|
Indecision1991 posted:That has always been my biggest gripe in IT. People plan things out and go implement something but the people who end up having to support it long term end up getting little documentation and no training. It is one of the reasons I left my last job. They kept pushing products for us to support but gave little more than a few tips for maintaining it. This is me and the Citrix web portal right now. I don't know how to make it work. There is no documentation for it. The error message just says "operating system not supported lol" but it will work on other Windows 7 PCs. I ask analysts, they don't know. I ask server, they don't know. All the while the doctor expects this to work. Why isn't it fixed yet? Why haven't you called me back? I hate you! You're ruining my life! I want to go live with mom!
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 17:03 |
|
|
I've only put in less than 10 resumes and already 2 incoming interviews. (Another example of the work from Resume2Interviews). One interview is tomorrow for a 4 month contract, the next is yet to be determined and for a city job. How do you handle multiple interviews and make decisions about them? If I ace the interview tomorrow, at what point am I obligated to accept? Also, this will be my first real interview ever. I have plenty of professional phone experience, but man... butterflies.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:40
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:I've only put in less than 10 resumes and already 2 incoming interviews. (Another example of the work from Resume2Interviews). The 4 month contract is most likely trash. Never trust the short term stuff. I actually avoid contract work all together, even the stuff that is contract to hire. Are you new to it?
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:44
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:I've only put in less than 10 resumes and already 2 incoming interviews. (Another example of the work from Resume2Interviews). When a job is put on the table and negotiations begin, discuss the time frame for accepting. Weigh multiple offers against eachother and your willingness to work there. This is where the whole "Interviews aren't just them seeing if you can work there, they're about you seeing if you can work there, too" comes in. There is NO obligation to accept a job offer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:44
|
|
|
Crossposting this from the Firefox thread since I think that's more for consumer usage: What's the "best practice" for handling Firefox updates in an enterprise? We're using Firefox ESR right now with auto updates turned off and our packaging team is manually packaging every new ESR release. This seems in-optimal.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:44
|
|
|
We have a 3rd party solution for stuff like that. SolarWinds Patch Manager previously EminentWare handles all that stuff for us. Well worth the few thousand it costs every year. Integrates tight with WSUS and the updates get deployed just like any other windows update. edit: We ended up choosing Chrome as our 3rd party browser of choice due it being easier to manage via Group Policy. skipdogg fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Feb 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:49
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:We have a 3rd party solution for stuff like that. SolarWinds Patch Manager previously EminentWare handles all that stuff for us. Well worth the few thousand it costs every year. Integrates tight with WSUS and the updates get deployed just like any other windows update. Does that poo poo work better than SCCM? I don't have time to mess around with SCCM and 3rd party updates.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:52
|
|
|
SolarWinds can integrate into SCCM as well, thought I haven't done it. We've never used our SCCM environment to handle patching. I'm not the best person to answer that question. It's on our radar, just real low on the priority list. SCCM is just doing basic reporting and software installs at this point for us. The real value is they handle all the packaging bullshit for you. You just download it and approve it and off it goes. Some of the Adobe stuff you have to download yourself due to licensing issues, but they handle the pre/post install and execute commands for you.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:56
|
|
|
Oh cool. We only use SCCM for imaging, so I haven't messed around with software packages much. We do use Orion quite often for alerting purposes and it's been working great.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:58
|
|
|
I use PDQ Deploy/PDQ Inventory with a subscription to their package library. Makes deploying Flash/Acrobat/Java updates pretty drat easy. Also has a ton of other apps that can be deployed. And its easy enough to make your own packages. All of the machines I manage are spread around several locations, so I store the PDQ repository on a DFS share. Since each branch has a local file server, they all end up with a local copy of the packages to pull from during deployment. If there is a new flash/java/firefox/whatever version i just download the package, and schedule a deployment to happen late at night.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 23:05
|
|
|
