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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Offer to make it probationary, and draw up some metrics that if you meet would satisfy your boss enough to make it a permanent situation. I agree; I telework 3 days a week, am 100% in the office on Tuesdays, and most Thursdays. It's a nice compromise and keeps an office presence while still maintaining sanity because my home office is way nicer than my government office. I dont even mind the commute, personally (I bike). The touted benefits to my boss is employee retention because that telework schedule will keep me working here as long as the position exists. edit: But for convincing, I also agree a probationary period is the way to go. I started with one day per week and moved up from there. I also have a webcam and dedicated office space where I can participate in video conferences and calls without disruption, which helps the sell a bit. It also helps that I have a 100mbps connection at home, and the government office is sitting at a cool 15mbps. Yay government. Walked fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 16:33
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Any suggestions for how to approach asking for your job to hire a junior admin type role? I'm technically a title of "IT Operations Manager" but really that just means "one man IT shop with good pay and working environment". It's been totally cool up to now; and realistically I could probably continue to roll onward without additional help - most broad strokes stuff on our network is pretty well integrated and automated. But there's zero redundancy for IT infrastructure/network support, I've gone from supporting a team of 6 developers to 15 (and growing) + PMO staff, from one office location to two colocated cages on opposite sides of the country + the office location, and from one internally developed custom application to three, and an application user-base of about 2000 to 5500. Fortunately the developers are mostly low-key to support and 95% of my day is infrastructure and DevOps stuff. But nonetheless, the ability to give the developers better (and more) support, have someone else to send on our annual cross-country trip, and have some staff redundancy and backup would be worth a junior role, I think. I can make a compelling case on paper, but anyone gone down this road before? Walked fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 20:52
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I use Asana for some stuff (my own business, not my full time job) I like it and it's free up to 15 users IIRC
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Jul 21, 2015 16:03
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Man. gently caress. Our primary domain, bought for 10 years (10 years ago, before my time) and then set to autorenew. Auto-renewed last month successfully; didnt think twice about it. Our accounting department didnt recognize the charge, performed a chargeback without any discussion or investigation. The registrar emailed our primary account contact only (my boss) to rectify. Of course he ignored the emails. As soon as the chargeback went thorugh, the domain was sniped by one of the shady domain selling companies. Fortunately, we only use the domain for internally developed applications and dont have any care about search engine results or anything. But registering a new domain, setting up DNS, and getting everything re-configured, has made for a loving  of a day.
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Jul 24, 2015 18:14
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Has anyone tried the Amazon Storage Gateway appliance? I'm thinking about pushing that for archival purposes in our environment. Waiting on them to get me information on Government/Enterprise agreements, but it seems like a pretty good solution for long term archiving and backup.
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Aug 4, 2015 13:17
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Tab8715 posted:Can anyone show official Microsoft Documentation that with Office 365 you get Azure AD Basic? I work with CenturyLink; previously Qwest. They're ok. The billing people are slow as hell to process contract mods. Otherwise they've been fine; any specific questions? Use them for data center on both sides of the US
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Aug 9, 2015 01:10
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Tab8715 posted:I was reading a Gartner article earlier and surprised to see them listed as a major They've advertised their cloud stuff to us a number of times, but we haven't really heard their offerings out. Not sure how it compares to Amazon or Azure, but we've had good success with Amazons offerings on that front
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Aug 9, 2015 03:09
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Any suggestions for a robust, offline, Windows AV scanning product? Tried AVG's offering the other day, no luck. Our endpoint protection didnt pick it up either. (Had a user get something that was spamming our DC with 1000+ requests per minute, leaving authentication failures in the DC log; hitting successive ports, one-by-one). Pulled him off the network immediately, but in the process of doing an incident report, and I'd really like to be able to identify what he managed to do to himself. Anyone seen something similar or have an offline solution to suggest?
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Aug 10, 2015 20:12
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lampey posted:Do you want something to remove this infection and cleanup the computer just this time? I have used norton power eraser a number of times to remove malware and it works pretty well. It really depends on what the problem is, you might be better off just wiping the computer. I dont care about cleanup; it will not be connected to a network again until the drive has been formatted (Actually replacing in our SSD transition anyways). Mainly just want to identify what he got; how he got it ("I installed some image software" according to him), and document/report accordingly.
