Some general technology/networking questions :)

[dcclanuk]

I have got an Assessment Centre for a company, and it is for a Technology role. To cut it short. This is the only company I applied to for Tech, all other companies were accountancy companies.

Now I could talk to them about my knowledge of torrents, and maybe even try and seed from their data centre, at possibly 100gb speeds. (I dunno what their servers are, but they must be pretty good!)

In either case, I would not get the job, or be kicked out, so to the important stuff.

What is (in concise, simple english) the following things:

Voice and Data Networks (not too hard this one, kind of know, but still)
Market Data
Database & Middleware
Distributed, Midrange and Mainframe
Underlying support including; Problem and Change Management; Risk and Project Management; Financial and Client Relationship Management.

Just a brief summary on what it is please. Yes I know of google, but thought some ppl here would be better able to help me understand, and possibly answer any q's that may arise...

So HELP if u can... PLEASE

I really do want this job if I can get it, as a career in Technology seems quite fascinating....

Problem is, that there is no "quick" explanation of some of them.

For example, Database & Middleware are completely different things, and Problem, Change, Risk, and Project Management are all skills in their own right.

If you try and bluff on these, you will quickly (imho) get blown out of the water.

btw, I have experience in all of the things mentioned, but I have been in IT 28 years.

When is the meeting/interview?

[dcclanuk]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Problem is, that there is no "quick" explanation of some of them.

For example, Database & Middleware are completely different things, and Problem, Change, Risk, and Project Management are all skills in their own right.

If you try and bluff on these, you will quickly (imho) get blown out of the water.

btw, I have experience in all of the things mentioned, but I have been in IT 28 years.

When is the meeting/interview?

Thanks for your reply.

I am applying for a summer internship at a BIG investment bank. They know I have no IT background, ie no GCSE/A LEVEL/Degree in IT.

I am in my second year of a Maths with Economics Degree infact. Therefore asking around, I heard they dont ask too many technical questions. However, the job involves the things as posted in my first post, so I thought it would be nice to have a brief idea as to what they are.

It is an Assessment Centre, and will last from 8.30am to 5pm this Thursday. Full details of what the AC will consist of will be sent to me on Monday I have been told.

Really, your best bet is Google, but I would try and just aim for an overview, where all of those fit into a frame work of Information Technology, such as:-
Voice and Data Networks (not too hard this one, kind of know, but still)
Communications between nodes on a network, and those nodes can range from very large switches to single PCs, and the management and optimisation of those links.

Market Data
Info from companies like Bloomberg which allow the Traders to have up to the second info, to inform their buying/selling decisions

Database & Middleware
Database - Where the information is in logical structured format, such as Oracle, SQL, DB2.
Middleware - a means of passing information from one system to another, often involving validation and transformation; this used to be quite unstructured, but lately tool-sets from companies have become available to produce this, such as Tibco, BEA, IBM and others.

Distributed, Midrange and Mainframe
Types of Computing Systems, but the terms are merging more and more, as midrange become as powerful as some mainframes, but in summary, Distributed is where the processing is shared amongst a number of machines, Midrange is what the name implies, medium sized machines, and Mainframe are the big mothers that do heavy processing.

Underlying support including; Problem and Change Management; Risk and Project Management; Financial and Client Relationship Management.
These are just too long to explain (succinctly) in a forum, but I will try -
Problem Management - assessing and managing and resolving any issues that arise within a system or service, and communicating those issues and resolutions.
Change Management (which should include Capacity and Configuration Management) - assessing and manageing the impact of any changes to a system or service.
Risk Management (which includes Issue and Dependency Management) - assessing, managing and mitigating any issues/risks/dependencies which may affect the work you are undertaking.
Project Management - agreeing deliverables, resources, budgets, timescales, and communicating these and managing them to post-project review.
Financial Management (also known as budget management)
Client Relationship Management (also known as account management, or it could be CRM, which is Customer Relationship Management, which is another beast altogether). Talking to the customer, finding out their requirements, taking that info back to the team/suppliers, and agreeing a solution that meets their requirements (in an ideal world). It's about communication and managing expectations, but also knowing their business.

Hope that helps.

[Tricky]

From experience of running and attending AC's you'll probably find the following format:
1) A Group excercise to see how you perform in a group given a challenge/problem to discuss (30-60 minutes)
2) A presentation - Subject might be given before the AC but rarely (15 Min prep and 30 min delivery)
3) Tests - Numerical / Verbal reasoning (15 - 30 mins each)
4) Interview at which point the above will come in to play. (1 hour)

[dcclanuk]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Really, your best bet is Google, but I would try and just aim for an overview, where all of those fit into a frame work of Information Technology, such as:-
<snip>

Thanks for that, chk ur PM

---------- Post added at 20:16 ---------- Previous post was at 20:13 ----------

Originally Posted by Tricky

From experience of running and attending AC's you'll probably find the following format:
3) Tests - Numerical / Verbal reasoning (15 - 30 mins each)
4) Interview at which point the above will come in to play. (1 hour)

Yes, there should be a numerical test, and an interview for sure.

Probably a group exercise too, but should find out about that on Monday I guess