stevewm posted:I use PDQ Deploy/PDQ Inventory with a subscription to their package library. http://aa.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1wkdhh/pdq_deploy_packages_v134_includes_jre_7u51/ Not as reliable in releases as the PDQ sub, but immensely cheaper.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 23:17
|
|
|
Would I hate myself if I left an awesome internal IT server/storage/networking support job to take a senior support engineer job for an MSP? Do MSPs pay more?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 00:24
|
|
|
yotj! I had my interview today, and on the recommendation of my inside contacts, wore a polo and slacks (overdressing loses you points). It went super well, and I expect to hear good things. They said they'll give me a yes or a no by late next week.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 00:32
|
|
|
adorai posted:Would I hate myself if I left an awesome internal IT server/storage/networking support job to take a senior support engineer job for an MSP? Do MSPs pay more? Yes, but MSPs are there to extract value out of you since charging for your time is how they make their money. Outside of being put through certs so they can gain/keep partner status there won't be much in the way of downtime or slow weeks. It can be a great opportunity to learn stuff though, it depends what you're after. You could leave your internal do-a-bit-of-everything role, get 2 years in at an MSP and come back to an internal role as a networking guy, or a VMware guy etc. The generalist roles don't really exist in the larger companies.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 00:37
|
|
|
Sickening posted:The 4 month contract is most likely trash. Never trust the short term stuff. I actually avoid contract work all together, even the stuff that is contract to hire. Yes, new. What would you mean trash? Just a crappy job? It's tier 2 help desk at 22.88/hr. Not really excited about help desk but just about anything sounds good right now. Paladine_PSoT posted:When a job is put on the table and negotiations begin, discuss the time frame for accepting. Weigh multiple offers against eachother and your willingness to work there. This is where the whole "Interviews aren't just them seeing if you can work there, they're about you seeing if you can work there, too" comes in. Good advice. Thanks.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:13
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:Yes, new. A 4 month contract means you're unemployed in June, and you should begin looking for the next position pretty much immediately. It's not bad to take something like this if you're out of a job and need money coming in, but don't look at it as a career step other than its ability to prevent the employment gap on a resume.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:23
|
|
|
Well, I have a little over two weeks to come up with my goals for the remainder of the year, but I'm having trouble with coming up with something meaningful that doesn't amount go "Get more certs". Currently my title is Associate Administrator, Systems. In the org chart we're known as the Server Farm Technicians, and we're pretty much expected to know everything about everything (I guess - it seems like everyone calls us wanting to know about a wide range of things and my reference sheet of who does what is three pages long now). On a daily basis I handle hardware Break/Fix for our legacy physical hardware (soon to all be gone, thank God), monitor our Cisco Blades through UCS and vCenter, monitor hardware status of existing systems using NetBotz/Smarts-in-charge/NetCool or whatever the gently caress it is (dumb, because we have three guys in monitoring who do nothing but watch for hardware and application alerts), patch server vulnerabilities that are identified using various tools via SCCM or by manually patching systems, running reports that identify servers that are out of compliance on virus definitions and remedy that issue, create/provision/deploy VMs in vCenter in accordance with accepted DoD procedures, and any other duties that are assigned. I do some of the same things for our other network as well. So how would you write all of that up in four or five goals while adding in future plans such as getting qualified to join our Virtualization team, which requires a VCP5 in addition to some hands-on experience (not a problem with that) and reading a ton of documents relating to the position? I'm struggling to write my goals up so that it doesn't sound like I'm a retarded high school kid looking for his first job.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:29
|
|
|
Caged posted:Yes, but MSPs are there to extract value out of you since charging for your time is how they make their money. Outside of being put through certs so they can gain/keep partner status there won't be much in the way of downtime or slow weeks. It can be a great opportunity to learn stuff though, it depends what you're after. You could leave your internal do-a-bit-of-everything role, get 2 years in at an MSP and come back to an internal role as a networking guy, or a VMware guy etc. The generalist roles don't really exist in the larger companies.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
