what did you learn today?

[PaveHawk-]

That doing a data migration from an ancient ML350 G4P SATA storage server to replace the drives sucks.

4 x 250GB (RAID5) on an adaptec 2610SA raid controller, which supports only 48 bit addressing and a maximum single volume size of 2TB. The client bought 4 x 1GB SATA drives to replace, so right now I get to do that migration with little more than another server (RAID0, 850GB of storage - just what I really want) and 48 hours.

The server itself has ~1 million files @ 680GB.

 

[PaveHawk-]

I learnt that I need to get more across SAN technologies, especially Netapp.

This comes from the fact that one of the guys in my team, his dad works for Netapp. Through some potentially dodgy deals, his dad got him free training + free exams + staff level access to the Netapp portal. As a result, he's drunk the Netapp kool aid and every other SAN mfg is crap (the Dell Equallogic gear is shit because it cant do anything that the Netapp can! HP EVA is crap, cos its not as capable as Netapp! etc).

Arguing with him is pointless because I dont have any hard knowledge to work from, and because he is hyper competitive.

Dont get me wrong, he is a friend of mine (I'm good friends with him and his wife), but being tied to a specific vendor without regard for others is foolish; especially when your only exposure to that technology comes from training and not operational experience.

Then again, I might be slightly frustrated that up until 3 months ago he didnt even know who Netapp were, and now hes positioning himself to be more of an expert on SAN tech than he really has any right to be. That and I want free training goddamnit, I've never had free training ever!

 

[PaveHawk-]

Originally posted by Metzen:
As well, the HP DL380G6 is the highest HDD density server you can get 2U with the expansion bay. 16 2.5" SAS HDD's.

Didnt the Sun x4250 have that? The x4150 sitting next to me has 8 drives and its a 1u. Pretty sure the 4250 has 16 drives as well...

 

[PaveHawk-]

Originally posted by mqatrombone:

Originally posted by padster:
I found out that Exchange 2003 on a Hyper-V VM is not (officially) supported.

Odd. I don't have any stats, but my gut says that Exch 2003 is still the most popularly implemented version of Exchange. You'd think MIcrosoft would ensure that such a crucial piece of the infrastructure would be supported in their enterprise virtualization product.

If 2007 and 2010 weren't such much better at I/O, they might. But the I/O improvements in 2007 and 2010 plus the fact that virtualization really didn't start taking off until after 2003 was finished are the primary reasons why.

Hah, I learnt that virtualised Exchange 2007 on Windows 2003 R2 isnt supported (in any way/shape/form). Only way Ex2007 is supported is if it was running 2008. Makes the support case thats attempting to be logged rather hard...

 

[PaveHawk-]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by akro:<BR>HP has this thing called Halo. I wonder how that cost is compared. I know we keep shopping it around it's impressive to use but my guess is it's in the Cisco TP range too... </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>I used to work for a large multinational resources company, and they deployed 2 HP Halo rooms in the building. They used it in conjunction with the HP Halo rooms in several other offices.<BR><BR>Nice technology, but good god it was expensive. Re-modelling one of the meeting rooms to accommodate it and subsequently installing it had a very large price tag - no one would ever tell me the exact cost, but the building management guys hinted that it cost in the millions for the whole thing to get setup/working.

 

[PaveHawk-]

That moving buildings fucking sucks; 2 x 12 hour+ days for 3 staff.

And now I'm sick!

 

[PaveHawk-]

Got reminded yesterday that HP replacement-bit support can be pretty good. Tried a firmware upgrade on a P400i controller in a DL380 G5, and it bricked the card. Bricked as in the card no longer shows in the boot sequence, none of the diagnostic lights come on, and the firmware CD goes 'there's no controller there'. New part arriving Monday

No matter how many times I do it, firmware updates on Dell/HP/Sun gear are always heart-in-mouth for me :/

 

[PaveHawk-]

This is how I came to call our main server vendor Hewlett-Patch.

"Well, Soko, before we send a new part, you need to upgrade the firmware."
"Well, Pradeep, this is a critical system - if the card bricks we loose a lot of rupees. Not going to happen unless I have a spare on site ready to go. Send a new part, K?"
"Sir, I can'-"
"Pradeep, buddy, we can play by the script until I ask to speak to your manager and he tells you to send the part anyway. I've DONE THIS before."
*scrolls through a bit of history* "Yes sir, we'll ship the part - "
"With the firmware updated, right?"
"Yes sir. To $BUSINESS_ADDRESS, correct. You have 4 hour support, so the part will be there by lunch."
"Thank you, Pradeep, you are wonderful at customer service. That will be all for today - you've been very helpful. Have a nice day."

