Managing Wireless Technology and Connected Devices
Like everyone, government agencies have come to heavily rely on mobile technology. This reliance has brought on a slew of issues, however, from maintaining security to managing multiple devices. Personnel used to working with everything from SATCOM terminals to iPads are ideally suited for handling these issues. Many have successfully managed wireless endpoints, networks, and security while in the field.Upload Your ResumeEmployers want candidates like you. Upload your resume. Show them you're awesome.
Automating Network Management
Field personnel obviously have a lot to deal with beyond IT (there’s a little thing called “defense,” for example). Very often, though, they find themselves having to stop and manually manage network problems as they arise. As tedious as this is, it turns out that this experience can prove valuable for personnel looking to transfer to civilian IT, even as network automation becomes the norm. Knowledge of which processes typically require the most attention can help IT managers configure their automated systems to prioritize project monitoring. In short, field experience can help make the automated network that much more efficient, and enhance optimization to focus on things that are most essential.Managing Consolidation and Shrinking Budgets
This one should certainly be familiar to field personnel, because it’s happening across the board. Defense departments are continually looking at ways to better manage budgets and consolidate technologies, and promote doing more with less. As a result, today’s IT is heavily focused on consolidating services and solutions whenever possible. The consolidation effort includes everything from equipment (legacy hardware being usurped by cloud and virtualization solutions, for example) to activities (reporting and monitoring which, as previously inferred, are now far more automated than ever before). Fortunately, this frees up room for actively analyzing the network, which cannot be easily automated or consolidated—at least, not yet. But who knows what the future may hold? Much like war-fighters, IT professionals must be readily adaptable. Because just like the battlefield, IT can change at a moment’s notice. Chris LaPoint is the vice president of product management at SolarWinds, an IT management software provider based in Austin, Texas. He has spent the last decade building IT management software, first as a software engineer, then as a technical evangelist and product manager.Related Articles
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