Ok, this is a tuff one, because the nature of the subject and because HQ is reading!
To illustrate this I will use as example my own reality.
As of 2004 I am working in Santiago Chile for the second largest container shipping company in the word and they have their HW in Geneva (GVA). In the begining of my days in the company we did this the best way we could. Our Data Center was a closet with PCs as servers. HQ was not much in the picture. We had our yearly IT meetings where the guidelines where talked about but that was about it.
In 2005 hell broke loose. We were in the middle out our AD migration when due to a communication problem between the GVA and Chile IT team GVA got the impression that we did things without consulting, disregarding guidelines and at the end….. the way we wanted. The result was a redeye flight to GVA. The two day trip was an intense crash course in the GVA way of doing things, and you know what? It made sense. So much sense, that just three years we made a turn back, from “terrorists” that could bring the network down, to an example for the region.
Why did the GVA way make sense? Here are the points that were the basic guidelines.
1- Standardized HW: We are only allowed to purchase 2 brands of PC/Servers and within the brands just a handful of models. This may sound very restrictive and it is. For some a local vendor with a local brand may be very cheap regarding the corporate standard. But the benefits are tremendous. We now have no more than 5 images for all 220 users PCs making deployment a 1 hour deal.
2- Standardized Security: We are only allowed one brand of Firewall. Again, restrictive, but at the end of the day, when there is a problem, HQ can intervene with little effort.
3- Standardized OS: More then the OS, it’s the settings. All OS (PC or Server) has to be in English. This makes HQ support easier.
4- SW Licenses: This is a big one. We get most licenses via HQ because HQ has global agreements for several vendors. Not sure if we same money or not, but it is easy just to deal with one supplier.
5- Update infrastructure data: We have to keep at HQ an up to date diagram of our infrastructure. Again, for us, no use, but for HQ? Tons of help when something happens. And things do happen.
6- Unified email system: We all should be running the same version of Exchange, this is very useful, it takes out a lot of the guessing when there are problems.
So why comply with all of this and with so much effort.. taking the heat locally from other Managers?
No I am not sucking up. It just makes sense.
And I can prove it. Our Bolivia Office depends from Chile commercially and in IT, and for me to have our office in Bolivia with the same standards as our Chile office has been a huge help. Since we did the project on getting Bolivia up to date the amount of time spent assisting has gone down! Way down!
We now even have time to assist other countries. At the end this helps HQ! We absorb a bit of the load.
At the end this is a tricky subject, I think there is no real rule here, you have to play it by hear, each organization is different, but I would say, if you can, follow the guidelines.
George.
My view from the Captain's Chair. 16 years in IT gives me a bit of view how things are in IT. So here we go!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
To V or not to V, is it a question?
Virtualization (V from now on) has been around now for a bit and is here to stay. So the question is way are you not “Ving”?
I am not going to talk about any given product (today) because the idea is the talk about the concept.
V is great, it lets you accomplish several things, such has lower your Hardware investment, lower your Heat output, and therefore less A/C and finally less Electricity! You can also have some type of Disaster Recovery with V, you can set up a test environment quickly and as many times as your development team messes it up. And the best part is that all of this in one way or another can be done for “FREE” I say it with “” because depending on if you go down the Bill’s route you pay for the OS the Hypervisor runs on. The rest of the providers are Free in a limited set of features. To archive what I mention for “Free” you need a considerable amount of manual tasks, but again, it’s Free.
So again: To V or not to V, is it a question? (you should hear it in Klingon) I say NO! The web is full of step by step PDFs, blogs and videos on how to archive what you need, so if you have some deasent HW sitting around… go for it…. Play with Virtualisation. Once you go V, you will never go physical again!
Next week I will go over a few things with VMware in detail, and I can almost assure that for some VMware posts there will be a kind Hyper-V Pro that will post an equivalent!
George.
I am not going to talk about any given product (today) because the idea is the talk about the concept.
V is great, it lets you accomplish several things, such has lower your Hardware investment, lower your Heat output, and therefore less A/C and finally less Electricity! You can also have some type of Disaster Recovery with V, you can set up a test environment quickly and as many times as your development team messes it up. And the best part is that all of this in one way or another can be done for “FREE” I say it with “” because depending on if you go down the Bill’s route you pay for the OS the Hypervisor runs on. The rest of the providers are Free in a limited set of features. To archive what I mention for “Free” you need a considerable amount of manual tasks, but again, it’s Free.
