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Beefstorm posted:This thread looks like fun. I've had similar training/contract stipulations before at old jobs. Essentially if the company pays for training or certification you agree to stick around for at least 2 years afterwards or you have to pay back the cost. My HR director at the time told me that it's essentially meaningless. They can't take the money out of your last paycheck legally and the legal costs for getting the money recouped wouldn't be worth paying. The only thing you'd possibly lose is a recommendation from them if you listed them as a reference.
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Jun 19, 2015 17:53
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I was asked to do that recently before doing an MCSE and ended up pushing back and getting the terms reduced. And to be honest when I move jobs giving a grand back isn't going to be an issue because I will either discuss it with the new employer and see if they can cover it, or the increase in salary will be worth it. This is for certs that you want to do though, and fit into your overall career plan. For random vendor training that you don't give a poo poo about then they can swallow that cost. Same for CBT Nuggets - it makes you a better employee, it doesn't give you a cert that you can go and wave somewhere else. It would be like being asked to pay for a new laptop that allows you to actually do your job in a timely fashion.
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Jun 19, 2015 19:02
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Sheep posted:"Oh you want $2000 to replace the D-Link consumer APs with two Merakis because the clients are furious that our wireless never works? Not in the budget, maybe next year! Suppliers constantly calling in asking when we're going to buy the new Server and Multifunction printer we desperately need... Finance: *Crickets chirping in the distance* Managing director says to me get me the new Galaxy S6, after he's had the newest Note for a little while... Finance: OK
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Jun 19, 2015 23:23
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Beefstorm posted:So, if we have 6 IT staff, banned from thread? A new desk was installed some time ago, and the store couldn't print suddenly. Hop in the car, get to the location, check the connection. Huh, this printer has two Ethernet cables plugged in? I follow one back, behind the desk, down to the floor, around the bend, back up towards the PC... and straight over to the printer.  Not gonna print much plugged into itself folks.
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Jun 20, 2015 00:08
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Super Slash posted:Suppliers constantly calling in asking when we're going to buy the new Server and Multifunction printer we desperately need... yup. or marketing. Marketing is always a tech vampire.
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Jun 20, 2015 12:48
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Anyone using that Azure VM backup service? I figured I'd want to back up maybe 6 VMs and around 1Tb of data in the event our office burnt down. I havent done the math but I reckon it might come out cheaper than the hundreds of LTO tapes and associate drives going back 5 generations. Smalltime IT content: The current debate is whether we spend 100 bucks a month on ticket software. We just spent $40k to trial some CRM software. I cant fathom how we can ever make that back.
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Jun 22, 2015 03:43
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Sheep posted:"Oh you want $2000 to replace the D-Link consumer APs with two Merakis because the clients are furious that our wireless never works? Not in the budget, maybe next year! Ubiquiti Unifi... https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac/ The AC capable models are about $260 USD. Management software is free and does not require a subscription/support contract/yearly extortion fee. Runs on Linux, Mac, Windows. For even cheaper, the 2.4Ghz only models (UniFi UAP) are only around $80USD each..
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Jun 22, 2015 14:07
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Swink posted:
Wait. Somehow 40k to TRIAL some software is ok, but 100 bucks is something you need to have a meeting on?  tell me more.....
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Jun 22, 2015 14:09
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It depends who is asking for it, and who is being credited with the idea. Office Politics 101.
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Jun 22, 2015 14:29
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stevewm posted:Ubiquiti Unifi... https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac/ It's not so much a dollar amount problem as a "wait you need money?" problem. I can just inflate my budget request for next year by like 20k and be done with it but it's the principle of the thing - clients are pissed, it's affecting business, but we won't drop pennies on it because reasons, also hey while you're here go drop double the amount you just asked for on this poo poo we totally don't need in the slightest.
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Jun 22, 2015 18:12
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stevewm posted:Ubiquiti Unifi... https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac/ I was looking at ubiquiti but I'm really concerned about the apparent lack of support. I understand that they ~just work~ but if/when there's a problem it's basically email support only, or use their forums lol. I need to pick up a phone when wifi isn't working.
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Jun 22, 2015 21:57
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I've not tried it, but Ruckus have their Xclaim offshoot now, and Zebra (used to be Motorola I think) have their WiNG Express products. I think someone made a move into enterprise-ish-but-not-$800-per-AP and it's forced people to try and get into that space.
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Jun 22, 2015 22:07
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Update: That 40TB Raid 6 volume is finally done reconstructing. Apparently next time i "need to do it faster" That is all.
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Jul 8, 2015 21:04
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Small IT shop; medium sized environment. What would you guys suggest for tracking inventory and network devices? Spiceworks has never been a hit with me, personally. Really just want something lightweight that's not excel, and maybe that can track relationships and site association of devices. Bonus points if it can be tied to an end user in AD for end user devices. Or should I give spiceworks another go?
