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adorai posted:You need a lab to test things in. When I want to test some kind of routing change I will plug a few routers or spin up a few vyatta instances to play with first. It doesn't take long to do generally. Even with testing, eventually you are going to gently caress up and cause some kind of outage. Everyone does at some point. The trick is to minimize the impact. I've always thought it would be pretty great (albeit pretty drat impractical) to make a mirror of the production network setup in GNS3 and run all changes through that first. It assumes you are running all Cisco and that you mainly just need to confirm actual network changes rather than lots of client-side stuff, but still. Also then again I'm not actually a network engineer and this is all just fever dreams of a front-line MSP tech.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:50
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evil_bunnY posted:Also that drunk story needs telling. TL;DR bitch employee with a history of making poo poo up at Wal-Mart makes up story about me being drunk, management doesn't even do the most cursory of investigation before threatening to fire me. My last job was with a third-party service company whose primary account was with FujiFilm. In 2008 Wal-Mart decided to upgrade their computer equipment in all of their one-hour photo labs nationwide. The project varied from store to store depending on how old the equipment was; some stores got all new computers/photo kiosks whereas others got some hardware upgraded on their IBM server but all of them got new software loaded - this took the bulk of the time and if something went wrong you'd end up having to start over from scratch. It wasn't unheard of for people to spend 5-6 days at one store. The store the "GeoJ showed up drunk two days in a row" happened at was one of the "mostly new equipment, install a new network card and additional RAM in the server and reload all the software" I had made several calls early in the week to tell them I would be in around 9 AM and asked for them to finish all of their outstanding orders and shut down their kiosks the night before so I could get started first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, the day before I started they had a PM call and the technician who did the PM was used to seeing three or four pallets of new equipment (this store had one) and told them they wouldn't be getting the upgrade that week and they could disregard my call and open the next day like normal. I showed up just before 9 to find the lab in full production and several customers still using the kiosks. The result was a two hour delay on getting started. The objective on the first day was to get the server loaded so it could go online and pull the "product catalog," mostly templates for greeting cards, calendars, etc. that averaged about 10 hours to pull. If the server was restarted at any point it would restart the download from the beginning, so after loading it you could not touch it, but to finish there were a few software packages that had to be installed that also required reboots. So I ended up staying onsite until just after 11 PM and finsihed everything other than the software that required reboots and paperwork. I advised the lab manager that afternoon that I was planning on staying late and since the store was about 2 hours away from where I lived I would probably be in around 10:30 the next day. I came back the next day at around quarter to 11 and finished out the software install on the server and had the lab resume production. Everything seemed to have gone smoothly and everyone at the store was happy with the outcome. Fast forward to the next week; I get a call from my manager who then conferences me in with the regional manager and an HR rep. They told me I was being fired. When I asked why they said a lab associate from the store had called in and claimed that I had "shown up at 1 PM on the first day smelling of liquor, left around 3:30 and then came back on the second day at noon, admitted that I had been out drinking all night and was still half-drunk and hung over and left at 1:30." I was a bit shocked and asked if anything about that story seemed false, considering the usual amount of time the project took and if they truly believed that it was possible for someone to finish in four hours, much less if they were intoxicated? They ended up retracting the "you're fired" after the HR rep pinned my manager and his boss to the wall with "wait - you were going to fire him without even getting his side of the story first?" The kicker was the woman who called in to complain about me wasn't even there either day I was, and had a track record of calling in and lodging complaints against people that were entirely fabicated.
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Nov 11, 2013 21:00
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lol internet. posted:Hmmm never heard of Vyatta. Does it emulate Cisco IOS? What sort of advantages does it have over GNS.
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Nov 11, 2013 21:10
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Odd question: How soon is too soon to ask a prospective employer to see their server room, etc? Some places have been very secretive and some places I've interviewed will give you a frickin' tour on your first or second interview. What I'm trying to avoid is not seeing some massive rats nest of cables, racks chock full of 9-year old equipment, desktop Tetris, or half a rack of APC UPS's with the red warning lights lit up until 2 weeks on the job.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:28
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If they are at the point in an interview where they are asking "any questions" etc then I think it's perfectly acceptable to want to see the environment you'll be dealing with. As long as you aren't trying to take photos I can't see them minding.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:34
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Bob Morales posted:Odd question: How soon is too soon to ask a prospective employer to see their server room, etc? I do it on the first interview if given the chance. The hard part is in not laughing or swearing at the horrible mess I usually find.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:57
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:This is geared to anyone; I've been going over this in my head over the years. Quite honestly, I don't know what else I'd like to do. I do wish I would have continued my education so I'd at least have a degree. At this point, I'm starting to think about getting into Nursing. Yeah, I'd still have to put up with bullshit, but at least I'd be getting paid better. If I did, I'd probably go to another hospital. If I worked here, I'd get bombarded left and right with people trying to get me to fix poo poo.
