The University at Albany’s informatics students are offered “Careers in IT” sessions during the first week of May to get input on Information Technology careers.

The Enterprise Infrastructure Services session took place Tuesday, May 1^st at 11 am in ITB 108.

“ITS is broken into many different departments,” says Brian Heaton, director of Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS).

Enterprise Infrastructure Services is one of those departments. It helps provide UAlbany with administrative and business services, teaching and learning services, research services, security services, communication and collaboration services, and end-point computing services.

EIS supporting services include a data center, network (and network access), storage, service infrastructure, database, monitoring, middleware, and platform/systems development.

As for network services, EIS provides access to the network. This includes Wi-Fi for faculty, staff, students, and for guests on campus. However, the Wi-Fi isn’t perfect everywhere on campus yet.

“If you’re in the tunnels, your Wi-Fi is probably pretty sketchy,” says Mr. Heaton.

“The internet connection used to be really bad here, maybe only a year and a half ago… metal walls [for example], all kinds of factors mess up Wi-Fi signals,” he said.

“We’re hoping to improve the way guests login [for Wi-Fi]," he added.

Mr. Heaton further explained data center services, network services, and platform services to the students.

Students asked questions about obtaining a career in IT and how their degrees impact their chances of landing an IT job.

Mr. Heaton informed the students that while they usually don’t hire people without prior experience, the specific major has never been meaningful in IT. Instead, a person’s skills are what are meaningful.