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Jul 9, 2015 02:26
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Walked posted:Small IT shop; medium sized environment. Some people have had good luck with FileMaker Pro databases which is nice and lightweight but that wont integrate with AD.
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Jul 9, 2015 13:52
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Walked posted:Small IT shop; medium sized environment. I've used lansweeper at one job and I found it pretty great. http://www.lansweeper.com/
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Jul 9, 2015 14:01
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Central font management! We have a team of about 10 people who work on Macs with InDesign and need to share fonts amongst each other. Right now people just source their fonts individually and I'd like to provide a solution to centrally manage them, e.g. have a central server that has all the fonts and whenever someone adds a new font everyone can access it. I've used Extensis Suitcase Fusion before and it looks like they have a Universal Type Server that will do the trick, but it's $1400 and I want to spend like, $500. Are there other options? Server side needs to be a Windows VM or it's going to have to be one of the iMac workstations 
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Jul 10, 2015 13:30
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Some people have had good luck with FileMaker Pro databases which is nice and lightweight but that wont integrate with AD. FileMaker will definitely integrate with AD for user authentication, although for a small IT shop your best bang for the buck for a Help Desk solution is going to be something like SpiceWorks or Web Help Desk. It's way easier than building your own Help Desk in FileMaker (Hint: ask me how I know).
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Jul 11, 2015 03:49
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:Central font management! UTS Lite is pretty much the only product that is standalone. You'll also eat it on upgrades if you use Creative Cloud, because you'll need to upgrade the client every year to maintain compatibility with the latest adobe apps. It is agnostic, and the windows server version will happily serve mac clients and deal with mac type 1 fonts. If you have creative cloud team edition, and you actually care about font licensing, you can take a look at Adobes Typekit offering. Fonts purchased/licensed there should be available across all team members. I never went that route, so you will need to research and confirm it will suit your needs.
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Jul 11, 2015 04:09
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EoRaptor posted:UTS Lite is pretty much the only product that is standalone. You'll also eat it on upgrades if you use Creative Cloud, because you'll need to upgrade the client every year to maintain compatibility with the latest adobe apps. Thanks, I also saw font agent server but that requires mac server
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Jul 11, 2015 20:06
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We use spiceworks for device tracking. Its free and it works alright.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:22
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UTS is great if you can afford it.
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Jul 12, 2015 20:47
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McDeth posted:ask me how I know How do you know?
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Jul 15, 2015 13:22
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I just got laid off from my NOC/Sysadmin (really sysadmin, but our titles were in the NOC) job at a very very large MSP datacenter, and honestly I kinda want to find a small shop to work for. So much poo poo is done wrong because "that's how it's always been done" at my old job and I feel like in a small shop at least I might have some possibility of the higher ups actually listening to me and implementing changes that will, you know, increase productivity. And decrease downtime. And maybe make stuff secure, because... well let's just say that I wasn't completely comfortable with the security at my previous job.
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Jul 17, 2015 00:48
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I just got laid off from my NOC/Sysadmin (really sysadmin, but our titles were in the NOC) job at a very very large MSP datacenter, and honestly I kinda want to find a small shop to work for. So much poo poo is done wrong because "that's how it's always been done" at my old job and I feel like in a small shop at least I might have some possibility of the higher ups actually listening to me and implementing changes that will, you know, increase productivity. And decrease downtime. And maybe make stuff secure, because... well let's just say that I wasn't completely comfortable with the security at my previous job. Depends on the shop but most smaller shops never have enough people to cover their clients, clients who never want to pay to do anything properly so you have the dreams and freedom do things right but not the time or resources.
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Jul 17, 2015 00:58
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Oh, so it's the same as my last job then. Figures - IT is always IT. 
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Jul 17, 2015 01:06
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Oh, so it's the same as my last job then. Figures - IT is always IT. You could go internal at a small shop, then you will never have enough people for the workload, and never budget to replace anything. management will also insist on admin rights for everyone.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:09
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Oh, so it's the same as my last job then. Figures - IT is always IT. No, it isn't. If you can drive best practice, you can really help a small shop. Can you step into a mid-senior jack of all trades or SME role, though?
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Jul 17, 2015 03:18
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"that's how it's always been done" is also the attitude at a lot of small shops, though
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Jul 17, 2015 07:06
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'We just share our passwords. It's easier and I trust everyone' Hoo boy!