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Nov 11, 2013 23:21
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Bob Morales posted:Odd question: How soon is too soon to ask a prospective employer to see their server room, etc? The two enterprise level places I've interviewed with and ended up working at both offered to show me the server rooms, although I think if I were doing the interviewing, my answer to that question would be heavily dependent on how much I was sold on the candidate. If you asked me, and I said yes and showed you the data center/server room, you're pretty much going to get the job. YMMV
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Nov 11, 2013 23:50
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penga86 posted:The two enterprise level places I've interviewed with and ended up working at both offered to show me the server rooms, although I think if I were doing the interviewing, my answer to that question would be heavily dependent on how much I was sold on the candidate. If you asked me, and I said yes and showed you the data center/server room, you're pretty much going to get the job. YMMV Was shown the server room last week in an interview, they offered. Wasn't too impressed but I do have a second interview tomorrow when they said initially I should expect to hear back in two weeks.
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Nov 12, 2013 01:39
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The most depressing thing is when they offer to show you a server room and then you get shown a retrofitted broom closet or office with inadequate cooling and a filthy carpet, accented by a massive tangle of cables. Bonus points for desktop PCs being used as domain controllers or something.
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Nov 12, 2013 01:59
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Bob Morales posted:Odd question: How soon is too soon to ask a prospective employer to see their server room, etc? I'd be sure to ask before salary negotiations. My current gig has 1 esxi host running like 4 VM's which if all go down we can go to O365 for the poo poo, it's just there because ISO's n poo poo are much easier to get over a 1/gbps connection vs. 20mbps
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Nov 12, 2013 02:08
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Martytoof posted:The most depressing thing is when they offer to show you a server room and then you get shown a retrofitted broom closet or office with inadequate cooling and a filthy carpet, accented by a massive tangle of cables. Oh boy do I got something to show you when I go back to work tomorrow.
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Nov 12, 2013 02:23
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I'm at a loss as to what to do next in my IT career. I've got my CCNA, Net & A+, one of the beginner VCP certs, and my ACSP. I'm really interested in virtualization and storage but get NO hands on experience with it at work since we run nothing but old outdated crappy servers running Novell junk. I've got an EMC and VM book that I'm reading through and starting to piece together a home lab for myself but I don't know how to use that knowledge and apply it towards a new, better job. I've got the motivation and am learning this stuff but it seems like I have very few chances to ever actually use it. All the places I apply for want experience and I can't list my home lab setup as relevant work experience when its a non work environment. Did most of you just get this stuff dropped on you and were forced to sink or swim? That would almost be a nice change of pace from the normal front line helpdesk stuff that I'm still stuck doing.
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Nov 12, 2013 03:28
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I need to learn how to use Windows command line for networking, are there any good tutorials with exercises out there? There's a few exercises in my study guide, but I've always been terrible at using the command line without also using google.
