What Are You Doing Right Now
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@dafyre I am the only IT guy for the company so I am on call 24/7/365.
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@wrx7m I am also the only IT guy here, but I'm not on call after hours.... unless it is something catastrophic... or trivial. The bosses only call me after hours maybe 2-3 times a month, so I'm fine with that. I did have to stay 4+ hours extra one friday when the server room a/c crapped out. That was probably the most unplanned after hours event I've had to deal with here.
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@RojoLoco Yeah, I have PRTG to tell me when I need to do something. Usually, people don't bother me after hours. It is the equipment that beckons.
I used to get calls from remote users on the weekends for expiring passwords and that was annoying so I setup a password notification e-mail that starts 14 days prior to their expiration. And I have e-mail templates that I send out explaining how to create strong passwords that you can remember and how to change your password and update the cached credentials on the domain-joined laptop.If someone calls me now, they will get a "You'll have to wait til Monday". Fortunately, it hasn't come to that but I still have to force some people to change them on the day of or on the Friday prior to it expiring. They might as well be my kids.
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Family dinner time.
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@RojoLoco Also, I had my AC go out in the server room at a place I worked at about 10 years ago when I was only helpdesk. No one knew anything was wrong until the next day when nothing worked. Open the server room door and it was like 105 in there. JBODs and a tape library and local storage cooked to death. $50K and a few weeks later and we got most of it back after sending the drives to a clean room recovery facility. After that we installed climate monitoring and alerting from IT Watchdogs. I learned my lesson from that.
When I started at my current place (5 years ago), the server room had a portable AC and an in-wall unit neither of which was doing anything but blowing the hot air around the room. Install a ductless split system and IT watchdogs again. I have had two AC failures and was able to prevent a meltdown each time. Power off everything remotely and go open the room to cool it down. Leave room open with gigantic fan blowing exhaust out the door and power things back on. We are now on the second ductless split system.
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@wrx7m said:
@RojoLoco Also, I had my AC go out in the server room at a place I worked at about 10 years ago when I was only helpdesk. No one knew anything was wrong until the next day when nothing worked. Open the server room door and it was like 105 in there. JBODs and a tape library and local storage cooked to death. $50K and a few weeks later and we got most of it back after sending the drives to a clean room recovery facility. After that we installed climate monitoring and alerting from IT Watchdogs. I learned my lesson from that.
When I started at my current place (5 years ago), the server room had a portable AC and an in-wall unit neither of which was doing anything but blowing the hot air around the room. Install a ductless split system and IT watchdogs again. I have had two AC failures and was able to prevent a meltdown each time. Power off everything remotely and go open the room to cool it down. Leave room open with gigantic fan blowing exhaust out the door and power things back on. We are now on the second ductless split system.
AC failure is one of my biggest fears. Right up there with pipes bursting.
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@MattSpeller Yeah, the IT watchdogs appliance also has the ability to add water/flood sensors. I have one of those connected too. That scenario would be one of the worst. Fortunately, we don't have freezing winters here.
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@wrx7m said:
@MattSpeller Yeah, the IT watchdogs appliance also has the ability to add water/flood sensors. I have one of those connected too. That scenario would be one of the worst. Fortunately, we don't have freezing winters here.
I need to look into a water one, our server room location is.... less than optimal from a plumbing rupture standpoint.
We do our temp sensors through our UPS, might have room for another module......
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In case anyone is wondering. I have the older, not-quite-as-butch-sounding, WeatherGooseII. When Geist bought them, they changed the name to watchdog 1200. Pretty much the same thing, from everything I can see.
http://www.itwatchdogs.com/climate-monitor-Watchdog-1200-p1.html -
Just back from an amazing dinner.
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Zoho docs has dropbox integration. It's pretty nice.
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Researching local log servers, need a free solution. Not tied to any particular OS, we have licenses for Windows Server if needed.
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@MattSpeller What kind of logging in particular?
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@DustinB3403 said:
@MattSpeller What kind of logging in particular?
Fortigate logs, windows server logs, linux server logs, UPS logs too hopefully
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@DustinB3403 said:
@MattSpeller What kind of logging in particular?
Maybe some exchange logging too for bonus points
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@MattSpeller Here is an interesting solution called LogStash.
A linux based build that will collect all of your logs in a central location and give you an easy to search web console.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@MattSpeller Here is an interesting solution called LogStash.
A linux based build that will collect all of your logs in a central location and give you an easy to search web console.
You use LogStash as part of ELK, not on its own. Whenever we mention ELK, that's what we are talking about. NTG uses ELK.
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@scottalanmiller said:
http://mangolassi.it/topic/5365/setting-up-logstash-for-elk
http://mangolassi.it/topic/5364/showing-off-our-new-elk-install
The set up tutorial will need to be changed because they don't use logstash-forwarder any longer, it's now file beat.