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Aug 10, 2015 20:57
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Just sent my formal proposal to create a junior admin position beneath me to management. The verbal conversation was promising "we have the money so write it up". Here's hoping
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Aug 12, 2015 14:30
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^^^^ Flipside: DC job market is awesome and you could jump ship very easily, but yes - gently caress recruiters regardless ^^^^ Guys; we're approaching my favorite time of year: end of fiscal year blowout buy everything time  I just got confirmation I get to basically re-spend my annual budget over the next 30 days.  edit: Any things I should look at that are just too cool not to consider - we're pretty stable generally speaking on infrastructure/licenses/environment? I'm going to replace our aging routing and switching infrastructure, but that'll eat up a third of it at most. Probably commit some of it to an AWS enterprise agreement... but that's about all I've got in mind. Help figure out whats worth pursuing. It's use it or lose it guys. Use it or lose it. Walked fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 16:15
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Thanks Ants posted:CBT Nuggets subscription? Already have PluralSight, MSDN, and Oreilly Safari Books. But not a bad idea; I'll throw it on the list as a "why not"
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Aug 13, 2015 16:35
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Methanar posted:You mean I can set a second IP to the same nic that the proper DNS server is using? How? Advanced properties of the IPv4 settings on the NIC. You can assign multiple IPs
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Aug 26, 2015 01:26
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I'm in the process of researching certificate services for our environment; googling is a mixed bag of decent stuff, and stuff in comments filled with "this article is NOT best practices" which is a red flag. Is there a good book or resource that anyone can recommend for Windows PKI best practices and planning? I always like to have a reference guide anyways - so its worth it to shell out. This is a long-game implementation that I'm just beginning to review; not a rushed "push it out" thing. Walked fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Aug 26, 2015 |
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Aug 26, 2015 22:20
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Speaking of- I'm finally getting a hiree under me and they're moving the security guy to under my oversight; so im going to be moving from a single role to leading a team of 3 in the coming weeks. I'm looking for video/screen-sharing/whiteboard solutions as I telework about 60% of the time. This will be less while on boarding but I plan to keep that up. What are the good options out there? WebEx, HipChat, and Google Hangouts are my first to eyeball. Cheap or free is huge (procurements are very slow on larger items). Don't envision needing more than 3-5 attendees at any point. Any others I should look into? Walked fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Aug 27, 2015 |
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Aug 27, 2015 20:32
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CloFan posted:I've got a couple monitors in a window outside my datacenter; they haven't been used for years, but I'm wanting to get some sort of dashboard / stats display up on it. I'm not exactly sure what I want, it doesn't have to be useful, but pretty numbers and charts could be cool. Maybe like logins per DC, overall bandwidth usage, local weather/radar, etc. Are there any (free) prebuilt Dashbord Interaces out there that are worth a drat, or is it something I'd have to build myself? Similar boat here; still researching but dashing.io looks like the nicest solution; but a lot of it requires rolling your own widgets for your needs. It's on my "to-do when bored" list.
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Aug 28, 2015 18:02
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aaronp posted:Dashing works fairly well. I set it up here and have it displaying Nagios critical alerts/warnings, server room temperature, wireless user counts, server loads, etc. Takes a bit to get it all set up, and I had to write the scripts to pull nagios data myself, but it is pretty clean and now runs on a TV hanging over the IT group. Would you mind sharing any scripts you have? Obviously scrubbed. Just curious as to how you approached it! Edit: related - I'm looking for a small profile method to run dashing. Chromecast? Intel compute stick? What's my best play?
