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IST 346

Lecture 2

Chapters 1, 2, 31.1

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Climbing Out Of A Hole

Dont spend all your time addressing the

symptoms of a problem, fix the underlying

cause.

As the text said, spend time to fix the leaky

pipe vs. spending all your time mopping up

the water

Generally money and time to do it right the

first time

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Typical Duties of a SA

User management

Hardware management

System backups and restores

Deploy new systems and services

Monitoring (systems / services / network)

Troubleshooting

Helping users

Working strange hours. Sometimes SAs arerequired to work nights or weekends to resolveproblems or implement an upgrade / new

system. Its the career you choose.

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Prioritizing the Problems and Projects

Assign separate staff Some staff work on operations and maintenance

Password resets, account creations, printing problems, etc.

Some staff work on new projects

Can even do this with small staff (1-2 people).

Dedicate days for one task (morning) and other day (afternoon) doing other task

Another option, one SA (system administrator) OMtasks and one projects for one week, then switch tasksnext week. Try to reduce the amount of interruptions

and meetings. See if some of your project staff would like to work

from home or non-standard hours. Eliminates thedistractions and can make the time much moreproductive.

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Tips To Improve SA

Implement a ticketing or call tracking system

Empower the helpdesk with tools to meet theimmediate tasks, password reset, disk quota

increases, etc. Time saving policies and documentation

Learn the fine art of saying No

Build your servers (and desktops) from common

images or automated install scripts Implement automatic and simple management

applications

Make high priority applications work !

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Implement A Ticketing or Call Tracking System

TrackALL calls / requests even the 5 minute fixes.

Shows management how busy your team really is. If youapproach management asking for a new hire(s), have somedata to defend your request.

Compare your data against industry metrics, such as howmany desktops your staff is supporting vs. what commonbenchmarks are. You may find you need to work smarter,not that you need more people.

Many good packages available

RT (used at SU) Service Desk (previously used at SU)

JIRA (open source, replaced Service Desk)

Track-IT (used at SU)

Try to get the entire IT staff to use a common tool. Saves

time on duplicate data entry from system A to system B

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Empower the helpdesk

Purchase or write tools that will allow your helpdesk toresolve many common support calls.

Customers will be happier if what they see as smallissues resolved immediately.

Try reversing the model. Put more experienced staff

on the helpdesk to try to achieve a greater than 80%kill ratio.

Implement a remote control application that allowshelpdesk staff to take control of a customersworkstation. Your staff can see the problem 1st hand vs. mis-diagnosing

it.

Easier to resolve and teach the customer how to do itright the 1st time. This will also reduce the number ofhelpdesk calls in the future.

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Time Saving Policies and Documentation

Have your helpdesk keep a running list of FAQs andpost on your companies website.

Refer users to these pages AFTER they call about aproblem. Dont tell them to read the web and dismiss

the call. Set hours of service policies unless you like having

after hours and weekend support calls. An occasionalemergency call in the evening for during a weekend isok, but not frequent calls.

Set and abide by pre-approved scheduled downtime. Servers need to be patched and as such require a periodic

reboot (or more). With a pre-approved downtimeschedule (at SU its generally 6-10 am Sundays and 5-7 amTuesdays), you wont need to contently be looking for a

window to conduct maintenance.

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Time Saving Policies and Documentation

Communicate important up-coming events

RSS feeds to the companies website

Periodic monthly or quarterly newsletters on new services,

systems, or events Gives you a chance to blow your own horn and inform everyone

of what IT does for them. IT is expensive and its good to

communicate to your customers that they are getting real value

for their money.

Communicate status of upgrades or enhancements

Dont keep your users in the dark. Even if they wont like

the news youll telling them, it better than not telling them

anything. Even when things go wrong, inform the

customers !

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Common Builds

B

uild your servers and workstations from commonautomated installation scripts or ghost images.

Use templates for Virtual Machines

Find ways to reduce the white elephants or one-offconfigurations. You can spend a lot of time chasingnon-standard systems.

Even the order in which software is installed can causedifferent characteristics within similar systems.

Build software packages or deployment points. Dontgo to a customers desktop with a stack of CDs, thumbdrives, etc and waste time repeating the same tasksfrom machine to machine.

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Common Builds

Many ways to push or deploy software to a

customers machine.

Active Directory group policies and Microsoft

installation (MSI) packages

3rd party software such as Intels LanManager

Novells ZenWorks

How about deploying software to no

workstation at all

Virtual Desktops allow the use of thin clients vs.

full blown desktop PCs. More on this later.

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Learn the fine art of saying No

Sometimes users have either the impossible or foryou to do their job for them.

May want applications that perform a similarfunction as software you have already deployed.

Example, WordPerfect vs. Microsoft Word.

A customer saying, I know how to use WordPerfectalready isnt a viable reason for them to get it.

Teach the customer how to fish for themselves.The old adage, fish for a man, he will eat today,teach him to fish, he will eat forever means to trainyour customers how to do their jobs and be lessreliant on you.

