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Am I missing something, you're paying a license fee for the license server?
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Oct 29, 2013 14:26
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Yes? It's currently a VM that gives out floating licenses to end users who have the product installed. Apparently they never officially supported the license server to be on a VM so now they want companies to pay to "upgrade" their licensing to gain this additional functionality, even though we've been using it for years in that way.
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Oct 29, 2013 14:30
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It's not something I've ever come across before really, the license server component is just a thing that manages licenses rather than something that's considered to be anything that needs paying for. I'd tell them to gently caress off but they know you don't really have a choice. It's pretty funny that in 2013 some software companies can think of a situation where something basic like a license server wouldn't be running on a VM though.
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Oct 29, 2013 14:41
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Sounds like one of our vendors for our HP UX system. OH YOU ADDED RAM? PAY US MORE MONEY
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Oct 29, 2013 14:58
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I had the VP of Product lobby to get me taken off an upgrade project budgeted at 6 weeks and $25K because apparently the Project Manager asking the developers to produce a test plan with test cases is  manhandling the vendor.I was more than happy to let him take over as Project Manager. Evidently, Product Managers are capable of solving any number of problems through vigorous handwaving. The NIKE Methodology: Just Do It©. I estimated that the project would come in at a minimum of $60K and 12 weeks if he did not manage the vendor. It's currently up to 20 weeks. $105K. And counting. He's requested to have me back on as Project Manager: he has no time to manage the budget or the vendor. 
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Oct 29, 2013 15:56
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Well, are you going to take it or not?
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Oct 29, 2013 16:11
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Bob Morales posted:full of WD Green drives  Bob Morales posted:I'm new here but I figured out that none of our SQL 2008 servers were getting backed up because it's not supported by this version of Retrospect, so we have no other choice. Until after like 5 months when I can get the $ to get a new backup solution because it's 'not mission critical'. Why not use the backup functionality built into SQL server?
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Oct 29, 2013 16:17
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Erwin posted:Why not use the backup functionality built into SQL server?
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Oct 29, 2013 16:25
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Erwin posted:
We are, now. But POINT AND CLICK DATABASE RESTORES
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Oct 29, 2013 16:30
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Loten posted:What sort of IT support staff to user ratios do you guys have? and servers to IT admin/engineers? 300:1 for servers:admins (~1000 servers, 3 sysadmins) but it depends on how you count. We also have 4 full-time NOC dudes who handle poo poo like racking/unracking gear, replacing dead parts and doing first level troubleshooting on alerts from the monitoring system. If you include them it's more like 150:1.
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Oct 29, 2013 17:34
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1 admin, 2 helpdesk, 282 users and ~30 servers. 2 web developers, 3 HP-UX programmers
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Oct 29, 2013 17:40
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Sarcasmatron posted:
and in the first meeting or conference call after your triumphant return. Agenda Item 1: The test plan.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:10
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1 team leader 2 server admins 1 network admin 5 helpdesk 700 end users 2 client companies edit: 200 production servers, 50 out of production servers, and a bank in growth by acquisition mode.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:24
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Feeling a solid write-up between the differences of an MSP and VAR is due. Probably do a vast bit of catchup next class as 80% is out due to kids on Oct 31st NightMare Night Fun After PEX any goons want to meetup? Hopefully I can meet at least one goon in Cali pre-DCD test(maybe better after bcause :beer:), and pay him back; but love to meetup with some goons in SF during VMware's PEX, and the week after in OR! Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 03:03
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:Feeling a solid write-up between the differences of an MSP and VAR is due. Probably do a vast bit of catchup next class as 80% is out due to kids on Oct 31st NightMare Night Fun Isn't a VAR and MSP the same thing? Or what VAR isn't a MSP vice-versa.