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Aug 28, 2015 18:13
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Thanks Ants posted:Chromecast would need something doing the casting. The Intel stick is pretty much perfect. I think Asus are making a Chromestick as well, but no idea when that's going to be available. Yeah; there's a digital signage solution for Chromecast that's pretty neat looking, but Intel Stick seems simpler to me. I'll put it on my purchase request list and see if/when I get it 
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Aug 28, 2015 18:38
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Apply for sure; be up front on the call when they ask what you'd need to consider moving. I was once in a similar position, didn't really want to leave, was interviewed and offered a job I was planning to decline. Sure enough, very next day I ended up finding out our contract was lost. Rolled into the new position with zero stress between them. Point is, don't lead anyone on but there's only things to be gained by showing interest (so long as you're honest and up front)
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Aug 31, 2015 12:46
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Sefal posted:Oh that's interesting. Well; yeah. If you're happy - keep turning them down. I am always of the mind, however, that its not going to hurt you to apply to positions (or be open to chat with recruiters) that really tick the boxes and offer a potential to either move your career or pay forward. Again, with the caveat that you need to be up front. Dont tell them you'd move for pay parity and then just turn down every position - that'll start to look bad. But if there's a position that's appealing? Of course discuss it. Keeps your interview skills sharp, and sometimes has side benefits if anything is shaky at work. Plus you may find something better, even if it seems unlikely. But dont overdo it either.
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Aug 31, 2015 13:03
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Dick Trauma posted:It's September which for me means Budget Time. I'm reviewing my replacement cycle, arranging quotes for the big projects (AzureAD, O365, etc.) and so I send an email to the HR VP asking for an estimate of 2016 new hires. That's my life right now. I prepped FY15 spend-plan in.... August of 2014. And we're hustling to get 90% of that list bought before FY15 closes out. All while trying to provide accurate estimates for FY16, without knowing what our hiring plan looks like (we do "agile development" which means "hire someone new whenever we feel like it", and not knowing who is going to drop the ball and miss items from FY15. Unfortunately, our procurement and operating divisions are split-brained and I cant force anything on the former, whatsoever. Fun times. 
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Sep 9, 2015 16:41
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Lord Dudeguy posted:Has anyone started getting some rather... emotionally aggressive cold calls? Veeam likes to leave me vague, kinda cold voicemails: "Hi <name>, this is <name with Veeam>; it's urgent we talk. Please call me back ASAP so we can get this sorted out" (me:  )And then a followup email with almost what you have: "I know we're all busy, but it's urgent I talk with you" For the record; we have zero Veeam licenses or products, nor are we buying any anytime soon, so the urgency level needs to be toned down a bit, buddy. No, it is not urgent we talk. But you get a gold star for trying.
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Sep 9, 2015 22:18
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While we're on the topic of DNS (or at least it being in recent memory). Can anyone confirm for me that if DNS scavenging is not enabled, then the DNS timestamp should not replicate between sites? (AD integrated DNS) For example, DNS Server at Site A shows: DNS Entris Site A Server 1, 10.0.0.10, Timestamp: 9/9/2015 4pm Site B Server 1, 10.2.0.10, Timestamp: 3/5/2015 4pm (waay old, but right IP) the inverse is true at site B! DNS Server at Site B DNS Entris Site A Server 1, 10.0.0.10, Timestamp 4/1/2015 6pm Site B Server 1, 10.2.0.10, Timestamp 9/8/15, 4pm Is this correct behavior? Will this begin to replicate timestamps properly once I enable scavenging? Tons of information about scavenging abound; but I've only found a forum reference to the timestamp replication, from 2012, and there was never a confirmation about this behavior.
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Sep 10, 2015 13:11
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theperminator posted:With Scavenging disabled, AD doesn't bother syncing the timestamps Cool; thanks for the confirmation.
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Sep 10, 2015 13:57
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Happiness Commando posted:How do I spec out server processors? Minimum requirements can't be trusted to meet usability needs, and I'm not clear on the role of the processor in HyperV and server type roles, vs. say, the obvious benefit of an SSD in a workstation. This is for a (very) small business HyperV server. Things to think about : Workload on server? Hyper-V doesnt tell you enough; will it be a single VM that's rather single threaded in nature, will it be 20 VMs? Where will it sit? Is power draw a concern? Some colos have amp restrictions (and all locations have to at least consider power draw), you may need to think about noise in a small environment as well. Generally speaking, I find the processor on my hosts to rarely be a bottleneck these days. But those are things to think about. Your specific workload will come into play. SQL Enterprise licensed by core also is something to think about, that recently bit me in the butt. But I doubt that's a consideration for a small business hyper-v server.
