aix internship worth pursuing?

[xSauronx]

Need some advice, so heres the setup:

Im an IT intern at a large area hospital and am working part time. Ive been here about a year, and more or less do application/pc support stuff. Not exactly anything with valuable experience for the most part, and Ive got a year left in school so I need to find something that can give me some good experience and develop some kind of skill set.

I asked about getting put on another team so I can work on something else, and Im told theres pretty much one spot to go: the AIX team. They cant find someone outside to hire, so they are considering taking an intern (me or another guy) to train

-they dont *expect* anyone to have any prior aix knowledge or experience.
-they will train whoever they pick with the intent (if things go well) to hire upon graduation
--they intend for this to be a full-time internship, but im at a point in school where i can finish up my work online or with night classes
--the company doesnt always train the IT guys well internally, depending on the team, so theres literally no telling how that will go. i dont know anyone on the AIX team to find out more
-i do have some linux experience and education, and while im not an advanced user, im not at all uncomfortable dealing with the CLI and am somewhat interested in learning more about unix/linux/etc and getting some experience
-i have no idea right now what they are using AIX for or what is to be expected

thing is...i know nada about AIX other than what i glean from reading a wiki entry and googling for a few minutes (i found out about the position today, and they want an answer very soon).

is that going to put me in a position to go somewhere else in the future? im thinking between that and the RHCE prep courses im enrolled for (i took the first set last semester and did not do bad) i could get familiar with unix/linux and take that elsewhere in a few years.

any input from anyone? again...i really know very little about aix but im somewhat interested in the position.

thanks

 

[Vadatajs]

It would be good for experience, but I would never take an unpaid internship that's full time. What they're asking you to do is work for free.

The reason they can't find anyone to hire is they aren't offering enough for the position.

I'd skip it, stick with the part time internship and go to school full time. You're still gaining experience in the medical IT field; you know what kinds of applications and usage patterns are required.

 

[goobaah442]

Are you getting paid now? Will this job pay you as well? AIX will certainly be better experience than what you are doing now and will hold more weight on a resume if you are wanting to to Linux/Unix work in the future. If you can handle the weight of extra work and still finish school at the same rate, I think its a good idea to take it. If it take just a little bit longer to graduate, it still might be a decent idea. You might find you sit unemployed a little longer waiting for the Linux/Unix job if you have no experience. The medical field is solid and getting experience at the Unix level is probably a great asset. Like you, i know nothing about AIX, but I know HPUX extremely well. They are both very mature products. If working with AIX is anything like HPUX, it is a complete joy to use. It just works and the level of support you get from the software vendors is excellent.

If the company cares about your future there, then you should be able to talk to the AIX team and find out what you will do there. It is in their best interest to hire from within (i.e. your internship) since they will have an extremely good idea about you potential as an employee without having to go through the interview process. So, just ask them if you can talk to the AIX team. They should say yes, with no questions asked.
If you get the position, absorb as much as you can. Learn AIX, learn how it interfaces with the software they use. Most of the day to day maintenance with HPUX/Solaris/AIX/Linux is exactly the same. Each of them have different visualization, clustering, volume management, etc. Logs are in a few different places. Scripting is very similar. If you get the concepts, you will be able to transfer from AIX to Linux or wherever much faster. Banks, governments, large companies, medical organizations use UNIX to run their largest systems in a lot of cases. These systems are sometimes extremely sensitive and are not prone to being outsourced like PC support is. Whether you stick it out for a long time is something you can decide later.

Give it a shot if you can manage.

 

[anthrax]

The shift to AIX would be good. Most place's typically use Unix for "data facing" work loads. This would be very different from your current "client facing" workload work. It will likely give you exposure to:
- Mission critical IT. (typically, UNIX is used for critical system. if the box goes down. there will likely be real company wide impact)
- SAN + Enterprise Storage. (all that data has to go some where)
- backup/business continuality.


As for your worries.
- Out of all the Unix's, AIX is the most admin friendly. It has a very consistent command line set.....most of the commands are. (ls*,ch*,mk*)... If you don't know the command just smit...and the show "F6" command option

- There is a lot of very good AIX / Power System resources out there. Try the following.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/WikiPtype/AIX

 

[xSauronx]

It would be good for experience, but I would never take an unpaid internship that's full time. What they're asking you to do is work for free.

The reason they can't find anyone to hire is they aren't offering enough for the position.

I'd skip it, stick with the part time internship and go to school full time. You're still gaining experience in the medical IT field; you know what kinds of applications and usage patterns are required.

its paid. sorry, i forgot to mention that earlier, im getting paid now and the full time thing would definitely be paid, though im not sure that id get a pay raise right off the top.

Most of the day to day maintenance with HPUX/Solaris/AIX/Linux is exactly the same. Each of them have different visualization, clustering, volume management, etc. Logs are in a few different places. Scripting is very similar. If you get the concepts, you will be able to transfer from AIX to Linux or wherever much faster.

this was my chief concern, and while I expected that would be the answer, i just wanted to verify through some people here. linux/unix admin isnt my first career choice, but it is something ive had an interest in over the last few years and ifigure at the very least it should give me a good stepping stone to get into other places where i may get my hands on something else in the future

The reason they can't find anyone to hire is they aren't offering enough for the position.

this could be. its a non profit hospital so i dont know what the pay grades are exactly, and i dont know what position level they were offering for this as ive never looked at the job posting. some network analyst I positions and other tier 1 IT jobs started at 24 - 34 /hr DOE.

ill see if i can talk to someone on the aix team

thanks, any other input is welcome as i will probably wait until thursday to tell the manager that id like the interview.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I've not played with AIX, but it's still very much in use out there. Both of the major shops I've worked for run HPUX & Solaris for things they can't switch to linux. My advice....think about the opportunity of padding your resume. If you don't like the evironment or low-pay for the internship, you can walk without the formalities of a full time position.

I say go for it and learn as much as you can.

 

[xSauronx]

Manager says the team leader will conduct the interviews but he's out of town, so I have a week or two before an interview and a decision. He did confirm that its only between me and this other intern, however

I'll try to read up on aix some and be crossing my fingers

 

[Crusty]

I think you accidentally a word.

 

[xSauronx]

I think you accidentally a word.

yeah well...thats what i get for posting from a cell phone. i was bored at work

 

[JD50]

Whatever you do go for your RHCE, it's worth a lot of money. At least up here in the Baltimore/DC area.

 

[xSauronx]

Whatever you do go for your RHCE, it's worth a lot of money. At least up here in the Baltimore/DC area.

yeah...i want to move to raleigh at some point in the future i think, as well, so...redhat kind of has an office there :hmm:

 

[ultimatebob]

AIX is a good skill to learn. Most of the commands translate over to other versions of UNIX as well, as long as you're not using smit for everything.

 

[xSauronx]

Ok, have yet to have an interview. Have not heard anything at all. Should I check in with the manager about it to see if something changed/express interest again? Or just keep waiting and leave it alone?

 

[ch33zw1z]

I recommend going for it. AIX experience definitely will look good on a resume. You can find documentation on IBM's website, good bathroom reading Working with POWER systems > Supporting PC's, IMO