Weblogic et al
Hi Guys,
Nov 13,
I have some mixed news to tell you. lets start off on a positive note. So guys let me tell you that I wont be doing any coding for at the next one year. Free unlimited edible food and snacks
And the bad new is that I am back to a call center. Back to shifts, loss of sleep and home drops and pickups that take longer than a DTC bus ride. I will also have 24 hr internet access with machines that have no floppy drives.
Organizational grapevine is a great thing and somehow we got the hint even before the news was made official. So my group headed to the HR dept to protest. I was a silent spectator as the events unfolded.
The HR lady did a good job of trying to convince non believers that we were getting heaven. No one was convinced and one of the chaps(It was not me) jumped the gun and actually said that he did not want to go to the said project. The HR very politely reminded us that beggers are not choosers. The details are funny but I wont go further for obvious reasons.
Now three guys out six assigned to the MECA(Mobile and e-comm) group were to go to the said project. We were to have a meeting with the PM who would have been the final authority. We decided to bring out the worst in each of us. The first guy Suresh an MTech from ISI calcutta did a fantastic job at that. In response to the question, "what is unique about you?" the chap thought for two minutes and said nothing.
Then it was me. I tried to look awful but then you know how attractive I am. The magnetism of my previous experience worked and i was an automatic choice. Then there was Chandan Chatterjee another BIS guy from DU. In response to the uniqueness questions he said that I am always happy and never crib. The PM just stared at him and responded, "let us see".
So with a heavy heart we said good bye to the old friends and the good time we had building our TT DOT NET skills. I jus could not stop thinking about the days when we did nothing. The good old days when . . .
It was so painful but then we decided to move ahead. Headed to the new eServe building. And the first look was enough. From the state of the art sec 24 building we had reached a call center. Then what followed was more shocking.
We met everyone and the seniors told us about the job. We were to provided support to the BEA customers using Weblogic as an application server. For all those computer not savvys I will do a bit of explaining. All the websites are hosted on a webserver. Commercial sites like hotmail or a shopping site needs to be running 24 by 7, 365 days without break. Even small glitches could be catastrophic. So apart from being extremely stable the sites needs to take care of complex issues like security and load balancing which can be crucial esp when millions of users across the whole world access your system. This part of the story is usually handled by webservers which is more commonly known as Application servers. Most of these servers are mission critical and expert techies man them at all point of time.
Now these experts being humans are far from perfect. These guys like you and me often make mistakes. And I will provide support to such @#%& who wont do their job well enough. Now the webservers is a very very wide topic and mastering it requires a lot of time. But then mastering the ins and outs of Weblogic servers is not good enough for my job. You need to know more. Weblogic is Java technology specific and often the errors and bugs lie in the source code itself so in such cases you need to know a list of other things. The list is pretty long but you can start off by knowing a few things like JSP, servlets, RMI, Networking and EJBs.
If that was not enough more was to follow. The guy who will be our mentor gave us all this information and then he said that we get a three week training before we go on to the sever admin stuff. As if all this was not enough he went for the final assault. With perfect timing he said that he will be in-charge of the three week self-study training program. (his exact words)
We met more guys. One just gave us a list of mistakes he made. The list of his advice was long. Seeing all the concern that was being poured on us was moving. In the midst of all this I met one bright face. It was none other than our good old Nitin's pune wali Pooja. Her enthusiasm was infectious but somehow I was not infected, perhaps because Pooja is leaving in two days.
Right now I am having day shifts. So I have to leave about 6 in the morning. I don't want to give you sleepless nights so I wont' give the details of when I return home.
The next few days are going to be pretty interesting and I will keep you updated. But then there is a problem. I just realised the feelings of a thirsty man stranded in the sea. I have 24 hrs internet access. Can even download music but somehow my machines don't have a floppy drive. So if you think that I suck blood by my mails then think of what you have been spared and say "THANK GOD".