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Nov 12, 2013 03:34
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bluediamondalmonds posted:I'm at a loss as to what to do next in my IT career. I've got my CCNA, Net & A+, one of the beginner VCP certs, and my ACSP. I'm really interested in virtualization and storage but get NO hands on experience with it at work since we run nothing but old outdated crappy servers running Novell junk. I've got an EMC and VM book that I'm reading through and starting to piece together a home lab for myself but I don't know how to use that knowledge and apply it towards a new, better job. A good way to do this is by looking at what you are learning in your lab and how it can be applied in a given real world situation. Okay you have crappy novell servers? If your boss walked in and said "I want these virtualized" How would you go about doing it? Could you do that in a lab? You have a use case open to your advantage, maybe you don't get the boss to say "Go virtualize our poo poo bluediamondalmonds" but aleast you've been able to apply some real world scenarios to your lab work. The technical pieces of a lab on how to are just as important as the "what does Product/Feature solve for in the real world". Hell who know's maybe you use it as a use case long enough you can go to your boss and say "I think we should virtualize and here is why" that would be a good thing to put on the resume. quote:I've got the motivation and am learning this stuff but it seems like I have very few chances to ever actually use it. All the places I apply for want experience and I can't list my home lab setup as relevant work experience when its a non work environment. Did most of you just get this stuff dropped on you and were forced to sink or swim? That would almost be a nice change of pace from the normal front line helpdesk stuff that I'm still stuck doing. To be completely honest, Being motivated about something, along with active learning(lab), and a desire to know more will take you really far especially in the world of virtualization where poo poo is changing constantly. I'd really take a second look at someone if I interviewed with someone who has a passion but doesn't know quite everything vs. a moderately knowledgeable person who got burnt out at their last job and is looking for an easy ride. 22 Eargesplitten posted:I need to learn how to use Windows command line for networking, are there any good tutorials with exercises out there? There's a few exercises in my study guide, but I've always been terrible at using the command line without also using google. Care to elaborate a bit more on what you mean by windows networking? Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 03:56
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bluediamondalmonds posted:I'm at a loss as to what to do next in my IT career. I've got my CCNA, Net & A+, one of the beginner VCP certs, and my ACSP. I'm really interested in virtualization and storage but get NO hands on experience with it at work since we run nothing but old outdated crappy servers running Novell junk. I've got an EMC and VM book that I'm reading through and starting to piece together a home lab for myself but I don't know how to use that knowledge and apply it towards a new, better job. To be honest, you could always just find a new job.. most jobs nowadays will have VMware. It's pretty straight forward to be honest from a administration standpoint which is where you should probably enter and go further from there. It is pretty pointless to learn it if you're not going to apply it and by the sound of it, your company won't be implementing it anytime soon.
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Nov 12, 2013 05:02
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Martytoof posted:The most depressing thing is when they offer to show you a server room and then you get shown a retrofitted broom closet or office with inadequate cooling and a filthy carpet, accented by a massive tangle of cables. Where I'm about to take a job has a server on the floor in a doctors consulting room. It's supposed to be a secure environment. Luckily I won't be responsible for it although I'm sure it will shift in the near future... Talking about taking a job, I should be  ''ing on New Year's Day. I'm moving 200 miles from home so they are sorting my accommodation for 3 months too. Just waiting on a letter which apparently will be in the next week or so but that's what they have been saying since July...
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Nov 12, 2013 19:13
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"What's wrong with our backup system?"
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Nov 12, 2013 20:52
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Bob Morales posted:"What's wrong with our backup system?" You need to back it up to where I can't see it 
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Nov 12, 2013 21:11
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Bob Morales posted:"What's wrong with our backup system?"
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Nov 12, 2013 22:05
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:A good way to do this is by looking at what you are learning in your lab and how it can be applied in a given real world situation. Okay you have crappy novell servers? If your boss walked in and said "I want these virtualized" How would you go about doing it? Could you do that in a lab? You have a use case open to your advantage, maybe you don't get the boss to say "Go virtualize our poo poo bluediamondalmonds" but aleast you've been able to apply some real world scenarios to your lab work. The technical pieces of a lab on how to are just as important as the "what does Product/Feature solve for in the real world". Hell who know's maybe you use it as a use case long enough you can go to your boss and say "I think we should virtualize and here is why" that would be a good thing to put on the resume. Yeah I've already looked around the office and thought, we could be doing xyz better and utilize virtualization in the following ways. For now I'll keep working on it at home until I feel completely comfortable with vSphere. The sad part is that I just left a job for this place! There were a lot of promises, vague of course, about expanded budgets on the horizon and new equipment and nothing has come to fruition yet. Most days I just get to re-image machines and fix hardware which is a total step back from my last gig. I thought that jumping from a small 300 employee company where I got to be involved with everything and had no budget to a place with 5000 employees and no budget would be an improvement career wise. Guess not. Time to start sending out apps again.
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Nov 13, 2013 00:09
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How would you guys feel about a Systems admin potions where you have a normal on call rotation AND helpdesk rotation in a large company. The helpdesk rotation where you would be answering calls with the level1 staff and then also training them to all grown up sysadmins. How many red flags would that set off?