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Oct 30, 2013 03:46
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Tab8715 posted:Isn't a VAR and MSP the same thing? Or what VAR isn't a MSP vice-versa. In some cases yest, others. no, I'll do a writeup
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Oct 30, 2013 03:52
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Tab8715 posted:Isn't a VAR and MSP the same thing? Or what VAR isn't a MSP vice-versa. Quick and Dirty. VAR - Value Added Reseller. Think CDW, Softchoice, and other IT equipement resellers. The value add usually comes from them having knowledgeable staff on hand that can help you with your purchases. I call my VAR and tell him I need some Cisco switches for iSCSI traffic that will do line rate, and he goes and gets the quotes and specs and does all the legwork and frees up my time. Another example is if you need a SAN, larger VAR's will have a storage specialist on staff that can talk to you, understand your needs and then go get appropriate quotes for you. They're the middle men and make a percentage off the sale of the equipment. They also get better discounts than you can individually. MSP - Managed Service Provider. Smaller companies hire these companies to run their IT for them. A 20 person company has no need for a full time system admin, but they may engage a local MSP on an hourly or retainer basis to manage things like patching their environment, and anything else that might pop up (tech support, install/configure new systems, etc). They're like a shared resource of IT people. A small company might only need 15 hours of IT help a month, but if a MSP can contract out lots of little companies like that they can make a living.
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Oct 30, 2013 04:32
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Great post, skipdogg. I'd add that a good VAR can generally get you access to much better pricing than ordering direct or from some random website due to their own relationships with vendors. It's a relationship worth establishing and maintaining unless your own company is so big as to command sweet deals itself. Edit: upon rereading you said that already 
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Oct 30, 2013 04:53
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Excellent post indeed. One thing I am missing is that you can also hire expertise at a VAR (or MSP). You might only have to touch your storage every so often, so setting up a new instance or troubleshooting your existing setup might be out of your league. You can still have full time IT staff, but no one with enough experience in the needed technology.
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Oct 30, 2013 11:37
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A VAR typically provides goods (and related services), an MSP generally provides functionality. Some companies do both, so people can get confused. In the end it doesn't matter what they call themselves as long as they don't misrepresent their capabilities.
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Oct 30, 2013 12:40
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Caged posted:It's not something I've ever come across before really, the license server component is just a thing that manages licenses rather than something that's considered to be anything that needs paying for. Welp, my boss got really pissed off when I told him the deal. This is what he emailed to them: quote:We are a current customer (xxxxx) and have a maintenance contract - xxxxx - and looking to upgrade our software to your version 2012. While attempting to upgrade we discovered we could not use our current environment and install on our virtual licensing server without an 'upgrade'. Is this true? We have been using VMWare for many years and have used a virtual machine to maintain our LabelView licensing for many years now as well. What have we been paying maintenance on your software for these years? Only for technical support? I was under the understanding we also received upgrades to our current software. I am not looking to change any functionality that I have not been using with your previous versions. This is ridiculous - in order to continue using your software you are forcing me to go backwards and use a physical server vs using my existing VM. And why do you care if I use a physical vs a virtual server. Your software should be hardware agnostic. You have been getting monies from us for years supporting your software. To ask us for more is disappointing. Now we're looking at alternate products and vendors who can assist in the conversion process. gently caress em.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:06
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BarTender has a recommendation from me.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:17
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Caged posted:BarTender has a recommendation from me. Ha, good to know. My boss printed off 10 pages of BarTender 10.1 pdf and dropped it off on my desk an hour ago.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:22
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Caged posted:BarTender has a recommendation from me. With only having seen the name, I recommend this product. At the very least, if it sucks, you already know what to do, go see your bartender!
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Oct 30, 2013 16:31
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That's it. I'm officially taking Perl off of my resume. Not because I don't know it, but because I don't ever want to use it again. I'm tired of being the go-to for every unmaintained pile of poo poo that some long gone neckbeard wrote.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:56
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Yeah, that's like putting "I know how to clean poop out of sink drains" on your resume. Sure, you may know how, and you may even be really good at it... but would you really want to if someone asked you to?
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Oct 30, 2013 17:00
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HatfulOfHollow posted:That's it. I'm officially taking Perl off of my resume. Not because I don't know it, but because I don't ever want to use it again. I'm tired of being the go-to for every unmaintained pile of poo poo that some long gone neckbeard wrote.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:24
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Anyone else get any incredibly cheesy halloween sales pitches?Network hardware rep posted:I wanted to warn you before it happens again. e: Subject was "A Spooktacular Story" and I love how he throws Chewbacca in there because as an IT professional I am more likely to be receptive to star wars references.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:24
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Spudalicious posted:Anyone else get any incredibly cheesy halloween sales pitches? He had me until he misspelled cauldron 
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Oct 30, 2013 17:33
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That's the worst slash fiction I've ever read. Not even a single furry dick.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:38
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Just before I regret telling a friend that he should laugh at an offer, £26k for a System Administrator in Central London with Windows and Mac OS X server and client experience, VMware, SAN, mobile device management, Exchange and AD experience is at least £10k below the going rate isn't it?
