Agree. My system uses scripts and snmp to gather data and is open for use by everyone. The applications folks can enter their application information, customers, and outage requirements, the server/device folks can enter their hardware information, and even shipping and receiving are part of the process and receive automatic emails when hardware is incoming due to a break-fix.
The problem though is if it's easy for the accountants but difficult to use by the staff (like Magic), you'll only have the basic asset information and we'll continue to use what works for us. You need to manage assets for tax and reporting purposes. I need to know what my system consists of, who are the internal and external customers, SLA's, maintenance windows, and even track problems for trending analysis.
I wrote my own initially for our team. I wrote it so any team could use it if they wanted but it is written from a Unix server perspective. With it being adopted more and more, I'm rewriting it in a few places to accommodate other teams (networking: we have devices not servers) and have incorporated a changelog management process and server creation process along with a few extra specialized bits for other team requirements (web site certificate management with notifications prior to expiration). It's automatically updated via script or snmp queries and has email query capabilities.
It's one of those things that get a bit out of hand I guess. "Hey, that looks pretty good, can we use it?" or folks who used to be on our team taking access to it to the new team.
Of course there's the problem of if I leave or die what happens to the data (it's not all that complicated but someone would have to take over) but there are other problems with commercial products; changing the way we do things and shoehorning it into the ideas from a commercial company, changing environments where the current software is a physical asset tracking product and doesn't work well when tracking virtual assets or is difficult to update (manual updates with no provision for automatically updating the data), or even that the software (Magic) is end of life and unsupported so we have to move to a new system (Remedy) and have to change all our processes yet again and reformat our data to fit into a new paradigm (ITIL).
The company has decided to make my database "official" (at least for now) and during the transition, everyone uses my software as a staging area and I create scripts to export it into a Remedy friendly format vs everyone's current method of storing information (spreadsheet, text files, Sharepoint, a mysql database on someone's computer under a desk, or nothing at all).
Wait, why aren't there initiatives to determine why STEM in general is experiencing "poor performance"?
I know! Not enough women!!
But if there's a problem with the US falling behind and not doing well, could it be a problem with teaching methods? If we don't have enough people in STEM but the ones in STEM are doing well, then it's a problem with not enough people in STEM. But if the people in STEM are doing poorly, is it a problem with the teachers? Why add more people if the teaching methods are not working?
Not sure why the response. Playing Rage Against The Machine and some Biffy Clyro about 20 minutes ago and will head up into Rocky Mountain National Park around 7am tomorrow to hike around bear lake with my girlfriend.
But hey, hope your parachute works and good luck with the Hooters girls.:)
We had to train the Indians who took our jobs managing TSA and IRS security systems before we were moved to new contracts.
I paid money out of my own pocket to get training on Veritas vxvm in order to be placed on a specific contract (one I wanted). Granted, it wasn't training for a job that was already filled.
I do self study for other things such as learning about Red Hat 7 although I suspect the company would pay for me to go to the class if I asked.
It was extremely interesting to visit Prague and visit the Jewish area to read the history. The Jews were constantly being segregated into their own towns or areas in cities and not able to have very many jobs. Since Money Handling was against the law for Christians, the Jews became money lenders, bankers, etc. And in reading the historical plaques and documents, you can see how that 'The Final Solution' was just the culmination of years of persecution and segregation.
Yea, got my CCNA and CCNP over 10 years ago and it's really been a benefit in general networking knowledge. Same with starting off 35 years ago as a programmer. Programming and networking really helps in being a sysadmin.
Yea, a1 is the one that's probably the most annoying. I get regular (daily) data from this server. I have monitoring agents in place to notify me if the system goes off line or even has a bad afternoon.
"Has this ever worked?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Here are the tcpdumps from the system showing the packet loss. Here's the output of ifconfig showing the interface as down. Here's ethtools showing no link. Here are the configuration files from yesterday showing it was on line yesterday. Here is the monthly consolidation file showing it's been configured for years. The shit I gave you when I opened the ticket in the first place!
"Did something change in the data center?"
Nothing we've done. It's a remote site and we don't manage the data center. Maybe it's a cable that went bad, someone tripped over, a switch configuration change due to a reboot, a firewall change?
Data Center Manager: "In my experience, cables don't go bad. Are you sure the system was working yesterday? I tend to believe the Networking folks over you sysadmins."
Ultimately it turns out the cable went bad. Replaced the cable and all was well again.
But damn, "was it working yesterday" really is a pisser.
I did a quick search and according to the company, yes we're in the Fortune 500. I can't seem to locate an actual list of the 500 though so I can't confirm it.
Actually we helped with the description, in part because a few years back when we were looking, he'd failed to put 'Unix' in the description. It seems to be a bog standard description. We are looking for someone with enterprise level experience so HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX are big plusses.
We do get candidates but they all seem to be junior/power user types who haven't managed systems at an enterprise level. They don't know how things work under the hood and don't appear to be interested in learning.