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Nov 13, 2013 03:25
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:
Sorry, I meant tracert, net, and netstat commands. They don't seem that complicated, but I just can't remember the syntax and abbreviations.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:29
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Sorry, I meant tracert, net, and netstat commands. They don't seem that complicated, but I just can't remember the syntax and abbreviations. Use the -? switch. I don't think anyone really goes out of their way to memorize syntax, it just happens after you look it up enough times.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:32
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I guess the question I have is what are you on call for normally that isn't tier 1? If you're like a guy who deals with network equipment or vSphere stuff and you have to start fielding calls about people not being able to print or their mouse is acting weird then that sounds kind of awful.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:33
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Martytoof posted:I guess the question I have is what are you on call for normally that isn't tier 1? If you're like a guy who deals with network equipment or vSphere stuff and you have to start fielding calls about people not being able to print or their mouse is acting weird then that sounds kind of awful. Its not a job that I am interested in. A conversation came up with an IT Director who thought that making his admins do a helpdesk rotation was doing them a favor. Giving them more "exposure" to execs so they dont' get laid off.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:38
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That last sentence in your post set off more red flags than your entire on call scenario  Anyway, it sounds awful to be honest. I kind of do the same thing but I'm a consultant for an IT outsourcing firm so I get tickets from "hey we need to build a datacenter" to "my computer isn't making that ding sound when my mail comes in" and it kind of loving sucks having to deal with the whole gamut. Not a forever job, but the good outweighs the bad and it's a good paycheck right now for someone who sidetracked their career doing stupid coding poo poo  So I mean I'm coming from the angle of "not wanting to put other people through that", but maybe some people thrive in this situation? I dunno. 
some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 03:39
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Sickening posted:How would you guys feel about a Systems admin potions where you have a normal on call rotation AND helpdesk rotation in a large company. The helpdesk rotation where you would be answering calls with the level1 staff and then also training them to all grown up sysadmins. No loving way. I took my current job under the rules of I am not swapping toner or helping people use Microsoft Words.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:55
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Sickening posted:Its not a job that I am interested in. A conversation came up with an IT Director who thought that making his admins do a helpdesk rotation was doing them a favor. Giving them more "exposure" to execs so they dont' get laid off. I can personally attest that this does not work. My now-decimated helpdesk loved bandaid fixes. Network printer won't work? Just plug in a new IP. Who cares if it'll break someone else, it'll take days to get back to you. Users don't see that though. All they see is that it takes Billy Bob five minutes to fix their issue and why do you have to be a bother, it works now.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:55
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We have a 2 hour shift at our walk-in help desk during our on-call week. I believe the reason is a combination of wanting us to understand the help desk and work on to improve it, and also because our student worker's schedules mean there's only 1 person at the desk during that two hour period, and we usually have at least two on duty. I think since we're a research institution we spend more time interacting with customers and most of our work is helping them directly rather than doing back end infrastructure stuff, but it's still a giant pain in the rear end and pretty much a waste of time.
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Nov 13, 2013 04:21
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Sickening posted:How would you guys feel about a Systems admin potions where you have a normal on call rotation AND helpdesk rotation in a large company. The helpdesk rotation where you would be answering calls with the level1 staff and then also training them to all grown up sysadmins. gently caress that noise. The moment they suggested that I would suggest they kiss my rear end and start packing. There's a reason why Tier 1 helpdesk positions are considered entry level - let the future Sysadmin shadow me for a few hours a week and get some OJT while I fix something that affects the entire company and not just an individual user. Sorry if it hurts their feelings, but on the scale of things a user is virtually insignificant in the overall scheme of things. Don't expect me to take a dozen steps backwards career-wise so you can be a cheap-rear end bastard - give some technically-inclined kid a phone monkey job and let me get back to the important things.
