class alone would have cost me 1300 at the time. Vmware test are very difficult because they are all conceptual questions...or design questions. Since the classes are so expensive...since the certs are so hard...since their are so few people who really understand virtualization...it becomes a black box that most companies don't understand and don't want to understand...they just want to hire a guy with the supposed credentials and tell him "virtualize my shyt. Turn my desktop and laptop into a screen I log into and save me 100 of thousands of dollars a year by allowing me to close a datacenter and have my entire IT infrastructure in one cabinet " Because of this virtualization guys make a lot of money and are always going to be in demand because virtualization is associated with "the cloud" and "getting rid of datacenters"

If you want to make a lot of money in IT it is the way to go, but the issue most people start to have is that eventually you have to know much more than just virtualization. You have to know networking because without networking knowledge you will have no idea how to set up a virtual network for your infrastructure, or have no idea how to configure a nexus, and those are things you have to know. You have to know about storage, how to connect it, what types, what the good and strong points are of each type. You have to know about blade technology and architecture because virtualization has moved toward the Cisco UCS, so you need to understand the difference between the physical cpu and ram in the blade and the logical way you can set it up to be used in a virtual environment. You have to know about a lot of virutalization technologies. Vmware is the major player but you have to know Microsoft Hyper V as well since it is basically free if you are a windows shop. You have to know citrix and how to set up citrix farms. It is essential that you be able to script as well, because you will be doing some of the task perhaps dozens of times and at some point from just a time constraint it will not be feasible to do it manually.

Storage is another "black box" IT discipline where you can make a lot of money. Where I work the storage and backup positions START at around 72k. However, storage is a very high stress job, because you are dealing with company data, and the first time you fukk up and lose or fukk up and can't restore company data, you will be fired. Most storage guys I know never get a second chance. They make bank though...

If you are interested in Virtualization I would look up some stuff on Vcenter from Vmware...it is pretty much the defacto standard app suite for virtualization now.

What if you are already knowledgeable on cloud technology? The one problem that i have is that hiring managers are looking for people with experience when it comes to networking.

 

[duckbutta]

What if you are already knowledgeable on cloud technology? The one problem that i have is that hiring managers are looking for people with experience when it comes to networking.

Will that depends on how you view "cloud technology". For me "the cloud" is esx servers / citrix farm , some front end app, storage (preferably netapp), and hardware (preferably ucs). I do not understand why anyone would be concerned about the networking piece in "the cloud" because those are only virtual networks and firewalls setting on top of real physical network equipment. If you can learn how to make and trunk a vlan, create and manage virtual firewalls / switches, then you can do the "cloud" networking piece at the application layer. That stuff is typically done by a network guy and not a cloud guy. If someone has the expectation that the cloud guy will do the networking piece then i would stay away because that person is looking for an all in one admin and that is not where you want to be in a cloud environment trust me, you will never run out of things to "check".

As far as hardware I would say you would want to look into the cisco nexus switches, they are what most cloud environments run on. I'll leave it to a network person to speak on how to best go about getting experience with one as most I've ever had to do is match vlan to physical port in the case of some nic flapping, which doesn't happen that often in the type of environments i spin up, though it does happen frequently in a "shared cloud"

 

[Rice N Beans]

Just how viable is an IT entry level position without an Associates or whatever? I will get the A+ cert easy soon, but school... I cannot boogie with school at the moment. I can revisit it in the future though and I know it helps to have the degree. Can I find something to hold me over in the meantime without the degree? I have no work exp in anything related to that field but just trying to get on my feet wet. Should I volunteer? Find an internship? I would like to start working asap to support some needs. Anyone who is working withouyt a degree but w/ certs can chime in personally speaking?

And yes I'm reading through the thread atm.

EDIT: I have a general idea but if anyone wants to add anything please donut hesitate.

 

[FreshFromATL]

So the calls for my first IT gig are starting to roll in... Hoping something good sticks soon

Good luck, breh!