With 35 years of experience in computers and 20 years experience as a Unix admin, I'm making a bit over 100k. In checking the job descriptions available in Denver, I think I could get another 20k if I decided to commute for an hour but since I'm 5 minutes from my house now, I think it's just about worth the reduction in stress to stick around:)
Nope. I check in with HR pretty regularly and that's what our guy says he sees. The ones that make it to us are by no means mid-level unix admins. He's received others that match but are up in the $250k range.
Which tech? I'm in Operations and I can't think of any "foreign" worker in the entire department (600 or so people) other than the CIO who's Indian _and_ female (I might have missed someone but I can't really come up with any).
We do have about a third of the department which are women and half the managers are women.
From a sysadmin perspective, we spent 18 months trying to find a competent sysadmin. When I spoke to HR, mid level sysadmins in the Denver area thought they were worth $250,000 a year.
If you're going to price yourself out of the market then don't be surprised when you're replaced by an H1B.
Tail Boomer here and same situation. I was a Military Policeman in the late 70's and a security guard in the early 80's. I'd been writing programs since 1980 supporting my Dungeons & Dragons and board gaming hobby (first Timex program was a D&D Game Monitor and first Color Computer program was a Vehicle Generation program for Car Wars:) ). I moved into BBS's, writing programs for the BBS software (PCBoard) and programs for my security guard post and brief stint writing code as a car salesman. Then into full time programming. Installed LANs, was on Usenet when Linux started, played with Slackware from the beginning.
Worse, the first time I typed in 'Super StarTrek' from the Red Computer Games book on an IBM PC (I had the Yellow one as well), I had failed to format a 5 1/4" floppy. After getting the game working successfully, I couldn't save it. I'd been typing in programs on a Color Computer before that and a Timex/Sinclair before that and all my program saving was on cassette (reset the tape counter and record the location on the tape for each program).
The driver would blue screen my Windows box on boot several times before finally clearing and letting the system run. This is before even getting a login prompt.
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Agree. My system uses scripts and snmp to gather data and is open for use by everyone. The applications folks can enter their application information, customers, and outage requirements, the server/device folks can enter their hardware information, and even shipping and receiving are part of the process and receive automatic emails when hardware is incoming due to a break-fix.
[John]
The problem though is if it's easy for the accountants but difficult to use by the staff (like Magic), you'll only have the basic asset information and we'll continue to use what works for us. You need to manage assets for tax and reporting purposes. I need to know what my system consists of, who are the internal and external customers, SLA's, maintenance windows, and even track problems for trending analysis.
[John]
I wrote my own initially for our team. I wrote it so any team could use it if they wanted but it is written from a Unix server perspective. With it being adopted more and more, I'm rewriting it in a few places to accommodate other teams (networking: we have devices not servers) and have incorporated a changelog management process and server creation process along with a few extra specialized bits for other team requirements (web site certificate management with notifications prior to expiration). It's automatically updated via script or snmp queries and has email query capabilities.
It's one of those things that get a bit out of hand I guess. "Hey, that looks pretty good, can we use it?" or folks who used to be on our team taking access to it to the new team.
Of course there's the problem of if I leave or die what happens to the data (it's not all that complicated but someone would have to take over) but there are other problems with commercial products; changing the way we do things and shoehorning it into the ideas from a commercial company, changing environments where the current software is a physical asset tracking product and doesn't work well when tracking virtual assets or is difficult to update (manual updates with no provision for automatically updating the data), or even that the software (Magic) is end of life and unsupported so we have to move to a new system (Remedy) and have to change all our processes yet again and reformat our data to fit into a new paradigm (ITIL).
The company has decided to make my database "official" (at least for now) and during the transition, everyone uses my software as a staging area and I create scripts to export it into a Remedy friendly format vs everyone's current method of storing information (spreadsheet, text files, Sharepoint, a mysql database on someone's computer under a desk, or nothing at all).
[John]
Wait, why aren't there initiatives to determine why STEM in general is experiencing "poor performance"?
I know! Not enough women!!
But if there's a problem with the US falling behind and not doing well, could it be a problem with teaching methods? If we don't have enough people in STEM but the ones in STEM are doing well, then it's a problem with not enough people in STEM. But if the people in STEM are doing poorly, is it a problem with the teachers? Why add more people if the teaching methods are not working?
[John]
Not sure why the response. Playing Rage Against The Machine and some Biffy Clyro about 20 minutes ago and will head up into Rocky Mountain National Park around 7am tomorrow to hike around bear lake with my girlfriend.
But hey, hope your parachute works and good luck with the Hooters girls. :)
[John]
I was playing guitar but stopped to check the various feeds before shutting down and heading to bed. Snowshoeing early tomorrow.
[John]
Generally I try to save the heroine and not shoot her. Although nowadays, she doesn't want saving.
[John]
Actually with the FF37 breaking corporate access for me keeps me in a holding pattern at FF36.
