Hey ​@AndrePulia -

I guess the first question is...what technologies do you think you lack in? For example, do you think you need to dive deeper into Linux? If so, I can wholeheartedly recommend trainings on Pluralsight by Andrew Mallett. For hypervisors...I’ve dove into XCP-ng the past several mos and have enjoyed it. Is it perfect? No. Better than VMW? No...but a worthy product for SMBs imo. It appears SMBs are diving into Proxmox too. So that may be another h/v to look at. Those are just some of my suggestions. If I think of anything else...I’ll share it. Good luck! 🙂

This is very subjective and there will be many answers.  What technology are you passionate about?  That might help to start narrowing the focus down.  Is there something you focus on daily and want to learn more about or in the case of something like VMware VCF 9 there are many paths you can follow here with all the applications within the suite.

I myself am getting more into Kubernetes due to us deploying VCF9 and that will lead me in to working more with Kasten which I have not as yet so need to start learning that.

This is a broad path so narrowing it down can be hard but technologies you use daily or are passionate about can be expanded.

Preface: noone can replace 10.000x FTE from VirtZilla from 0 to Hero. They did -something- and its therefore its valueable. The big question - who needs the “Bells and Whistles”. I see two trends here: 

• 1 / Cloud native NEW software development will run sooner or later on K8s - might be very questionable for e.g. RDBMS, but it is like it is - the market has spoken
• 2 / Who needs the “Bells & Whistles” from VirtZilla - imo XCP-NG and Proxmox are very much on the rise out of very good reasons

I had this question before and I felt I had a good knowledge on vSphere/Hyper-v and Windows in general, so I redirect my studies to Cloud. This was 3 years ago and now I fell I have a good knowledge on AWS and Azure.
So, for me was basically a combination of Shane and Chris answers. I lacked the knowledge on Cloud and also I like the subject, so it was a easy choice.

Also it depends on what is easier to access to study. Cloud was easy because you can just create an account and test it. Althought it costs money, it's easier to start.
But with Nutanix, for example, it's more complicated to create a lab because it demands a lot of resources.

Hi ​@AndrePulia 

Although many people are talking about abandoning VMware, its solutions will continue to exist for a long time to come, given the reliability that the virtualisation platform has achieved over the last 20 years.

It also depends a lot on the market you work with. If it's small or medium-sized businesses, they may be more inclined to save money, but you have to see where to migrate. For me, Proxmox is not yet ready to welcome my customers. If someone asks me... then I'll take them there.

I think here in Italy, the SMB market is still uncertain and has a small budget, so they try to find something cheap, but I can guarantee you that they look for savings on other items and not so much on the hypervisor (at least my clients do).

Personally, I’m growing my skills in the Azure world. 

My 2 cents. 

On-premises: Proxmox, the numbers show it is rapidly gaining market share (at least what we see with people using Veeam)

OpenShift and / or OpenStack are getting a lot of attention in EU.

Public cloud side mostly it’s Azure / AWS, so dealer’s choice

Kubernetes isn’t a bad bet, but it tends to be a situation of “you either need Kubernetes and become a guru” or “you don’t need Kubernetes and you end up confused why anyone would bother with all the work”

Learning how to work with containers is never a bad thing, and imo separate item entirely that should be learned in conjunction with whatever other platform you want to learn.

But biggest thing is having some outcome for learning I think, as you can “learn” public cloud conceptually for example, but until you have to work a project that is built on the public cloud all those concepts probably won’t ‘click’ well, at least that’s how it goes for me. It’s why on-premises systems I think are a bit easier to pick up because you have fairly practical guidelines on what your project will be based on your available hardware, and messing up a a deployment usually just costs time instead of time + money like with public clouds

You might try your hand at automation additionally (scripting, REST); no matter what you work on infrastructure wise, learning to automate and understanding how to understand / troubleshoot your automation logic is a skill that crosses platforms and will always be a bonus -- learning a new API is usually just learning what endpoints you need and the data structures once you understand how to build a workflow

VMware isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and I’m actually pretty excited for VCF 9 and the rollout coming up. My plan is to complete training on that first while also looking for ways to shrink our footprint, likely moving toward a hybrid model using a second hypervisor to help manage costs.

Any new Veeam training is always worth doing too! 😀

For anyone young and starting out in IT today, I’d strongly suggest diving into cloud, AI, security, and other fast-growing areas. Try to learn a bit about each to keep yourself employable long-term and avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

Having been in the industry for a while, I approach learning a bit differently now. I focus on three things:

1. Enjoyment – If I’m not interested in it, I won’t learn it well or enjoy the work.

2. Practical use – If I can apply it at work or in real projects, that’s a huge plus.

3. Value – If it’s not something I’ll use daily, it needs to offer real personal or professional benefits to justify the time.

And regardless of where you are in your career, security is never a bad choice. The landscape changes constantly, but one thing will always remain true - our data must be protected.

​@Scott I like the #1 most. :-) enjoyment  is always gives you motivation to keep your determination. you are right.