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Sep 14, 2015 17:01
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bull3964 posted:If you are virtualize though, it doesn't really factor into the hardware purchase that much since the per core licensing is at the guest level, not the host level. So, you could have a 36 core host and only give 2 vCPUs to a SQL Enterprise edition VM and only need to pay for two cores of licensing. Actually you can license at the host or VM level. And there are some VM rules. VM level, you must associate at least 4 cores with the VM, up to however many cores are given to the VM. Host level, you must license all the cores in the host, but can run unlimited VMs of SQL, up to the quantity of licenses bought (effectively half the cores purchased, as theyre sold in pairs). At least with SQL 2012. This may be different with 2014; we havent even looked into moving yet. edit: looks to be about the same with 2014 http://www.microway.com.au/microsoft/SQL-Server-2014-Licensing-Datasheet.pdf Walked fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 17:22
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Happiness Commando posted:Realistic use case is one VM - DC and LOB app (small DB that runs on top of SQL express). Power and licensing are not things we need to worry about. I'm inclined towards a 4 or 6 core just to cover my bases. It is good to hear that processor bottlnecking is rarely a thing. DC for small businesses don't tend to be very power hungry. The LOB app is going to be something to think about a bit more; look at disk configuration on this as well, as disk can also be a bottleneck for SQL. But that's all going to depend on the application, usage, and performance needs. Probably not a big deal if its a very small business. That said, also think about redundancy for that DC (and solid backups for the LOB application too). I've used VPN to AWS to setup a secondary DC for cheap redundancy on that front. But I dont really know your environment and for all I know there are already other hosts or DCs available.
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Sep 14, 2015 17:38
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Man. I swear to god imaging these Dell M3800s using the Realtek USB NIC is going to drive me to insanity. All drivers apply, but it fails to join the domain or install the SCCM client. Logs have almost nothing. Google shows a lot of similar people with similar issues. Just going to manually join these to the domain I think, everything else is good in the OSD process.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:20
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Agreed; I dont take my conference calls when I'm in the office. But I have a wireless headset at home and its so, so, so worth the price of entry. Even for just the odd call I actually end up on that isnt a conference call I sit on mute for.
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Sep 17, 2015 00:12
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Does anyone use VMware workstation for building baseline images for SCCM capture? I've been using hyper-v in Windows 8, but I really prefer VMware for building clients. An initial test is all good to go; any concerns or tidbits?
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Sep 17, 2015 00:39
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GreenNight posted:Yeah, make a snapshot so when you sysprep into a SCCM image you can just revert when done. Don't install vmware tools, obviously. Cool; thats the approach I'm working with. Hyper-V is just not quite as nice for client OS stuff. (Hello USB passthrough, for one)
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Sep 17, 2015 00:49
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goobernoodles posted:I was looking for something quick and effective for entering, categorizing and prioritizing requests, to-do items and projects. I'm hoping to also be able to use the same system for repeat processes that involve other departments, that always get screwed up, namely on-boarding of new employees and terminations. If I can get that working well, I would think it could potentially be of use elsewhere in the company. My company basically has a paper operations manual that no one really reads unless they're not sure if they'd get fired for doing something, with few real "business processes." The way people, departments and entire offices operate varies wildly which ends up with tons of bullshit. I'd like to try help solve some of those issues if at all possible. To me it appears something like Jira/Confluence or... Trello + Confluence/Other Wiki, etc might be exactly what we need. I'm doing similar stuff and trying out Jira/Confluence. So far so good, but only just getting moving with it. Edit: unrelated really, but I'm moving from a team of one (me) to hiring someone (extended to offer today) and moving the security person under me. Any reading materials on effective team leadership anyone can recommend? Walked fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Sep 26, 2015 |
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Sep 26, 2015 00:58
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Question for anyone with a bunch of Meraki experience. I'm contemplating implementing MX100 appliances as edge devices at our three sites. The only possible hangup, is our DMZ doesnt use NAT; just an ASA5510 performing firewall rules. Internal is, however, privately addressed. This was all configured prior to my tenure. It looks like, the MX100 does support 1:1 NAT, and in the online demo, it doesnt fire back any errors if I set the external IP and the internal IP to be the same. However, I havent heard back from my Meraki sales guy on this one to confirm. Basically, assuming everything on the ISP side is routed properly, can I setup an internal subnet that happens to be externally routable (208.x.x.x), and use 1:1: NAT with identicle WAN and LAN IP addresses? I dont really want to re-subnet these DMZ hosts, as its a legacy application that's being phased out anyways. Walked fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Sep 26, 2015 |
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Sep 26, 2015 21:46
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Judge Schnoopy posted:I'm almost certain the mx dashboard will complain about overlapping networks on an outside and inside interface. You don't want 1:1 NAT you want bridge mode which may be available somewhere but I've never used it or seen it. Hm. Weird. The demo dashboard didn't complain - but like I said, it's not something I have had a chance to test with demo units. I could always give it a whirl in a lab, but I don't have the demo units yet. Guess this project plan is going to include re-subnetting some of the network.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:01
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Dude quit responding this instant! Your last message to them should be telling them you dont work their anymore and then work out a pay rate that you're comfortable with to do side work if you want. Otherwise you owe them nothing. Just going to echo this. You dont owe anyone anything. Either charge them, or do nothing.