So again: To V or not to V, is it a question? (you should hear it in Klingon) I say NO! The web is full of step by step PDFs, blogs and videos on how to archive what you need, so if you have some deasent HW sitting around… go for it…. Play with Virtualisation. Once you go V, you will never go physical again!
Next week I will go over a few things with VMware in detail, and I can almost assure that for some VMware posts there will be a kind Hyper-V Pro that will post an equivalent!
George.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
IT's day to day nightmare!
Ok... what is every IT Infrastructure team’s day to day nightmare?
No... not that.... nope.. not close.....think McFly....
YES! Users! (If any users read this... please don't feel bad, it's just the way it is).
Every day no matter if it’s just a one man show (Alex?) or a multi-tier, multi-office IT shop..... the problem is the same.
How do you deal with user's request.
Well I have the answer (ok not "The" answer but "an" answer). It's called Helpdesk. Yes... a helpdesk. There are several ones out there but there is one that caught my attention in Jun of 2007. SpiceWorks. It’s a few words it’s a Network management software, helpdesk, PC Inventory tool and IT Reporting solution.
I use it manly as a helpdesk and since Jun ’07 and some 7,700 tickets later I can’t be any happier.
This tool gives my team an easy way to manage users requests. All users have to do is just send an email to helpdesk@mycompany.com and all the IT team gets an email with the request. Then you can view a nice web dashboard with all new tickets, my assigned tickets and all open tickets. From there is all downhill.
As a Manager I can run reports to see how many tickets each tech has, how long it takes them to close the tickets, what are the most comment categories of tickets (Printer, Phones, Mouse, etc)
But Spiceworks is more than a helpdesk. It can scan your network and make a complete inventory of PC, Servers, switches, Printers, almost anything with an IP. It has a bunch of tools that for each PC (running Windows) it will show CPU, RAM, I/O usage. If it’s a DELL you get service tag and therefore warranty. This is neat when you want to know out of your 200 PCs witch are close to renewal.
This is just a small snapshot of Spiceworks. Check it out. Oh… did I say it’s FREE?
If you decide to install, let me know… I can help with its install (NNNF) and configuration.
Here are a few screenshots
Have fun!
No... not that.... nope.. not close.....think McFly....
YES! Users! (If any users read this... please don't feel bad, it's just the way it is).
Every day no matter if it’s just a one man show (Alex?) or a multi-tier, multi-office IT shop..... the problem is the same.
How do you deal with user's request.
Well I have the answer (ok not "The" answer but "an" answer). It's called Helpdesk. Yes... a helpdesk. There are several ones out there but there is one that caught my attention in Jun of 2007. SpiceWorks. It’s a few words it’s a Network management software, helpdesk, PC Inventory tool and IT Reporting solution.
I use it manly as a helpdesk and since Jun ’07 and some 7,700 tickets later I can’t be any happier.
This tool gives my team an easy way to manage users requests. All users have to do is just send an email to helpdesk@mycompany.com and all the IT team gets an email with the request. Then you can view a nice web dashboard with all new tickets, my assigned tickets and all open tickets. From there is all downhill.
As a Manager I can run reports to see how many tickets each tech has, how long it takes them to close the tickets, what are the most comment categories of tickets (Printer, Phones, Mouse, etc)
But Spiceworks is more than a helpdesk. It can scan your network and make a complete inventory of PC, Servers, switches, Printers, almost anything with an IP. It has a bunch of tools that for each PC (running Windows) it will show CPU, RAM, I/O usage. If it’s a DELL you get service tag and therefore warranty. This is neat when you want to know out of your 200 PCs witch are close to renewal.
This is just a small snapshot of Spiceworks. Check it out. Oh… did I say it’s FREE?
If you decide to install, let me know… I can help with its install (NNNF) and configuration.
Here are a few screenshots
George.
The IT Dilemma : Where to focus your resources
Today numerous IT departments worldwide face the this problem….. Where to focus the resources.
After the world economic crisis, companies rapidly focused on cutting costs, and at the end it falls on IT.
For the infrastructure side of IT it’s “easy”:
Lower your energy bill, A/C costs, communication costs, maintenance costs….. All this is done via virtualization, VoIP and talking to your vendors.
But how do you optimize the company's processes? That is what is killing IT today.
If you look around your office you will find that “Mike” as a super worksheet that does “everything”. It takes Mike 2 days to gather all the information he needs and then takes him about 2 hours to crunch the numbers. The worst part is that you have no clue about this super worksheet (by the way, it’s not on your backup plan) and his manager also has no clue.