Thats a great way of doing things, alas the people I support tend not to spend a great deal on IT.

 

[PaveHawk-]

I learnt today that I'm working way too hard at my place (at least 2 hours work done every weekend for the last 6, but the average is sitting on close to 9) for no apparent reason; that is to say that my company doesnt appreciate the work I'm putting in to bring projects back on track and resolve other technical issues that affect our support operations (its an IT MSP/Consulting firm).

Yet for all my "ability", I sit here questioning myself wondering if I am half as good as I think I am and if I'm skilled enough to apply for that Senior engineer/Team Lead type role.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Replying to a few in a single go:

Apply. At worst you learn that you're not. At best, you learn that you are.

This shows you're worth taking the shot.

If you thought outright, "This is below me, I MUST move up!" we'd probably be telling you your full of it.

Take the shot.

Apply. At worst you learn that you're not. At best, you learn that you are.

Technically, applying and getting the job will not tell you if you are skilled enough. But if you get the job, *then* you find out if you are skilled or not. My guess is that you are not, but you can grow into it. Why would you take a position that offers no challenges anyway? Go for it.

Ditto on the "go for it", nobody every got a promotion by being a wallflower.

Cheers guys. My brain is so fragged at the moment, that everything feels like its in this haze/fog. To top it off, I've had this awesome tension headache for the last 6 or so days - mostly because I'm not looking forward to this weekend; I have to roll out a specific antivirus to a client because thats what they wanted, simply because it has an ISA plugin (swear to god, the ISA plugin sold it).

I need to take some time off and apply for jobs, this is starting to become ridiculous. I've worked 20% more hours than anyone else around me.

I have that same feeling every day, either that I'm going to be fired before the day is out, or that I should quit because I'm dragging the company down and they should replace me with someone more competent. You should see my end-of-year self-reviews...

Hah, you too? Its not so bad now, since I dont have the time to sit and think about it. It used to be that I'd expect to be fired at any given point; that management would suddenly wake up and go "hey wait a sec, we've been duped!". Now I feel a little safer because I have so much knowledge in my head that I want to document, but they wont allow me to since its not billable. I figure they should let me finish writing it up, it helps everyone in the long run anyway...

A little something for everyone to ponder:
Dunning–Kruger effect

Clicked on it and got a sense of deja vu. I must have clicked on it way back when it was posted before. How I didnt remember is beyond me.

--

I also realised that I'm holding myself to a weird standard; I'm reading these forums and thinking to myself that I must be behind the 8 ball because quite a few of the posters are crazy good at what they do. Take scorp508 for example, reading his posts you see how fucking good he is with Exchange, and I'm sitting there comparing going "wow, I dont know anything". Problem is, he lives/breathes Exchange so much that he got a job with MS.

Sometimes its hard not to compare to the talent in this forum, just have to remember that you cant be the best at everything.

 

[PaveHawk-]

making the changes from the GUI, and didn't do a copy running-config startup-config

Stupid Dell PowerConnect 5424s...the more I use them, the more I hate them.

 

[PaveHawk-]

That even a conservative firm like Microsoft are prone to levels of stupidity of epic proportions.

I'm at MS TechEd in the Gold Coast, QLD, AU and in the time leading up to there was a big, nay massive, promotion about the whole 'Women in IT' concept. So imagine my surprise when I walk around the expo area and they have this remote control car off-road track with the Halo warthog vehicles "manned" by staff from a group called "Meter maids" (they're pretty well known around here, but I imagine most of the people on this forum dont know about them).

For reference: http://www.metermaids.com/history.htm

Half naked women, pandering to the age old stereotype about IT nerds. During a time when MS is promoting Women in IT.

Dont get me wrong, I love looking at hot scantily clad women, but its really hard to justify that this is a professional development event when things like this occur. Especially given the fight I had trying to convince management that this is a useful event.

Seems like others have similar opinions:
- http://katec.posterous.com/the-auteched ... othes-plot
- http://www.itnews.com.au/News/229858,te ... in-it.aspx

Would have been awkward for the women that were here though, there are surprisingly a larger amount of women at this event than I've seen in the past; probably between 3 to 5% of the attendees.

Also, 2 out of 3 Exchange sessions have been good. 1 was the worst lot of marketing for Hyper V I've seen in a while; its more of a shame since it was sposed to be about E2010 virtualisation.