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Sep 28, 2015 14:59
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Walked posted:Question for anyone with a bunch of Meraki experience. Following up on this; I just got off a long call with one of their engineers. They said 1:1 NAT setup with the same IP on both sides will absolutely work. (effectively no-NATing the DMZ subnets). Downside is it requires individual host configuration / NAT mappings. Not a big deal to me. Awesome. Now it's just a matter of getting a demo unit to completely validate that configuration and should be golden. Should.
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Sep 28, 2015 16:32
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Holy poo poo I'm going to loving lose my mind with end of year procurements and asset tagging. Being a government organization co-owned by two other government organizations, who both purchase assets for you depending on funds availability - and both have separate asset management processes.  /vent
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Sep 28, 2015 20:29
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Thanks Ants posted:Is giving a poo poo about doing a good job just a natural trait? I feel like I'm trying to push water uphill at the moment on projects that won't affect me if they go well or are an unmitigated disaster, in that I won't see any bonus from it going well, and I won't have to do any extra hours if it goes wrong. Logic dictates that as long as I have taken reasonable CYA precautions so when the poo poo hits the fan it doesn't come back to me, then I should just switch off and not give a gently caress. I like to do a good job; but sometimes get roadblocked up the chain. CYA first and foremost. Then, when in situations like you describe - I prioritize other projects, systems automation, and find things to improve. Or map our grand projects I want to do when we have the time/money. Basically: I hate doing a lovely job but when things align to set me up for that; I'll document my stance and find something else useful to do. Granted its not a frequent occurrence; if it were a regular thing for me I'd probably lose my mind.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:34
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, and I plan on doing that next year. But if anyone has some tips for just not giving a gently caress in the short-term then I'd like to hear it.
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:Over the years I've come to the conclusion that at least half of everyone you meet has a distinct goal of doing as minimal work as possible. The concept of "a job well done" is dying more and more each day. I see it every day and I've come to a similar conclusion.. I've been going to my director every week stating "This memo we signed stating we wont allow contractor laptops on our network is being violated. Would you prefer to address this at a management level, or would you like my team to administratively restrict them from connecting?" (note: this will inconvenience these contractors noticeably) Boss: "Hmmm. Let's address this when I'm back from vacation in November" I've been bringing this to his attention since June In summary, people just don't want to deal with things. Be it work, or things that might stir the pot in any conceivable way.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:57
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I posted this question as an edit to a post some time ago (so it was likely glossed over). I'm going from a senior IT administrator role to a technical team lead / management position (moving our security resource under me, as well as hiring a new resource, possibly a second - one offer already out). My only other experience in a leadership role is within a position where I had very little control over managing my team outside of giving them technical guidance, whereas where I'm at here I have a degree of budgetary, project planning, training, etc autonomy. :b]So:[/b] Does anyone have recommended reading on managing small teams and doing so effectively (and managing the gap between "getting poo poo done" and "keeping people happy and pleasant")? I've been pretty much a singular role for the last 4 years with a ton of institutional knowledge; so since this came to be I've been centralizing all my notes and documentation, and I have my own ideas - but I'd also like to do the requisite reading up front as well.
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Oct 1, 2015 00:00
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