So how you help the business be more efficient with your limited IT resources?
Well, after going through the same process that cost me some very ugly consequences….. I think I have the solution (open for debate)
1- Communicate: Create an IT steering committee whose members are other managers or key players in the organization. The idea is that in the committee all IT projects are talked about. This will help you show to your organization what is IT doing all day long.
2- Strong Foundation: In order for IT to prevail, it must have a strong foundation, and that means your infrastructure must be stable. If you want to help the business processes as a manager you can’t be worrying about massive PC failing, out of date Antivirus, bad backup plan, etc. that has to been taken care of before you can help the business. Why? What good will it do if you create this nice intranet but your old servers can’t take the load, or the new application you created runs slow as a turtle because half of your network is still at 100Mbit.
3- Be realistic: It’s nice to say yes to everyone…. But sometimes you just cant. Not all things are doable with your resources. When you commit to a deadline, always consider Murphy and your actual work load, and remember the more applications or systems you deliver the more support you need to give, so now your developers are also doing helpdesk support.
4- Be a socialite: The more you mingle with the other managers the more you can explain your day to day problems and that way they will understand you better.
5- Lobby: If you need something make others help you get it. Let’s say you need a new developer but company policies say no more new hires. Get the help of the other managers. If they all talk to upper management on how they feel if IT had just one more developer things would be easier…. You may find it easier to get that new developer.
6- Communicate: Yes its rule #1 and it so important you have to do it all the time. In meetings, at lunch with other managers, at the company BBQ, etc. Never stop communicating.
This is my view of this dilemma…. I am open to debate…..
George.
After the world economic crisis, companies rapidly focused on cutting costs, and at the end it falls on IT.
For the infrastructure side of IT it’s “easy”:
Lower your energy bill, A/C costs, communication costs, maintenance costs….. All this is done via virtualization, VoIP and talking to your vendors.
But how do you optimize the company's processes? That is what is killing IT today.
If you look around your office you will find that “Mike” as a super worksheet that does “everything”. It takes Mike 2 days to gather all the information he needs and then takes him about 2 hours to crunch the numbers. The worst part is that you have no clue about this super worksheet (by the way, it’s not on your backup plan) and his manager also has no clue.
So how you help the business be more efficient with your limited IT resources?
Well, after going through the same process that cost me some very ugly consequences….. I think I have the solution (open for debate)
1- Communicate: Create an IT steering committee whose members are other managers or key players in the organization. The idea is that in the committee all IT projects are talked about. This will help you show to your organization what is IT doing all day long.
2- Strong Foundation: In order for IT to prevail, it must have a strong foundation, and that means your infrastructure must be stable. If you want to help the business processes as a manager you can’t be worrying about massive PC failing, out of date Antivirus, bad backup plan, etc. that has to been taken care of before you can help the business. Why? What good will it do if you create this nice intranet but your old servers can’t take the load, or the new application you created runs slow as a turtle because half of your network is still at 100Mbit.
3- Be realistic: It’s nice to say yes to everyone…. But sometimes you just cant. Not all things are doable with your resources. When you commit to a deadline, always consider Murphy and your actual work load, and remember the more applications or systems you deliver the more support you need to give, so now your developers are also doing helpdesk support.
4- Be a socialite: The more you mingle with the other managers the more you can explain your day to day problems and that way they will understand you better.
5- Lobby: If you need something make others help you get it. Let’s say you need a new developer but company policies say no more new hires. Get the help of the other managers. If they all talk to upper management on how they feel if IT had just one more developer things would be easier…. You may find it easier to get that new developer.
6- Communicate: Yes its rule #1 and it so important you have to do it all the time. In meetings, at lunch with other managers, at the company BBQ, etc. Never stop communicating.
This is my view of this dilemma…. I am open to debate…..
George.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
My first post
Ok.... Never done the blog thing before.... and yes... I am IT... I should have done this before.... But I didn't.
The idea behind this blog is to talk about IT stuff. I must confess there will be a bunch of MS, VMWare and DELL content.... but there will also be some Trekie stuff.... digital photograph... and what not.
So please stick around and bear with me until this is "fully operational" (as the death star was going to be before Obi-Wan touched it).
Thanks!
G.
The idea behind this blog is to talk about IT stuff. I must confess there will be a bunch of MS, VMWare and DELL content.... but there will also be some Trekie stuff.... digital photograph... and what not.
So please stick around and bear with me until this is "fully operational" (as the death star was going to be before Obi-Wan touched it).
Thanks!
G.
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