You must be joking mate. DSG are doing a good job of supporting a system that needs to be redesigned from scratch. The old analogy springs to mind. - it doesn't matter how long you polish a turd, it's still a turd. I only fear that we (the MOD) have given EDS the easy option of giving us a DII/FD which is just a souped up JOCS. I know that the 2003 variant works well at a certain place, but it's still stovepiped. They seem to have a hang-up about retaining Unix for security reasons, but I feel that it's really because their main contractors are actually SMEs in Unix! We can't have the military guys stealing their overtime eh? Cynic...Moi?

Originally Posted by chocolate_frog

Maybe the TA Sigs should look at dual trading them. ICS Op CEQ, IS Eng EQ. Then they could be called up as IS Engs.

If they are in the job already then they probably wouldn't need much traing.

Cheap, easy and another problem solved.

My bold

Or, as was the case with me and two others from my sqn who were mobilised for Telic 2, no training at all because you work in IT and therefore are an expert on W2K admin etc despite the fact that only one of you actually works in a techie role in your normal job !

Having said that the people who work in IT as a whole are usually quite intelligent and so could pick things up quite quickly, course or no course.

Some of us may have the people skills of a rabid dog of course, but what do you expect if people spend all day in front of keyboards muttering about refs, cursors and arrays :D

^You got a course out of it.

Apologies, you are right I did. Halfway through the tour I was sent on a 3 day JOCS administrators course learning how to create users, run backups and the like. Almost timely but as I worked on JOCS for about 15/20 days max not that much use in the long run.

I suppose I should expand on my previous post. My point was really that we were called up because we had vaguely IT related jobs not because we had the particular skills required.

Having said that I have sympathy for the people we ended up deploying with as they didn't know what they were getting either and so had to greet our contingent at the airport with something along the lines of "Welcome to Basrah, if you think you are here because of your IT skills please make yourself known to Q ****** and let him know what your skills are".

I am sure that were things to happen at a slower pace, it was 10 days from arriving at Chilwell to being in theatre, there could/would have been some analysis done and people could have got some relevant training under their belt before deploying, even if that was simply shadowing someone in Bulford for a cpl of days.

Personally I think the idea of dual trading TA is a good idea for those that have the aptitude (although that doesn't mean I am ready to leave my switch behind and change trades completely). I think a grounding in network admin and the server side of things would be the way to go if this were to happen, as in my experience this takes less time to become competent in than the intricacies of of the 7 layer model, IP routing, Cisco commands etc and it would be easier to maintain currency.

Originally Posted by PoisonDwarf

I only fear that we (the MOD) have given EDS the easy option of giving us a DII/FD which is just a souped up JOCS.

PD - Give me a bell at work. I've news on this front. Shouldnt really be discussed on open forum as its still Commercial as far as i'm aware.

Originally Posted by boney_m

PD - Give me a bell at work. I've news on this front. Shouldnt really be discussed on open forum as its still Commercial as far as i'm aware.

You're right. Those big companies love to cry foul if commercial 'need to know' is ever leaked. Mind you, all these comments are blatant wild-arsed speculation (i.e. not based on commercial info) and, at the end of the day, we'll get what we're given. And if it's like the last piece of rubbish but painted black, new version of OS and more LEDs then we'll still make it work. I bet it still has lots of wierd little things that only the civvies have the "special skills" to fix. You wouldn't expect them to loosen the reigns on their cash-cow!

Originally Posted by PoisonDwarf

You wouldn't expect them to loosen the reigns on their cash-cow!

Absolutely not mate. Jocs has been a massive self licking lollypop for bloody years - It'd be hard to give that baby up.

You could always try and get yourself on the early deployed demonstrator programme to have some opportunity for some input into the system design and a voice about your concerns. I have the contact details.

What's going on with J2CSP then? JOCS will be around for another couple of years, and there's plenty of stuff going on behind the scenes.

Don't forget there are other areas than defence that will value the skills or clearances that you hold - MOD is nearly bankrupt when it comes to contracting work out.

Originally Posted by IDONTNEEDAHAIRCUT

I think a grounding in network admin and the server side of things would be the way to go if this were to happen, as in my experience this takes less time to become competent in than the intricacies of of the 7 layer model, IP routing, Cisco commands etc and it would be easier to maintain currency.

Thanks for the more detailed explanation of your experiences.

It seems I was correct to assume the main arena was network admin. The Cisco comments and Promina indicates may unit has equipment that has real training value (its not 7 or 16). It might be better to encourage ours operators/techs to do promina, cisco and Windows admin courses than waste them on little value BOWMAN courses.

Originally Posted by TA_sig

What's going on with J2CSP then? JOCS will be around for another couple of years, and there's plenty of stuff going on behind the scenes.

Its a pity our regt YofS wasn't around when you asked (me) for volunteers, I think he will have understood the benefit of your request (to the corps - all types) - instead I had to talk to non comms RSigs people - frustrating to say the least.