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Jul 17, 2015 09:31
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KennyTheFish posted:You could go internal at a small shop, then you will never have enough people for the workload, and never budget to replace anything. management will also insist on admin rights for everyone. This is complete truth.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:54
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I just got laid off from my NOC/Sysadmin (really sysadmin, but our titles were in the NOC) job at a very very large MSP datacenter, and honestly I kinda want to find a small shop to work for. So much poo poo is done wrong because "that's how it's always been done" at my old job and I feel like in a small shop at least I might have some possibility of the higher ups actually listening to me and implementing changes that will, you know, increase productivity. And decrease downtime. And maybe make stuff secure, because... well let's just say that I wasn't completely comfortable with the security at my previous job. poo poo is far more likely to be done to some kind of standard in a large shop than it is in a small shop. You struggle for resources in small shops and so cutting corners becomes the norm.
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Jul 17, 2015 21:24
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Rhymenoserous posted:poo poo is far more likely to be done to some kind of standard in a large shop than it is in a small shop. You struggle for resources in small shops and so cutting corners becomes the norm. Not only that, even if everybody recognizes that something is lovely, you don't have the time/resources to fix it while also handling the day-to-day workload.
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Jul 17, 2015 21:25
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Inspector_666 posted:Not only that, even if everybody recognizes that something is lovely, you don't have the time/resources to fix it while also handling the day-to-day workload. My shop transitioned from a 1 man team to a 3 man team, and now that I have resources, I've found myself cussing at my own past corner cutting, but it was necessary at the time. The guy who held my position previous to me was even a more notorious corner cutter, and I used to be livid at the slapdash way he did things, but after two years of being on my own I kinda get it now. He was driven to it, and he had no support from his superiors. They still view IT as "Computer mumbo jumbo" and not as the lynchpin to their entire working organization.
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Jul 17, 2015 21:31
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Jeoh posted:"that's how it's always been done" is also the attitude at a lot of small shops, though Yes but in smaller companies you can do things like have lunch with the owner, push CTO to change procedures whilst being in tier 1 noc, etc.
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Jul 17, 2015 21:49
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NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:Yes but in smaller companies you can do things like have lunch with the owner, push CTO to change procedures whilst being in tier 1 noc, etc. Yeah exactly, this is the kind of stuff I would like to be able to do (though I was tier 2/3, nobody listens to us even though we literally held the company together at times). My first 2.5 years in IT were working for a friend's business that was like 10 people total, that was great because you always had the boss's ear. KennyTheFish posted:You could go internal at a small shop, then you will never have enough people for the workload, and never budget to replace anything. management will also insist on admin rights for everyone. Oh god I can only imagine how much this sucks. Even at my last job internal was such a fuckin joke, literally no budget at all. And the admin rights for everyone thing still happened, oh you're a salesperson? Well, here's some unrestricted LDAP access and let's make you an admin in AD too. evol262 posted:No, it isn't. If you can drive best practice, you can really help a small shop. Can you step into a mid-senior jack of all trades or SME role, though? Yes, I am best at the jack of all trades role, though I don't know if you could consider me mid-senior. It got really loving old trying to drive best practices and being shat all over by the superiors with "oh yeah, that'd be nice, but no it's not gonna happen." Honestly all of this small shop stuff you guys are bitching about happened at my large shop too. We were critically understaffed pretty much all the time, which sucks because I could have learned a lot more if we'd been able to approach stuff the way it should be approached instead of just putting larger band-aids over smaller ones. But it's bound to be worse now, I had dinner the other night with my old team and they are even more buried in bullshit than they were before due to the layoffs. wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Jul 18, 2015 |
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Jul 18, 2015 13:45
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I'm looking for a new Security Gateway that will handle Site-to-Site and Client VPN. I'm no expert in this area, and neither is my coworker. We have about 15 people at my site, and about 5 at the other, and we'd be connecting to AWS as well. I'd really like it if the client VPN would work with the OS native VPN clients on both OSX and Windows. Failing that, the client needs to be readily available and not be garbage. I'm asking for a thing that probably doesn't exist here, but it would also be really nice if they somehow used Google Apps to authenticate, because that's the closest thing we have to single sign-on at the moment.
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Jul 18, 2015 14:00
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Swink posted:'We just share our passwords. It's easier and I trust everyone' Sales director catches a whiff of a possible mole > "RESET THE PASSWORDS FOR THE WHOLE COMPANY" Sales director gets a new laptop > "Do I REALLY need a password for this thing?" 
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Jul 18, 2015 14:55
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Maybe the new Meraki MX stuff would work for you? Site-to-site VPN is as close to "press a button and it works" as you can get. Only real downside is the Meraki licensing scheme. Never heard of anything working with Google Apps for authentication but I've not looked very hard either. Sheep fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jul 18, 2015 |
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Jul 18, 2015 15:04
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I honestly prefer VPN applications vs. trying to explain to people how to configure the built-in VPN diallers. Especially if you are looking at using 2-factor auth since using that with OS native tools tends to mean "type your password and then put the 2FA code after it". I presume you don't have an AD on-prem that you can utilise as the user directory?
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Jul 18, 2015 15:11
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