Stats of a Consultant

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I've been at my new job for about 6 weeks now
I thought I would give you some stats for the few projects I've worked on so far



I've driven 4300 miles across 6 states, migrated over 4000 mailboxes consisting of 6.3 million emails and over 6TB of storage from 12 Exchange 2003 servers to 4 virtual Exchange 2010 servers, I've been away from home a total of over 70% of the time since I was employed (and I don't get home till Dec 19th). I've deployed my first Rights Management Service configuration, my first LYNC integration, my first Exchange 2010 SP1 deployment, and having a blast, I've also managed to clock up over $4800 in expenses.. which i should get back just in time for Christmas!

new job = win!

 

I'm hoping to get a bit deeper in Lync now it's RTM and we have it deployed at work, very exciting stuff
and trying not to neglect my Datacenter stuff either, my boss is pretty keen to keep my VMware skills top notch (as i currently out rank most of the guys on the VMware team here, and i'm not even on it!) and there may be a Microsoft Certified Master course in my future, exciting stuff here

 

Boise generally can't, and the hourly rate here is almost half what it is anywhere else in the country (even other small ass towns) which is my my manager isn't keen to keep me around town when we have a backlog of work across the country, hence my busy travel schedule at the moment

this is why I work for a national outfit and travel a lot

 

Hey Phoenix, on the topic of Lync, have you found any decent documentation / material, we're looking at implementing it at work to test for possibly suggesting to our clients, but apart from a few MS docs there doesn't appear to be much else as yet.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it, always the best bit.

 

Real world info is rare mate, it was literally released to the public like 2 weeks ago, so its pretty spanking new, i imagine as the early adopters kick it off things will start to fill up in the interwebs

Technet should have very decent documentation already, but light on actual whitepapers/benefits/case studies etc, that should come in time as the marketing machine gets ramped up

 

That'd explain the lack of info then, didn't realise it was "that" new - ack well, time to get the fingers dirty for once then it seems

 

Well I'm jealous I'm only on £550 of expenses this month, so not quite the bumper Christmas you're having haha.

Where did you start off Phoenix? can you give us a quick job by job progression? literally just the titles and time limits.

Sounds like an amazing job.

 

Actually I started at an Internet/Gaming cafe in New Oxford Street when I was 14, so instead of 'starting' in IT like most people do, later in life, I swapped Burger King and Woolworths for IT and IT, so my Resume had a bit more bang against others my age

I'll try paste the whole list when I get to work

 

I always thought you would become a vSpecialist, not sure why

 

Actually i still might one day.. EMC recruitment is a pretty long cycle unless your specifically asked for
so if i actually put effort into my blog and became a name.. things would speed up a bit

 

Cool, glad you're enjoying it! Welcome to the world of consulting

My last 10 months at Microsoft have been a very similar experience. I've got two Exchange 2010 migrations going. I've worked on two LYNC POC's and an AD migration. Two customers on FIM and bits and pieces.

Switzerland being a much smaller country, I don't always need to travel as far, and most of my customers are about 20 miles east or west from where I live. Occasionally I do get longer trips to Zurich, but they come and go.

Is your employer a Microsoft partner?

Anyway, keep it up I know I love this job, I get to play with all the cool new toys, and it definitely requires keeping on the edge of technology. No possibility of ending in a stagnating job in this one.

 

Um, I've been a consultant for the last 8 years mate :P Just a job move!


Yeah I've worked for MS/VMW partners for most of the last 8 - 10 years, this is probably the biggest
we are on of the few LARs in the US alongside CDW, DELL etc

 

heh

Then welcome to yet another consultant job

 

If you ever get the time then let me know when you're here and maybe we can catch up for a beer or three.



Glad you're really enjoying yourself Ryan.

 

RE your blog, is it just time that stoping you? I bet you would have loads to blog about by the sounds of it ;)

 

Ryan, that job sounds perfect for you mate

 

I did manage to impress them today by building a two node MB DAG from scratch with the first mailbox migrated in < 90 mins

seems like the folks who initially provisioned used Standard R2 not Enterprise R2, thus making my ability to create a DAG impossible.. incredibly impressed with Exchange 2010 every time i install it
doing that in 07 would of taken days, weeks in 03 if at all

 

That's cool Phoenix, we're actually going to migrate to 2010 to a two node DAG as well... Glad to hear that you're liking it.