Take care,
Shijo
Nov 13,
I have some mixed news to tell you. lets start off on a positive note. So guys let me tell you that I wont be doing any coding for at the next one year. Free unlimited edible food and snacks
And the bad new is that I am back to a call center. Back to shifts, loss of sleep and home drops and pickups that take longer than a DTC bus ride. I will also have 24 hr internet access with machines that have no floppy drives.
Organizational grapevine is a great thing and somehow we got the hint even before the news was made official. So my group headed to the HR dept to protest. I was a silent spectator as the events unfolded.
The HR lady did a good job of trying to convince non believers that we were getting heaven. No one was convinced and one of the chaps(It was not me) jumped the gun and actually said that he did not want to go to the said project. The HR very politely reminded us that beggers are not choosers. The details are funny but I wont go further for obvious reasons.
Now three guys out six assigned to the MECA(Mobile and e-comm) group were to go to the said project. We were to have a meeting with the PM who would have been the final authority. We decided to bring out the worst in each of us. The first guy Suresh an MTech from ISI calcutta did a fantastic job at that. In response to the question, "what is unique about you?" the chap thought for two minutes and said nothing.
Then it was me. I tried to look awful but then you know how attractive I am. The magnetism of my previous experience worked and i was an automatic choice. Then there was Chandan Chatterjee another BIS guy from DU. In response to the uniqueness questions he said that I am always happy and never crib. The PM just stared at him and responded, "let us see".
So with a heavy heart we said good bye to the old friends and the good time we had building our TT DOT NET skills. I jus could not stop thinking about the days when we did nothing. The good old days when . . .
It was so painful but then we decided to move ahead. Headed to the new eServe building. And the first look was enough. From the state of the art sec 24 building we had reached a call center. Then what followed was more shocking.
We met everyone and the seniors told us about the job. We were to provided support to the BEA customers using Weblogic as an application server. For all those computer not savvys I will do a bit of explaining. All the websites are hosted on a webserver. Commercial sites like hotmail or a shopping site needs to be running 24 by 7, 365 days without break. Even small glitches could be catastrophic. So apart from being extremely stable the sites needs to take care of complex issues like security and load balancing which can be crucial esp when millions of users across the whole world access your system. This part of the story is usually handled by webservers which is more commonly known as Application servers. Most of these servers are mission critical and expert techies man them at all point of time.
Now these experts being humans are far from perfect. These guys like you and me often make mistakes. And I will provide support to such @#%& who wont do their job well enough. Now the webservers is a very very wide topic and mastering it requires a lot of time. But then mastering the ins and outs of Weblogic servers is not good enough for my job. You need to know more. Weblogic is Java technology specific and often the errors and bugs lie in the source code itself so in such cases you need to know a list of other things. The list is pretty long but you can start off by knowing a few things like JSP, servlets, RMI, Networking and EJBs.
If that was not enough more was to follow. The guy who will be our mentor gave us all this information and then he said that we get a three week training before we go on to the sever admin stuff. As if all this was not enough he went for the final assault. With perfect timing he said that he will be in-charge of the three week self-study training program. (his exact words)
We met more guys. One just gave us a list of mistakes he made. The list of his advice was long. Seeing all the concern that was being poured on us was moving. In the midst of all this I met one bright face. It was none other than our good old Nitin's pune wali Pooja. Her enthusiasm was infectious but somehow I was not infected, perhaps because Pooja is leaving in two days.
Right now I am having day shifts. So I have to leave about 6 in the morning. I don't want to give you sleepless nights so I wont' give the details of when I return home.
The next few days are going to be pretty interesting and I will keep you updated. But then there is a problem. I just realised the feelings of a thirsty man stranded in the sea. I have 24 hrs internet access. Can even download music but somehow my machines don't have a floppy drive. So if you think that I suck blood by my mails then think of what you have been spared and say "THANK GOD".
Take care,
Shijo
Comments