[John]
Concurrent Unix? Something like that. I remember the $100 Unix in Dr. Dobbs and the discussions about the BSD projects and calls for volunteers.
[John]
Can't upgrade since it causes me to be locked out of the Windows domains at work if I go to 37.
[John]
We had to train the Indians who took our jobs managing TSA and IRS security systems before we were moved to new contracts.
I paid money out of my own pocket to get training on Veritas vxvm in order to be placed on a specific contract (one I wanted). Granted, it wasn't training for a job that was already filled.
I do self study for other things such as learning about Red Hat 7 although I suspect the company would pay for me to go to the class if I asked.
[John]
It was extremely interesting to visit Prague and visit the Jewish area to read the history. The Jews were constantly being segregated into their own towns or areas in cities and not able to have very many jobs. Since Money Handling was against the law for Christians, the Jews became money lenders, bankers, etc. And in reading the historical plaques and documents, you can see how that 'The Final Solution' was just the culmination of years of persecution and segregation.
Very enlightening.
[John]
Hey! I'm a self-taught hobbyist and I could do a better job of it :)
[John]
Yea, got my CCNA and CCNP over 10 years ago and it's really been a benefit in general networking knowledge. Same with starting off 35 years ago as a programmer. Programming and networking really helps in being a sysadmin.
[John]
Yea, a1 is the one that's probably the most annoying. I get regular (daily) data from this server. I have monitoring agents in place to notify me if the system goes off line or even has a bad afternoon.
"Has this ever worked?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Here are the tcpdumps from the system showing the packet loss. Here's the output of ifconfig showing the interface as down. Here's ethtools showing no link. Here are the configuration files from yesterday showing it was on line yesterday. Here is the monthly consolidation file showing it's been configured for years. The shit I gave you when I opened the ticket in the first place!
"Did something change in the data center?"
Nothing we've done. It's a remote site and we don't manage the data center. Maybe it's a cable that went bad, someone tripped over, a switch configuration change due to a reboot, a firewall change?
Data Center Manager: "In my experience, cables don't go bad. Are you sure the system was working yesterday? I tend to believe the Networking folks over you sysadmins."
Ultimately it turns out the cable went bad. Replaced the cable and all was well again.
But damn, "was it working yesterday" really is a pisser.
[John]
I did a quick search and according to the company, yes we're in the Fortune 500. I can't seem to locate an actual list of the 500 though so I can't confirm it.
[John]
Actually we helped with the description, in part because a few years back when we were looking, he'd failed to put 'Unix' in the description. It seems to be a bog standard description. We are looking for someone with enterprise level experience so HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX are big plusses.
We do get candidates but they all seem to be junior/power user types who haven't managed systems at an enterprise level. They don't know how things work under the hood and don't appear to be interested in learning.
With 35 years of experience in computers and 20 years experience as a Unix admin, I'm making a bit over 100k. In checking the job descriptions available in Denver, I think I could get another 20k if I decided to commute for an hour but since I'm 5 minutes from my house now, I think it's just about worth the reduction in stress to stick around :)
[John]
Nope. I check in with HR pretty regularly and that's what our guy says he sees. The ones that make it to us are by no means mid-level unix admins. He's received others that match but are up in the $250k range.
[John]
Which tech? I'm in Operations and I can't think of any "foreign" worker in the entire department (600 or so people) other than the CIO who's Indian _and_ female (I might have missed someone but I can't really come up with any).
We do have about a third of the department which are women and half the managers are women.
[John]
From a sysadmin perspective, we spent 18 months trying to find a competent sysadmin. When I spoke to HR, mid level sysadmins in the Denver area thought they were worth $250,000 a year.
If you're going to price yourself out of the market then don't be surprised when you're replaced by an H1B.
Carl
This is where I am as well.
[John]
Tail Boomer here and same situation. I was a Military Policeman in the late 70's and a security guard in the early 80's. I'd been writing programs since 1980 supporting my Dungeons & Dragons and board gaming hobby (first Timex program was a D&D Game Monitor and first Color Computer program was a Vehicle Generation program for Car Wars :) ). I moved into BBS's, writing programs for the BBS software (PCBoard) and programs for my security guard post and brief stint writing code as a car salesman. Then into full time programming. Installed LANs, was on Usenet when Linux started, played with Slackware from the beginning.
[John]
Worse, the first time I typed in 'Super StarTrek' from the Red Computer Games book on an IBM PC (I had the Yellow one as well), I had failed to format a 5 1/4" floppy. After getting the game working successfully, I couldn't save it. I'd been typing in programs on a Color Computer before that and a Timex/Sinclair before that and all my program saving was on cassette (reset the tape counter and record the location on the tape for each program).
[John]
Pair of AMD 4870's with four monitors would blue screen on start up almost daily.
[John]
The driver would blue screen my Windows box on boot several times before finally clearing and letting the system run. This is before even getting a login prompt.
Pair of AMD 4870's (so old cards).
[John]