 

[PaveHawk-]

That even a conservative firm like Microsoft...

The company might be, but the employees sure aren't!

So I'm finding out...

 

[PaveHawk-]

That even a conservative firm like Microsoft are prone to levels of stupidity of epic proportions.

Heh! Check it out. Look what you've gone and done now.

Haha, that article..awesome!

I just got back from the Gold Coast a few hours ago, and they're (the region even) are taking it pretty personally. Apparently no one told them that MS were hosting a "Women in IT" forum, nor are they aware of the pay differential and numbers of women in IT in the first place.

That said, what amused me the most from the article "Aitchison added that she didn't know what all the fuss was about, as the Meter Maids were just as attentive to the women as they were the men."

Because, you know, it was about women paying attention to women that was the biggest issue.

[...]

I take that back. Read the comments to that post, thats amusing.

[edit]

They're taking it personally in the sense that its felt that the Meter Maids are getting attacked for no reason.

 

[PaveHawk-]

You company should have a policy that people that need domain admin privileges (or even just local server admin privileges) have second accounts with those privileges, so that when doing dumb shit like that they are only logged in with the same rights as any user. Because IT guys can get viruses too.

I've seen a few times where morons, literal morons, decide that they'll log in with their Domain Admin account and run-as everything that needs their normal credentials.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Management continually reminds us in IT that we are not allowed to make decisions. We are to act as consultants, giving management recommendations on possible courses of action. Apparently, saying "the other settings aren't appropriate for our computers" really rubbed some people the wrong way, because I'm not supposed to make that decision.

Really? You billing per hour? If so, give them an estimated cost on how much it would be to write up the list that they require - then ask them if they still want you to not make decisions.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Learned today to not install a Micosoft SP until it has been out for at least 4-5 months.

Installed SP1 on our 2010 Exchange server and all hell broke looses.

Really? What happened?

 

[PaveHawk-]

I learnt that trying to get the MD's approval to consider blades is easier if you just show pretty lights then dazzle him with fancy talk about fabrics and mezzanine cards. We're an MSP, and I kept using the words "enterprise", "best practice" and "improved efficiencies". I really need this hardware :/ We've got more servers than employees, not including the XD environment.

I think I might be getting an EMC NS120 and Dell M1000e + 4 blades to replace the aging mishmash of infrastructure I have right now (65 odd VMs across a DL360G5/DL380G5/PE2950III/R710, the newest processor is a 5506, the oldest is a 5130). Might be in 6 months, but something is better than nothing!!

What's really annoying, is that I actually care about the user experience; yet we're a damn MSP/Integrator. The guys should know what they're doing, so why do I still think "hm, need to extract more performance to help people out".

 

[PaveHawk-]

I learned (yet again) that Microsoft Premier Support's hold music is designed to make you kill yourself before speaking to someone. It even sounds like "And so now I'm siting here waiting to die."

Ever listen to Symantec's? Last time I was on hold for an hour it was about 2 minutes of music from one world locale, then 2 minutes of music from another, then another, then another. It was like some kind of even more torturous It's a Small World ride.

Last time I called MS, they subjected me to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You".

 

[PaveHawk-]

It's remarkable how my stress levels improved. My ulcer calmed down. And now it's starting to flare back up again. GAHAARGGHH.

I feel like I'm spamming this thread a little; but I really want to buy you a drink. I curse, abuse and generally hate my job at times. Then I read one of your posts and go "hm, I really dont have it all that bad".

Come to Melbourne, Australia sometime. You, me and scorp can get drunk (I owe him a few too).

 

[PaveHawk-]

In other news, my promotion came through. It only took 10 years.

Congrats, but I think you need another one

 

[PaveHawk-]

Yeah, but we have the best food in the world, so...

I love blackened Cajun style food...

Curses, I wanted to post the same thing

 

[PaveHawk-]

Good at what is the question that comes to mind...

Blackened Cajun style food!

(Oh come on, you had to see that one coming...)

Please dont hurt me.

 

[PaveHawk-]

That trying to get licensing details, especially Microsoft licensing details, is an utter mind fuck.

Client bought Open Value Subscription, what do you think the chances are of me working out how to get the order fulfilled in a reasonable time frame is?

I'll give you a hint, its between zero and fuck all.

 

[PaveHawk-]

That trying to get licensing details, especially Microsoft licensing details, is an utter mind fuck.

Client bought Open Value Subscription, what do you think the chances are of me working out how to get the order fulfilled in a reasonable time frame is?

