Taranjit Sarang's Work Terms

4th Work Term 

About Brock Solutions:

My 4th Work Term had me working with Brock Solutions Inc.

Brock Solutions is an engineering solutions and professional services company specializing in the design, build and implementation of real-time solutions for broad-based industrial / manufacturing and transportation/logistics organizations globally. With over 800 employees around the world, Brock Solutions is a privately held, employee-owned organization with over 30 years in the real-time solutions space.

My Term:

This was my first work term with Brock Solutions. When I was hired with Brock I applied for the role of Desktop support specialist, which would cover a wide variety of front-facing IT issues. This had me completing front-facing technology tasks. This includes but is not limited to responding to user inquiries, diagnosing and resolving technical issues, providing software and hardware installations, Systems administration, and documentation of these processes. But as They like to say here they have no titles and I experienced this genuinely firsthand. My initial role had nothing to do with Cyber security yet I found my way to dip my toes into that once I suggested as such. I found it really fun and interesting to work within the environment of cyber security as I had no experience with it firsthand as it is a growing industry and requirement in the modern world its key that I got some experience within it and now could shift my focus to include this. My previous experiences were not like this whatsoever. Like I had no control over the things I was doing but here I felt I controlled my environment and my input allowed me to experience new challenges. An Interesting Project I Took Part in was that of Device compliance to security policy. To sum it up in a short amount of time, We have placed rules within Intune, our endpoint management system and to meet certain external security compliance requirements we must have all devices adhere to certain policies it appeared as though slightly more than 5 percent of our devices were not meeting those requirements. It was my job to investigate, remediate, and execute the solution found across these end-user devices. The compliance policy I dedicated my time towards was the OS Build Requirement which would need your device to be lined up with the most up-to-date Windows Build. I was able to determine that older devices that had been imagined in the old system had remained with registry keys that would not accept Windows update ring policies. From there I was able to develop a PowerShell script that could be pushed out to users to remediate this issue. This also got me learning about scripting, Code signing signatures, and deployment of Powershell and executables. After this, we saw the rate drop from 5% to lower than 1%

Goal Setting 

Goal 1:

Enhance my literacy within the scope of Networking, VMware, and cyber security environments to increase my familiarity with the systems in place at a high level

I successfully enhanced my knowledge of networking protocols, VMware configurations, and cybersecurity best practices through hands-on experience and training sessions. This has made me more adept at identifying and resolving issues within these domains. From our network specialist, I was able to collect a vast understanding of how our network is laid out here and how it operates. In relation to this would be the disaster recovery learning about the interactions between that networking and our procedures that let us fail over fairly well. For soft skills I explored the use of the engineering process, and how it can actually be applied in real-life scenarios

Goal 2:

Enhance my written communication skills to effectively convey technical information, collaborate with colleagues, and assist users.

During my term, I learned the importance of good documentation and processes as I mentioned on the previous slide. It serves multiple purposes. Documentation ensures that ensures that all team members follow the same procedures and standards, leading to consistent and reliable support for users. It works really well for new team members as they have something to go off of which is why I feel I was able to so well adapt to this environment here. As such it gave me more time to pursue other endeavors while working here. It reduces the time spent on troubleshooting recurring issues, allowing the team to focus on more complex problems. And for processes well it makes it easier to track where things went wrong or could potentially go wrong. By documenting my work thoroughly, I help the entire team work more efficiently, as they can rely on these records to resolve issues quickly and consistently

Goal 3:

Develop a comprehensive understanding of the global IT landscape, including industry trends, emerging technologies, and cultural differences.

Due to the rapid pace of technological advancements and limited exposure to certain areas, I feel there is still much to learn about specific technologies and cultural aspects of global IT. Although I was able to participate in Disscuiossons and "Lunch and Learn" sessions that were in a similar vein rather than geared towards the progress of the IT landscape globally, it was more focused on our industry of Airline Processes 

3rd Work Term

About AS Systems Consultants:

My third work term was completed with A&S Systems consultants.
They provide IT support and consulting to various businesses across Ontario. They have branched into multiple industries including pharmaceutical, manufacturing, insurance, and auto. They offer top-of-the-line support to any IT-related query providing cloud services, security, and consulting on how companies can focus on being businesses rather than managing their Tech concerns. 

My Term:

While I returned to the same place of work as my first 2 work terms I was able to change my role within the company over the course of a few months. While previously working in strictly Ticket handling and IT service providing the company found a need for a similar but more individual and initiative-focused application in a project management role. This found me focused a lot on the wants and needs of the companies we work for as well as the companies' own desires to expand their business. The company required that I problem-solve and communicate with customers regarding IT-related issues maximizing the number of tickets to create efficient service to end users while also adopting this new role. In this new role, I would be given tasks directly from my boss and spread this workflow to the rest of the staff in order to keep things organized. I was asked to isolate and troubleshoot problem trends to find permanent solutions to recurring problems within the environments. The position was mainly from home working over various communication platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. I also spent time documenting problems and solutions so that the team would have the resources for future reference. This allowed me to get suited in very well as they provided me with the information necessary to complete tasks that had already sprung up in the past. In all, I learned a lot about the IT Industry which I potentially see myself going into in the future.

Goal 1:

As I have taken on the new role of project management I think it is critical for me to understand the steps of its methodologies. One key to this process is stakeholder identification, and I wish to improve upon this.

My game plan for this goal was to ensure I listened and understood why my boss was telling me to contact certain individuals and figure out what they were needed for and who overall the whole process would affect. I was, unfortunately, unable to do this piece of the learning experience as I found it difficult to balance the new style with the previous work term. I still rely heavily on the boss to guide me with whom to contact within our various companies along with outside help beyond the staff. This is something I hope to improve at my next job as I feel it is key to success on my own. So for the next steps, the hope is to gauge further the reasons behind certain decisions made by users and clients with regards to their needs.

Goal 2:

Continually enhance my knowledge and skills in various technical areas such as network infrastructure.

This goal would be attained by completing my everyday work at the company which included dealing with network infrastructure and understanding the ways it operates. In the work terms, I managed a few email migrations which helped in this regard while setting up SMTP Links, I feel I have made significant progress towards this learning goal as I have effectively tackled plenty of scenarios regarding networking. I am also taking a networking course this fall that should aid in this process further.

Goal 3:

Keep in touch with the environment of the IT world along with its new developments and solutions.

My boss has provided me with multiple outlets for keeping up with the IT world. I am now planning to attend a few conferences in the upcoming years to hopefully get a better grasp on the environment itself. One of these conferences is the ASCII group conference which brings MSPs together, which I hope to attend next year.