I've been lurking this forum for about six months after I switched to IT as a career, and I have a problem that brings me to seek advice from Windows sysadmins. I work for a software company that hosts an application for a niche service industry, and we are moving to add another load-balanced server to handle an increasing load. The software requires the use of Outlook 2010 for sending out email, and with the expansion we need to implement Outlook access on either terminal server for users. The users use Windows authentication and Outlook profiles configured for their individual mail servers. I've attempted to redirect the folders through group policy, created roaming profiles and configured group policy to also point the remote desktop users to a network share. I've followed this technet article as a guide, but still I run into problems with Outlook on the second computer automatically recognizing the Outlook PST file on the network share without opening Outlook and configuring it manually. It is important that the process of migrating the PST file and Outlook settings happens without the user's involvement, so I would like to use their existing e-mail profile settings with configuration information without having to contact each of them. What is the best method to create an available PST file and transferred Outlook e-mail settings on a network share that requires the least amount of configuration on a per-user basis? Thanks in advance to anyone who has advice, and I am very grateful that this subforum exists because I have learned a tremendous amount in a short period of time.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 03:05
|
|
|
Daylen Drazzi posted:
I used to be the same way until my last job secretly developed a major piece of software, pushed it out to a client, then told us the day they went live about it and that we were suppose to support it. The only 'training' we received was a short video MARKETING the product. It wasn't even a technical video that showed off how to manage the drat thing. Then a few weeks later they dropped a bomb on us by telling us that it is suppose to integrate with our existing software suite. Guess what?...yup not even a single piece of information as to how it achieved that and how to fix it should it break. They then laid off a bunch of coworkers while giving management bonuses due to falling sales. Thats when they showed me that they didnt care about employees and I started my journey towards a new job. At my new job we don't support anything without there being some sort of document. At worse we get the same training the client will get but that's because the back end portions are already documented.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 03:10
|
|
|
adorai posted:Would I hate myself if I left an awesome internal IT server/storage/networking support job to take a senior support engineer job for an MSP? Do MSPs pay more? MSP's generally do pay more than internal; however you have less free time, have to keep up with latest and greates, and often may have to deal with more bullshit that A) you can't fix because the customer doesn't want to spend the money on B) deal with legacy systems that are just bullshit, C) may be made more into jack of all trades or D) deal with lowest bidder wins scenarios like prosumer hardware. My opinion you may want to look into a VAR if you like more of the enterprise-y stuff, and the customers you generally service in VAR's have onsite IT do deal with the medial stuff of said company. SymmetryrtemmyS posted:yotj! Congrats, I should be hitting a YOTJ tomorrow with my interview at this company! Nice pay bump(30k) over my last one, working with a few teams, they apparently have a Network, storage, Windows team(s). So my work will focus on VMware with side work on (40%)Net and (60%)Storage and best effort to windows/exchange; but the Primary role and focus is VMware. Getting a call from a few of my friends who are friends and have worked with the IT director for that company so I am expecting to get the job. PROLE ART THREAT posted:Thanks in advance to anyone who has advice, and I am very grateful that this subforum exists because I have learned a tremendous amount in a short period of time. Daylen Drazzi posted:So how would you write all of that up in four or five goals while adding in future plans such as getting qualified to join our Virtualization team, which requires a VCP5 in addition to some hands-on experience (not a problem with that) and reading a ton of documents relating to the position? I'm struggling to write my goals up so that it doesn't sound like I'm a retarded high school kid looking for his first job. Write down four or five things you like about your day/week and expand on those. Or brain storm new ideas such as technologies(vmware, switching), processes you thing could save time(e.g. what you would do to fix X from being recurring), an idea that could help improve user efficiency(e.g internal KB on doing <blah>), better ticketing or issuetrakking, and so on and so forth. Or are you asking something different when you say goals? Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Feb 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 04:46
|
|
|