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Nov 13, 2013 04:28
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Sickening posted:Its not a job that I am interested in. A conversation came up with an IT Director who thought that making his admins do a helpdesk rotation was doing them a favor. Giving them more "exposure" to execs so they dont' get laid off. I been at companies where they prefer helpdesk stay away from execs and sysadmin deal with them because even though their sysadmins they actually get the work done faster then the helpdesk and also not make the IT department look like retards. lol internet. fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 04:47
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Sickening posted:How would you guys feel about a Systems admin potions where you have a normal on call rotation AND helpdesk rotation in a large company. The helpdesk rotation where you would be answering calls with the level1 staff and then also training them to all grown up sysadmins. Sound somewhat like my current position 15% design and implement net/Vmware/storage, 40% fixing engineers who deploy Vm/net/storage poo poo wrong poo poo 45% Helldesk. I was told they were working to get 2 active VMware/Net/Storage, when I signed on. I really should have put my foot down and said All or nothing; but I really needed to get out of my last gig. My plan is to Visit Texas, Cali, and OR spending a few days in TX/OR and hang out with some Cali goons at VMware PEX(DCD time there). I got a bit to learn still on some things, but I'd like to move out of the hampton roads/VA area when I turn 25. So far Charlotte has my ear, more reseach has made me want to pick up a bit more on citrix as it seems to have more pull in the area than vmware's view(which I am proficient at already), but would like to see what else is out there. That said Any goons in Texas/OR up for a meetup Texas Feb 6/7th(Dallas Fort/Worth area), Cali 8-13th, and OR(portland) 14/15th? Assuming all goes to plan my schedule would be to meet up with some goons and find out a bit more about the area/jobs in demand. Basically I want to find an area that will push my knowledge. 22 Eargesplitten posted:Sorry, I meant tracert, net, and netstat commands. They don't seem that complicated, but I just can't remember the syntax and abbreviations. Asides from arp, route, netstat, tracert, and ping; I don't normally use many of those... even in some of the SAP environments understanding the IOS stack and the basics of those commands sometimes with /? or google I find what I need. Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 05:01
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:My plan is to Visit Texas, Cali, and OR spending a few days in TX/OR and hang out with some Cali goons at VMware PEX(DCD time there). I got a bit to learn still on some things, but I'd like to move out of the hampton roads/VA area when I turn 25. So far Charlotte has my ear, more reseach has made me want to pick up a bit more on citrix as it seems to have more pull in the area than vmware's view(which I am proficient at already), but would like to see what else is out there. Don't ever work in healthcare or finance. (I kid, I kid.) (Mostly.)
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Nov 13, 2013 05:03
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Misogynist posted:Citrix owns healthcare and finance. Well I am open ears to anything right now so long as it isn't the north east of the US. Also did a bunch of contracting work at my last job, it wasn't that bad compared to some of the gov contractors I've dealt with. Also funny enough the larger health care/hospital in my area is probably switching to view soon; but yeah Citrix has a well established VDI setup. I gotta admit I misjudged citrix I bit, I guess after dealing with X amount of lovely citrix deploys where people hit next next next err 7.2k disks and low ram for it; tainted it in a bit of a bad name for me; BUT gently caress XENserver. Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 05:05
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:Well I am open ears to anything right now so long as it isn't the north east of the US. Also did a bunch of contracting work at my last job, it wasn't that bad compared to some of the gov contractors I've dealt with.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:08
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Misogynist posted:Any particular reason you're avoiding NYC, Boston, and Philly? They've all got really good IT job markets. Cost of living vs rate of pay doesn't add up as much as it does in the places I listed (except west coast but the weather/close to a family member makes up for it), and taxes/laws seem to be equal to the OR/Cali places I have looked. I'd be opt to move up there but I haven't found a reason, also I loving hate the cold.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:13
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Sickening posted:How would you guys feel about a Systems admin potions where you have a normal on call rotation AND helpdesk rotation in a large company. The helpdesk rotation where you would be answering calls with the level1 staff and then also training them to all grown up sysadmins. Depends - how much are they paying?
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Nov 13, 2013 05:15
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:Cost of living vs rate of pay doesn't add up as much as it does in the places I listed (except west coast but the weather/close to a family member makes up for it), and taxes/laws seem to be equal to the OR/Cali places I have looked.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:17
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Sickening posted:Its not a job that I am interested in. A conversation came up with an IT Director who thought that making his admins do a helpdesk rotation was doing them a favor. Giving them more "exposure" to execs so they dont' get laid off. It should be the opposite: helpdeskers who aren't retarded should be given the opportunity to work with sysadmins who aren't spergs in order to progress their skill set and careers. This has the added bonus of cutting down on the attrition from the helpdesk and gives managers a pool of cross-trained individuals that can quickly be promoted internally. However, this assumes two things: 1. Your corporate and helpdesk climate are good and people would want to stay 2. You have sysadmins and managers that are both competent and able to teach
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Nov 13, 2013 05:24
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