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Implement Management Applications

Use Microsofts Windows Update Server (WSUS)to deploy windows updates to your clients (andservers) from a central point.

Faster and more efficient than having your usersPCs set to automatic and downloading thepackages directly from Microsoft.

Allows you to limit what gets deployed. Forexample, IE8 is listed as a Microsoft criticalupdate. Many websites and departmentalapplications currently do not fully support IE8(such as myslice.syr.edu).

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Implement Management Applications

Many 3rd party applications available that

allow for better control and reporting of OS

patch deployment, software deployments,

printer deployments, etc.

Try to use one package that does everything

or as much of everything that you can.

The more management packages you use, the

more time, expense, and effort it takes to use

them.

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Implement Simple Monitoring

Applications

Use simple ping or are you alive applications such as Whats-Up-Gold

or Hobbit. Configure to ping a host every 90 seconds and email the

server support staff if 3 consecutive pings fail. Good sign the server is

locked up due to hardware, software, environmental (power, cooling, etc)

or due to theft.

Use Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) and enough air conditioning to

support what youve built. Dont over extend your data center (or server

room) with more and more equipment. Purchase smart power

distribution devices that monitor and alert, not just dumb power strips.

Spend capital (money) on your data center from time to time and not just

on more servers. Upgrade when required (usually at a 70%-80% capacity

level). Customers will get upset with new system delays but even more

upset when services that they come to rely on go down.

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Implement Advanced Monitoring

Applications

As time allows begin using SNMP (Simple NetworkManagement Protocol) features that allow for more advancedmonitoring such as high CPU utilization, low free disk space,or high network utilization.

SNMP will help you properly diagnose the underlying rootcause of your problems so you dont just put lipstick on apig or band-aids on what youre guessing is the problem.

With real proof of what the underlying problem is, you canapproach upper management and let them decide if themoney should be spend to fix the issue.

More on all this later in the semester when we discuss DataCenters

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Make high priority applications work

Everyone lives and dies by email, texting, and MSOffice. Make sure these work as designed andupdates are applied in a timely manner.

Monitor your internet traffic and increasebandwidth if needed.

Dont load all critical applications on the sameserver(s). During patch time, or if you have a

software or hardware problem, all criticalapplications are effected. True as well withvirtual servers.

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Questions So Far ?

Next section, Perception

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Perception

Make a good first impression. Id rather overdress than under dress when meeting apotential customer for the 1st time. Even on

casual Fridays you can look professional. Shake everyones hand. Give a firm

handshake; no noodle-wristing. Distributeyour business cards.

Be early, polite, listen, and honest. Dont tell acustomer what you think they want to hear,them the truth.

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Perception

Try to be pro-active vs. reactive meaning, dontwait for a new employee to arrive beforeordering them a PC, have the new PC on theirdesk waiting for them the 1st day they arrive.

Have it loaded with a default build or thecommon set of applications everyone users Office

Email

Alternative web browsers

Others depending on the specific tasks of thedepartment.

Have a Introduction to our IT document ready

for them to read.

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Perception

Have it include the dos and dont about IT at

your company.

Customers can be your largest asset or your worst

enemy.

When promotion or raise time comes around,

wouldnt you feel better knowing that you have a

bunch of supporters vs. a bunch of enemies. Remember: people talk. Wouldnt you like them

to talk favorability about you?

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Perception

Be happy in the workplace even if it is an act.

Dont be disgruntled and if you are, dont show it.

Dont speak negatively about customers, peers, orupper management. It is surprising how these types of

conversations circulate throughout the company.

Remember: you are at work to serve the customers.

If you are a helpdesk or desktop support staff member, youcustomers are the clients that call on the phone.

If you are a SA, your customers also include the helpdeskor desktop support staff.

If you are a Senior SA, include junior SAs

If you are management, include about everyone else.

Management isnt easy.

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Summary

Fit the problem, dont put lipstick on a pig

Prioritize your responsibilities

Use call tracking systems

Use images or common builds whenever

possible

Implement management applications Make high-priority applications work

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Summary

Make a good 1st impression

No noodle-wristing

Next weeks exercise

Be pro-active

Be helpful to customers

They are your largest asset at raise time!

Dont gossip! Be happy at work

or at least act like youre happy

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Next Weeks Homework

Read Semester Project E-Markets. Will be posted evening of 9/9on webct.

Project Team Assignments Thursday in lab.

Recruit a variety of team members.

4 to 5 people in a team (no teams on 3 or teams of 6)

Dont focus on all technical people. Get a good mix.

Assign a team leader

Devise a professional sounding name for your team, Example: Orange Consulting (cant use this one)

Write team members names, leaders name, and team name on a

sheet of paper (neatly) and turn it into me no later than Thursday 9/9at 1:50 pm (end of lab).

Customer Interview on 9/16. Prepare questions to ask. Sit withyour team members. Ill go around the room asking questions.

Quiz #1 next week on chapters covered in this lecture and from thebook chapters.