I'll give you a hint, its between zero and fuck all.

Oh god, the urge to strangle someone from Microsoft is rising. I can visualise my hands around someone's neck, squeezing the life out of them

I call up MS because I want my damn media kit. This same OVS has SBS 2008 Premium in it. The person at the other end tells me that I have to add the licensing agreement to my Licensing console (cant, its OV Subscription. Note the word 'subscription', you retard. I cant; the stupid system wont let me.) so I can then access the download for the media.

Great, only problem is, is that your own goddamn guidance says that SBS 2008/2008 Premium etc are not available via electronic download (presumably because it usually requires pre-pidded media). See: https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/ser ... lable.aspx

Products currently not available for digital distribution (Purchase Media Option available)

- Windows Small Business Server Premium 2008
- Windows Small Business Server Standard 2008
- Windows Essential Business Server Premium
- Windows Essential Business Server Standard

Seriously, it cant really be this complex can it?!

 

[PaveHawk-]

I'm the backup guy, but effectively the primary person because the primary doesn't have enough experience/familiarity with VMWare.

Is there an aversion to competence where you work? Do they like having broken infrastructure?

 

[PaveHawk-]

Are you just now starting to read DM's stuff?

No, but for that specific point in time, my mind was utterly blown at how fucked up it really is for him. I've been in bureaucratic organisations, and the end result is the same, but the guys there are usually reasonably good. Its like he's hit the jackpot for bureaucracy and stupidity all at the same time.

 

[PaveHawk-]

I apologise in advance for this.

I work in AT&T's SOC. The moment I mention AT&T people want to tell me how much their cell service sucks or ask if I can get them a discount on an iPhone

You work at AT&T?! Can you get me an iphone? I know AT&T service sucks, but I really want an iphone...

 

[PaveHawk-]

Akro do you have a lot of unofficial employees too?

Arent they fanboys? Though I'll have to admit, I've never heard of a HP fanboy. Apple, EMC, Netapp sure, but never HP.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Akro do you have a lot of unofficial employees too?

Arent they fanboys? Though I'll have to admit, I've never heard of a HP fanboy. Apple, EMC, Netapp sure, but never HP.

I used to be an HP Fanboy. Well that was really when things where still tainted by DEC and everything was really Compaq and Tru64 had a roadmap and Alpha was still a kick-ass architecture and the EVA was revolutionary and Proliant was by far the best x86 hardware.

See, I used to work for DEC, then Compaq. I left before HP acquired Compaq and I always thought that was the worst move for Compaq. DEC, and subsequently Compaq, always felt like an engineering orientated firm over simply marketing. HP never did, HP always felt like it was all about the marketing and sales and wowing people. DEC also treated their people well, even if it wasnt intentional.

I know I'm getting old when I just had a "ahh, those were the days" moment. I'm only 31. Stupid time, need to slow it down somehow.

 

[PaveHawk-]

I used to work for DEC...I'm only 31

I got work experience at DEC, god only knows how, when I was 15 and continued keeping ties there until 17, when I started full time work there.

 

[PaveHawk-]

My father's badge number was 5682.

That reminds me, the thing I remember the most about DEC was that they had this incentive program where field engineers could identify a potential sale and team up with a sales guy. If the sale went through, they received a % of the sale (I think it was gross %). The bit that got me so blown away, there were 2 guys who I sorta knew that actually became insanely rich doing this tactic.

Now that I'm a little older and (theoretically) wiser, I wonder how effective this was. Were they identifying real deficiencies in the client systems, or were they trying to go for the money only?

 

[PaveHawk-]

Needs must post!

Due to popular demand:

Spoiler

All,

Please make sure to only use the Allow or Reject Actions for rules. Customers get upset when you choose "Random" by accident.

Rob Nelson

That is awesome. So awesome.

 

[PaveHawk-]

I learnt that I'm a fucking moron. I posted this on the 28th of July, 2010. I lamented the fact that I was sitting there working extremely hard for an organisation that didnt appreciate my efforts. The general advice then was to get a new job, no harm in applying etc.

(In the spoiler is a huge slab of text, read it if you really are that bored - but the TLDR pretty much sums it all up)

Spoiler

Now I'm not the type of guy who will hold a gun to my employer's head ("if you dont do x, I will do y"), I'd rather bring it up in what I'd hope is an adult fashion and negotiate a mutually satisfactory outcome. In my favour was that one of the 3 directors had worked out that I was a little frustrated, pulled me aside and we had a chat for an hour or so (though he wasnt involved with my team, he's a director so no harm). Clearly he took the matter seriously and somehow I magically got the promotion a week after he had a chat with me, the same promotion that my division was promising me for almost a year.