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Oct 30, 2013 23:12
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Caged posted:Just before I regret telling a friend that he should laugh at an offer, £26k for a System Administrator in Central London with Windows and Mac OS X server and client experience, VMware, SAN, mobile device management, Exchange and AD experience is at least £10k below the going rate isn't it? $41k American to do a skilled technical job in the center of one the biggest urban capitals in the world with a high cost of living? Yes, that sounds pathetically low and I'd laugh like a maniac if you offered me that.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:09
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I'm going to say with all of those skills at least $55,000 assuming you're a small town.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:13
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Woohoo! I've got an interview tomorrow for my first full time position at a private catholic school. I've been working two part-time jobs for a while now, one is a tech support role at a local high school, doing the usual imaging, troubleshooting and installing stuff, alongside managing a Linux web server, and my other job is a system administrator role for a small network at a local college (Linux, Windows and Mac server w/ two computer labs). This full time role looks like a combination of my two part time jobs, the position ad mentioned experience with Hyper-V/VMWare, LAMP servers, and iOS, so I believe it's some system administration work and technical support. Ideally I would like to focus on system administration, but I'm in a pretty rural town in Australia and it's a bit hard to find jobs other than helpdesk contracts here. I really hope I get the position, but I've not had an interview in a while. The first part time job I had was pretty easy. The recruiter actually taught me when I went to school, and all they seemed to be looking for was someone who knew how to turn a computer on. The second job I didn't even need to interview for, I just spoke with them and they took me on. Does anyone have any experience working in private schools? What's the environment like?
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Oct 31, 2013 09:24
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CharlesDexterWard posted:Does anyone have any experience working in private schools? What's the environment like? I am currently working for Education Queensland as a school tech, but I am also doing a teaching degree and have done a fair amount of work at schools within my district. What I have to say on the subject is that like all I.T jobs it really varies. Depending on the State, socio-economic standing of the school your experiences will vary. But very generally private schools usually have a little more money to spend on their I.T and are happier places to work (that last bit must be taken with a grain of salt it is very subjective). My advice with that in mind is for the first few weeks learn the context of the school. Best way of doing this is to simply talk to any people you can. Teachers LOVE to describe their classrooms and students in quite moments and if they have time. Oh and the most important thing I have learnt if you have to suggest something that may not go down well and affects the teaching staff always always relate it to enabling them to maximize the usage of technology and their personal convenience in the classroom. PM me if you are interested in more info.
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Oct 31, 2013 09:54
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I was just reading the OP and a thought struck me. Are there many people who can confidently straddle multiple areas of expertise? Ie sysadmin/networking? Can that be a path? Or should I only focus on one specific thing? The phrase "jack of all trades, master of gently caress all" comes to mind. Ive been working for the one employer for seven years where the term sysadmin encompasses everything that is not networking. I have also now joined the networking team. I am starting to wonder if that means long term I might need to hang up my sysadmin hat. So far its been ok because I am only a junior and not all my time is dedicated to networking and when I am required its all switching related stuff rather than uber complex routing scenarios.
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Oct 31, 2013 10:38
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Several people on my team at my last job had switched between Networking/Security/Sysadmin over the course of their careers. If you're super good in one area, you're probably pretty good at any other.
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Oct 31, 2013 12:13
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An overwhelming number of people you work with in your career will not actually be that great at their jobs. Not everyone is some IT rockstar, even the people who specialize in one particular area. In fact the vast majority of the people I've met who are the rockstars have experience in a variety of different subjects.
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Oct 31, 2013 14:33
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There are a ton of people who just scrape by in IT, and if you're not one of those people you're a gold mine.
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Oct 31, 2013 14:47
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Sepist posted:There are a ton of people who just scrape by in IT, and if you're not one of those people you're a gold mine. In the restaurant industry the saying is "If there's time to lean, there's time to clean", in IT it should be "If there's time to lean, there's time to read" or something like that. You could spend your time on Reddit or SA or watching Netflix, or you could be learning some other program/OS/equipment.
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Oct 31, 2013 14:49
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