 

[Disgustya Stallone]

Virtualization is one of those "black box" IT disciplines that is very hot because most people do not understand it and it is something you have to work with for awhile to get good at. It is very hard to study for on your own and can be very expensive. I have a VCP and a VCAP and the lab I built cost me around 1500 and I took a lot of shortcuts, and i spent that out of my own pocket. My company paid for classes and test but if they had not, just the VCP class alone would have cost me 1300 at the time. Vmware test are very difficult because they are all conceptual questions...or design questions. Since the classes are so expensive...since the certs are so hard...since their are so few people who really understand virtualization...it becomes a black box that most companies don't understand and don't want to understand...they just want to hire a guy with the supposed credentials and tell him "virtualize my shyt. Turn my desktop and laptop into a screen I log into and save me 100 of thousands of dollars a year by allowing me to close a datacenter and have my entire IT infrastructure in one cabinet " Because of this virtualization guys make a lot of money and are always going to be in demand because virtualization is associated with "the cloud" and "getting rid of datacenters"

If you want to make a lot of money in IT it is the way to go, but the issue most people start to have is that eventually you have to know much more than just virtualization. You have to know networking because without networking knowledge you will have no idea how to set up a virtual network for your infrastructure, or have no idea how to configure a nexus, and those are things you have to know. You have to know about storage, how to connect it, what types, what the good and strong points are of each type. You have to know about blade technology and architecture because virtualization has moved toward the Cisco UCS, so you need to understand the difference between the physical cpu and ram in the blade and the logical way you can set it up to be used in a virtual environment. You have to know about a lot of virutalization technologies. Vmware is the major player but you have to know Microsoft Hyper V as well since it is basically free if you are a windows shop. You have to know citrix and how to set up citrix farms. It is essential that you be able to script as well, because you will be doing some of the task perhaps dozens of times and at some point from just a time constraint it will not be feasible to do it manually.

Storage is another "black box" IT discipline where you can make a lot of money. Where I work the storage and backup positions START at around 72k. However, storage is a very high stress job, because you are dealing with company data, and the first time you fukk up and lose or fukk up and can't restore company data, you will be fired. Most storage guys I know never get a second chance. They make bank though...

If you are interested in Virtualization I would look up some stuff on Vcenter from Vmware...it is pretty much the defacto standard app suite for virtualization now.

Don't agree about virtualization (or most core infrastructure lanes for that matter) having long term growth potential. As IT becomes commoditized, and more people move the cloud, the on premise delivery of IaaS and PaaS are going to be less and less... unless you are working for Microsoft Azure, RackSpace, or AWS you're really not going to need to do Virtualization. It's going to be completely commoditized.

Virtualization is no different than Directory Services, Email, Collaboration or IM.... all areas of IT that are offered through the cloud today.

Think those ExchangE admins are a little shook of Office365? If they aren't, they are idiots. That's the other problem.... thinking long term. It's easy to think about the immediate, but what about 5-10 years from now? Where do you plan to be then once everything is in the cloud? Gotta stop thinking myopically.

IMHO where the real dough is going to be, is the SaaS part. Folks should be focusing on Ozone Widget Framework, or other AppDev areas - Sharepoint is another one. Coding will always have long life.

Of course I am talking a long time out - could be 5-10 years who knows, but do you want to be in your mid 30's or 40's needing to retool your skillset? All of these disciplines will be on the decline as more business move to the cloud.

Edit: Cybersecurity has legs too.

 

[Disgustya Stallone]

Just how viable is an IT entry level position without an Associates or whatever? I will get the A+ cert easy soon, but school... I cannot boogie with school at the moment. I can revisit it in the future though and I know it helps to have the degree. Can I find something to hold me over in the meantime without the degree? I have no work exp in anything related to that field but just trying to get on my feet wet. Should I volunteer? Find an internship? I would like to start working asap to support some needs. Anyone who is working withouyt a degree but w/ certs can chime in personally speaking?

And yes I'm reading through the thread atm.

EDIT: I have a general idea but if anyone wants to add anything please donut hesitate.

Experience trumps all. Go join the military to get that.