Since that promotion, I feel like I've done well in my division; the quality of the projects being rolled out has improved so much that the Support team have asked for me to run all the projects from a technical level - huge ego boost that. The team dynamic and interactions between Projects and Support has improved. There's more discussion going on about what a decent solution is for existing Support clients when we do upgrades for them. Hell, its actually going so well that we're getting actual feedback from clients and all of it is positive! (Note: all of this isnt because of me, though the para might make it seem that way - I think that because I engaged the Support team to try and improve my team's delivery, they've decided to engage me and my team and its been a collaborative effect and result)

But I fear that the division has fallen back to its old ways, in re-hiring my predecessor who's work I have found to be sub-par. The reality is, I knew it was like that and it would never change. I just hoped it would.

[edit] Portions of this have been deleted [/edit]

At this point, to bring it back, the reason why I'm a fucking moron?

Apply. At worst you learn that you're not. At best, you learn that you are.

This shows you're worth taking the shot.

If you thought outright, "This is below me, I MUST move up!" we'd probably be telling you your full of it.

Take the shot.

Apply. At worst you learn that you're not. At best, you learn that you are.

Technically, applying and getting the job will not tell you if you are skilled enough. But if you get the job, *then* you find out if you are skilled or not. My guess is that you are not, but you can grow into it. Why would you take a position that offers no challenges anyway? Go for it.

Ditto on the "go for it", nobody every got a promotion by being a wallflower.

(Also TLDR) It was right there; apply for a new goddamn job and I didnt fucking do it - hence I'm a fucking moron. I wouldnt be posting this long rant if I actually did something instead of thinking about it. Less thinking, more doing. Easy. How fucking hard is that to remember.

Hope this post doesnt come back and bite me.

ARGH!#@

[edit]

Just my luck, it sorta did; apologies, a colleague has since advised that I needed to delete large portions of this post.

 

[PaveHawk-]

My father's badge number was 5682. :bigdumbgrin: He rose through the ranks as a Field Circus engineer until he left in 1984 a few months after they cancelled the Jupiter Project.

RSTS/E 4 lyfe yo

DEC founder Ken Olsen is dead.

 

[PaveHawk-]

On a WAG, one of the network guys does a WHOIS on the nameserver's name... and finds out that it expires today.

Wait, what? Were you using DNS to reach the DNS server, or did I read that wrong?

At a guess, the server hosting the zone had a whois done on it and the domain for the hosting server was expiring? I think.

 

[PaveHawk-]

I used that when I was doing my MCITP:EA, and ever since I started at my new job I've been meaning to get one set up. It is very very nice.

As an aside...MCSE is so much easier to say...why did they double the letters? Also, people have no idea what MCITP is...I now just say 'it's the 2008 MCSE.'

I want to believe that its because they realised that holding an MCSE didnt actually make you an engineer.

 

[PaveHawk-]

Digicert's SSL Checker Tool is the bomb. IIS installed the certificates, but missed the intermediates. No errors, no logs, we're all scratching our heads because cert checking was s l o w. Fixed.

You, sir, rock. I will definitely be using that the next time.

DigiCert is all I use nowadays; if you have a problem you hit their online support or call them and they fix it then and there or keep working on it. Might not be the absolute cheapest, but they're damn good.

 

[PaveHawk-]

That migrating 1500 staff to a new webmail server, with new url but NOT migrating their sundry blackberrys and iphones makes Jack something something.

Do they know you're the one doing the migrating? If so, human shields are legitimate in this particular instance.

(Which reminds me of the one time where a user threw something at me because I didn't give her the access she felt she deserved - kind of glad she sucked at throwing, she threw a stapler at me.)

 

[PaveHawk-]

Wow. That is so wrong. I've had some pretty pissed off customers/users to deal with in the past. Fortunately most of them have not been pissed off because of something I did but yeah, now and then it happens. No one has ever gotten physical or even threatened to do so with me. That's kind of scary, like, I would be strongly thinking about reporting that incident to someone kind of scary. Next time it could be throwing a 3 ring hole punch at some poor person. If that connected it could do a lot of damage.

To be honest, I strongly suspect shes bipolar - I reported it, but not a great deal eventuated from it, they kinda just swept it under the rug. Didnt even get a formal apology from the unit or the individual.

There's a great deal many reasons why I dont work there anymore.