The Problems of A Company of a Certain Size...

[routerdork]

from inside a Bangkok crack house.

My ideal job. I'll send you my resume asap 

[deanwebb]

from inside a Bangkok crack house.

My ideal job. I'll send you my resume asap 

Man, I love these forums.

[Nerm]

Moving equipment between locations.

Small Company: Pick up equipment, place in car, drive to other location.

Medium Company: Fill out a form that says what equipment is moving, to, and where from. Pick up equipment, place in car, drive to other location. Maybe even ship to other location if necessary (which requires another form).

Large Company: Fill out a form requesting to move equipment. Make multiple copies. Send one copy to your boss and one copy to security. Wait a month for approval from your boss, your bosses boss, and from security. Courier/shipping service picks up equipment and delivers to other location.

[deanwebb]

The training budget...

Small company: found some cool videos on YouTube!

Medium company: we'll reimburse you for the test, if you passed it. In the meantime, found some cool videos on YouTube!

Large company: pays for one course per year, provided it doesn't impact support of production... invariably, the network melts down, halfway into day one and you have to withdraw from the course. But, hey, found some cool videos on YouTube!

[Rllavona13]

Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.

Me...

[Rllavona13]

Small Business: we need a monitoring system but they are all expensive, learn some kind of program language and write the program for free, but dont forget to anwser the phone, troubleshoot the problem, fix the problem and remember the ticket and close it when is done. Also remember to keep the devices firmwares up to date and run a ftp server which is a laptop because we can afford a nice real server. Also i sent you an email with 4 new customers that i need to verify if they have Line of sight and please fill the New Service Order and submit it. When you finish all that clean the bathroom and check my pc i cant print some documents. And there you go take your 10 bucks per hour...

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[deanwebb]

Small Business: we need a monitoring system but they are all expensive, learn some kind of program language and write the program for free, but dont forget to anwser the phone, troubleshoot the problem, fix the problem and remember the ticket and close it when is done. Also remember to keep the devices firmwares up to date and run a ftp server which is a laptop because we can afford a nice real server. Also i sent you an email with 4 new customers that i need to verify if they have Line of sight and please fill the New Service Order and submit it. When you finish all that clean the bathroom and check my pc i cant print some documents. And there you go take your 10 bucks per hour...

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Medium company: Here, download Orion. I hear that does monitoring for free... What, there's a license after 30 days? Well, get the cheapest one, no netflow...

Large company: Yes, we have a monitoring system. No, you can't access it until you've finished all the in-house training for it, read through the work instruction PDF files, submitted a request for access that has been signed by your manager and his next manager, been approved by the Monitoring Tools Manager, have received your credentials for the account that you will use to log on into the monitoring system (it has to be different from your normal account because we're monitoring who is logging into the monitoring system), and then, finally, one of our Monitoring Department staff has added your account to the group that has access to the monitoring system. He does that on the third Friday of each financial quarter, except Q3, when we have our systemwide change freeze.

[Rllavona13]

Small Business: we need a monitoring system but they are all expensive, learn some kind of program language and write the program for free, but dont forget to anwser the phone, troubleshoot the problem, fix the problem and remember the ticket and close it when is done. Also remember to keep the devices firmwares up to date and run a ftp server which is a laptop because we can afford a nice real server. Also i sent you an email with 4 new customers that i need to verify if they have Line of sight and please fill the New Service Order and submit it. When you finish all that clean the bathroom and check my pc i cant print some documents. And there you go take your 10 bucks per hour...

Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk

Medium company: Here, download Orion. I hear that does monitoring for free... What, there's a license after 30 days? Well, get the cheapest one, no netflow...

Large company: Yes, we have a monitoring system. No, you can't access it until you've finished all the in-house training for it, read through the work instruction PDF files, submitted a request for access that has been signed by your manager and his next manager, been approved by the Monitoring Tools Manager, have received your credentials for the account that you will use to log on into the monitoring system (it has to be different from your normal account because we're monitoring who is logging into the monitoring system), and then, finally, one of our Monitoring Department staff has added your account to the group that has access to the monitoring system. He does that on the third Friday of each financial quarter, except Q3, when we have our systemwide change freeze.

I hope that doesn't happens to me in my new job haha

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[deanwebb]

If your new job is with a VAR or a vendor, it won't.

If your new job is at a small, medium, or large company, it will.

[Nerm]

Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.

Me...

What is worse is when said problem is "how to change the domain admin password" and the person calling you is the "head" tech with over 20 years experience in IT. No joke, happened to me.

[Rllavona13]

Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.

Me...

What is worse is when said problem is "how to change the domain admin password" and the person calling you is the "head" tech with over 20 years experience in IT. No joke, happened to me.

NO GOOD...


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[deanwebb]

High Availability...

Small: Gee, that would be nice, but we can only afford one of something... it's a small-business model, anyway, which means we couldn't do HA if we wanted to... and if we could afford another of it.

Medium: We'll have HA on the main stuff at the main location. No need for redundancy at the spokes, we'll absorb that risk... until the day comes when the spoke router fails, nobody can generate a PO fast enough... but, hey, there's this router here at the main site that's not doing anything until the other one fails, why not use it? ... that gets shipped to the spoke, all is well, and nobody remembers to order another router to replace the cannibalized HA router.

Large: HA everywhere it's needed, documented, qualified, untouchable. There are regulations, you know. Not going to be like those silly medium-size companies and cannibalize our gear! We're HUGE, we make MONEY, so we can BUY the good stuff. Except... the HA gets installed, the outsourcer subcontracts monitoring to a group that decides they only need to monitor the VIP for the HA pairs, everything looks nice and green, even though some of the HA pairs have a failed primary or secondary that's been like that for YEEEEEEAAARS... and then, one day when it is out-of-sale, out-of-support, and really-at-the-end-of-its-life, the valiant, unfailed member of a pair starts to have issues... "Well, we can fail it over to the secondary and then we- WHAT THE HELL, THE SECONDARY'S BEEN DOWN FOR HOW LONG?"

Logs show that it failed within the first six months after being installed. Could have been RMA'd, but too late now... and we're at the wrong time in the budget cycle, so how about we break an HA pair somewhere and we'll buy replacement gear towards the end of the next quarter, when we might have some money to spend...

[deanwebb]

Certifications:

Small company: you're the only guy, so you feel like you have to get certified on everything.

Medium company: you're not the only guy, but you have to be ready to backfill everyone else, so you feel like you have to get certified on everything.

Large company: There are so many products that you work with, you realize what everything is... and when you realize that, you feel like a manager, you know so little...

[icecream-guy]

Documentation

Small company, there is no documentation
Midsize company, you write your own documentation
Large company, you write your own documentation to get the task off your plate
Mega company, you have load of tech writers to do all your documentation for you.

[deanwebb]

Documentation

Small company, there is no documentation
Midsize company, you write your own documentation
Large company, you write your own documentation to get the task off your plate
Mega company, you have load of tech writers to do all your documentation for you.

Also mega company... with all that documentation, however, comes reading it all so you can do compliance audits. And documentation reviews periodically. And updates whenever you do a change. And execution of the qualification documents again, with each change.