Working in IT these days owns. Last week I identified a bug in some open source software that's critical to our operations. Dove in, patched the software and submitted a pull request on Github*. Today it was accepted and merged, inside of a few weeks it'll be available in the next official packages. No future hoop-jumping required. If we had this same issue with a traditional vendor we'd be up poo poo creek unless we were a 900 pound gorilla of a customer. *It was like 10 lines, not trying to oversell my lovely coding skills, the process is the important thing here. Indecision1991 posted:At my new job we don't support anything without there being some sort of document. At worse we get the same training the client will get but that's because the back end portions are already documented. Nice. You should high-five your manager or whoever is responsible for that because you apparently work for one of the rare technical people with a spine  Also your previous environment is literally the Cliff Notes of The Phoenix Project which anyone getting within 100 miles of IT/operations/development management should read.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 05:35
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:
Yup, my management team has our back so if crap hits the fan they are right there in the trenches with us and they know what we deal with. That looks like a good book. I will add it to my wishlist and order it come payday.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 06:13
|
|
|
GreenNight posted:Does your wifi GPO work ok in Windows 8.1? I can't get it to work correctly for the life of me with WPA2-Enterprise. Our domain is only Windows 7 devices at present. I didn't set up the GPO. I guess I should steel myself for Windows 8.1 wireless being broken whenever it is deployed.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 06:43
|
|
|
Paladine_PSoT posted:When a job is put on the table and negotiations begin, discuss the time frame for accepting. Weigh multiple offers against each other and your willingness to work there. This is where the whole "Interviews aren't just them seeing if you can work there, they're about you seeing if you can work there, too" comes in. This is really good info. Most companies will expect you to take time to make your decision. Someone also said something about contract to hire and contract being the same. These are very different beasts. Contract to hire is just a vehicle that many companies use to fill perm roles. It offers several advantages over direct hire from their perspective. Of course, they get to "try before they buy". But companies do that anyway. Ever read the fine print on a job offer? Typically at least the first 90 days are "probationary". But the big one is vendor fees. If they hire you directly, they owe us a lump sum. Often times that sum has to get HR approval, whereas contract fees just come from consulting budgets controlled internally. From your perspective, on a contract to hire you get the advantage of getting to try this new company on every bit as much as they do, and if you don't like it, you can find something new and just list it as another contract job, as opposed to having to explain why you left a perm job. Does it happen where people get screwed and the "hire" portion never materializes? Sure, but people lose perm jobs every day too. In short, contract to hire is just an easy and efficient tool hiring managers use to onboard full time employees. It's very different than a straight contract.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 16:17
|
|
|
On a related note of having multiple job offers. I was in that position last summer where one company was contract to hire w/o benefits and the other was straight up salary with benefits. I had both offers come in at the same time and had I broken it down just on hourly they were about the same. I took the salary job of course but before I accepted I told them I had another offer and asked if they could beat it (even though they were the same but they didn't know that of course). They came back with an increase in salary and I got the job I really wanted anyways. Moral of the story is if you get 2 offers let them know about it. They will usually up your wages even by a bit.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 17:36
|
|
|
 post... I was handed my letter saying congrats on your new job you will start from 1st Feb (so my next pay cheque will be my new salary, woo)Now I can finally get a mortgage and stop doing the weekly 200 mile journey home and back every weekend, hooray!
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 19:17
|
|
|
Malkar posted:Any goons in Alaska looking for a job? That's also in Juneau, so due to cost of living, that's the equivalent of 30k per year. Not as much of an exaggeration as you would think.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 21:33
|
|
|
The Fool posted:That's also in Juneau, so due to cost of living, that's the equivalent of 30k per year. 'Prices slightly higher in Alaska and Hawaii.'
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 21:44
|
|
|
I've been working a tier 1.5 helpdesk position at an MSP for about 11 months now and was just promoted to "network engineer". This means I'll be spending most of my time on projects such as rolling out new SANs, ESX hosts and installing/configuring Server 2012 VMs as well as installation and configuration of various networking devices (mostly Fortigate firewalls and Cisco switches). We cover basically every aspect of IT (aside from phone systems) so with most of my experience so far I have not delved very deep into each product and have been very diversified in my tasks. I love my job and it was thanks to this thread and Resume2Interviews that I even landed it in the first place. Looking forward to getting more involved with the technology that I work with! So basically I have to start shaving my neckbeard and buy dress shoes for the first time in my life! Thanks goons!
