Re: [Xen-users] Xen as a job skill.

[Simon Hobson <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Long <hack3rcon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Ah :(
> Why for others exist?

Sorry but I've no idea what you are asking there.


> What does " Virtualization engineering" mean?

I assume it's fancy speak for someone who works with virtualisation technologies

The thing is, unless it's a very large business, it won't have people who 
"just" work with (eg) Xen. Very big organisations may be able to justify such 
specialisation, but most businesses require people to handle more than one area.
Myself, I'm more or less the one person in the business dealing with GNU/Linux 
and related software. So as well as knowing enough about Xen to be able to 
administer the hosts, I also need to know enough about general Linux issues to 
deal with the hosts and the virtualised machines - and I need to know enough 
about the software packages (eg Apache and Postfix to name but two) in order to 
manage the services those virtual machines provide, and a chunk of programming 
(eg Bash) to glue stuff together.

The bigger the business (in terms of the amount of tech employed and the number 
of people employed doing it), the more people can specialise. So here, I also 
manage the network - so I am also responsible for the network switches, 
routers, firewall, ... That means I can create a new host, assign it's IP, add 
it to DNS, do any routing that's needed, sort out any firewall changes needed, 
and so on.

I did have an informal chat with someone looking for people for his team at a 
hosting company. There, his team do nothing but look after GNU/Linux systems - 
they don't (and can't) touch firewalls or routers which are handled by a 
different team, and they don't have anything to do with Windows servers which 
are also handled by another team.
Get to an even bigger outfit, and the networking is split - different teams 
handle different bits of the network. So for example, if you get a leased line 
internet connection then there'll be a team responsible for getting the 
physical fibre into the building, another team responsible for terminating it, 
another team will put some equipment (router) on the end of the fibre, another 
team will have been responsible for allocating your IP address space, another 
team for setting up the routing to get your IPs to your connection, and another 
team will have been responsible for actually configuring the router - all held 
together by a project manager and various other systems to make sure they 
record who has what and make sure that you get billed.

So again, unless it's a very big business, I don't think you'll find people 
looking for "just" Xen - and in that case, they may well be looking for a very 
in depth standard of knowledge. More likely they will be looking for "Linux 
admins" with a range of skills - someone who can administer a system, INCLUDING 
the Xen specific aspects. That's not saying that knowing Xen won't get you a 
job - just that "only" knowing Xen probably won't, as most jobs will need a 
knowledge across a range of other admin skills. And that *not* knowing Xen may 
well lock you out of jobs where that is an essential part of the skills asked 
for.


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