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:22
|
|
|
^ Congrats! Quick question: Executive wants to update work files remotely, but without having to log into our VPN because that's too much effort. The only solution I can think of is rolling out something like OwnCloud and opening it to the web, and lock it down as much as possible, but this seems like overkill. Anything else I can consider?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 23:25
|
|
|
If you're a windows shop setup DirectAccess. Always on VPN. No effort.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 23:27
|
|
|
Not sure if this thread is entirely relevant but I am being asked at work to implement ISO 27001 and was wondering if anyone here had experience working under or implementing it. At this point the incredible amount of information I am trying to absorb on it is beyond huge. Would be awesome to hear from those that are likely far more experienced than me with it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 01:53
|
|
|
Alfajor posted:^ Congrats! You could use work folders in server2012R2. Or yeah directaccess is the bomb.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
Alfajor posted:^ Congrats! Kill the network file shares, move everything to SharePoint doc libraries.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 07:39
|
|
|
My file server is 2008R2, but it seems like it can be configured there too, so I'l look into that. Thanks guys! Sharepoint doc libraries seems like a project that I'd need to spend a lot more time to get going, which I'd love to do but couldn't do it any time soon.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:24
|
|
|
Coolnezzz posted:I've been working a tier 1.5 helpdesk position at an MSP for about 11 months now and was just promoted to "network engineer". This means I'll be spending most of my time on projects such as rolling out new SANs, ESX hosts and installing/configuring Server 2012 VMs as well as installation and configuration of various networking devices (mostly Fortigate firewalls and Cisco switches). We cover basically every aspect of IT (aside from phone systems) so with most of my experience so far I have not delved very deep into each product and have been very diversified in my tasks. I love my job and it was thanks to this thread and Resume2Interviews that I even landed it in the first place. Looking forward to getting more involved with the technology that I work with! Do you work at an MSP that labels every position above helpdesk as "network engineer"? I worked at an MSP that did that, the windows admins/unix admins/network engineers all had he same titles - the only ones who didn't were the engineers with a team under them to manage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 17:06
|
|
|
So, career advice requested... I'm in the last part of a computer information systems degree program at the local community college. I want to find a part-time technical support/helpdesk job so I can get some experience before I finish, hopefully in the fall. Does anyone have any advice to where I could look for something like that? I've tried the job search sites, the career center at school, the local temp agencies (Which don't have any IT jobs in general) and no luck whatsoever. I don't want to spend another year unemployed like I did after I finished grad school... Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 20:23
|
|
|
Do those of you with company laptops also own a personal one to keep some sort of work / not work divide going, or do you just use the company laptop as though it were a personal one? Probably making this decision a lot tougher is that I can have a 13" MacBook Pro Retina as my work laptop, which is pretty much exactly the same machine I was going to upgrade my ageing 13" MacBook Pro with. It seems wasteful to buy another one just to have a personal laptop.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 21:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 17:03 |
|
|
high six posted:So, career advice requested... Yes, ask your teachers or department head teacher of IT most CC's will usually have some work/study or internships around. I get bugged all the time asking if I know any good students for position X. Also apply on craigslist, bunch of people are generally posting part time and intern positions on that as well example http://norfolk.craigslist.org/tch/4305463710.html You should also speak with your counselor a lot of CC's usually host job fairs; ours also has a somewhat hidden gem such as https://www.tcc.edu/students/career/ses/internships.htm check out for something like this at yours. Caged posted:Do those of you with company laptops also own a personal one to keep some sort of work / not work divide going, or do you just use the company laptop as though it were a personal one? At my last job I had a personal + company one. Generally I would keep it separate unless I forgot my laptop at work and got a 6 am phone call. Realize it is company data and any personal info you have on that company laptop can be accessed by the company if needed. Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 22:09
|
|