Affective Today my job has been outsourced!

Deathmage

hurricane1091 wrote: »

I've updated our VLAN scheme spreadsheet. It's a pain honestly if it's not kept up with. Like I was doing some stuff in vSphere SRM and it wasn't really that technical, it was trying to figure out available IP addresses and trying to match the DR server IPs with the IPs of the servers here at the office that was frustrating. We're still on 2003 in some areas which is going to lose support this year. I've been pushing for a 2012 upgrade to get some more experience but I don't think it will happen.

it's easier to upgrade to 2008 R2 sometimes for software reasons. You should push for 2008 R2 and make sure all the software in the company can support it. This is why now I go for one version behind until I upgrade. Luckily my partner-n-crime is a database admin/programmer so he maintains the database and all our custom ERP software... But I maintain the servers/network/desktops and security.

Networking_Student

zxbane wrote: »

I have to agree with those above me, I couldn't imagine going through 4 interviews with a single company. I've never experienced anything like that, although I know it isn't unheard of either. Best of luck to you though, hopefully you land one of them soon, and there won't be a 5th round!

When I worked in the automotive service industry as a Mechanic before being injured, my first Auto Dealership had a week long process interview, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, doing nothing but paper and computer exams soly related to gas, and diesel vehicles, and 3 of those five days were automotive hybrid systems.

It was insane, only 1 of 2 hired out of 50 applicants there. (Electronic and Hybrid systems are the new thing for cars)

Deathmage

I'm so going to have to get used to a paycheck over 1000 a week take home; this is nice!

...is this what it means after getting reputable certifications does to mulla...

bookishspider

Wow!! After reading this i feel really dumb! As a network student i hope to one day have as much knowledge as you!

Deathmage

bookishspider wrote: »

Wow!! After reading this i feel really dumb! As a network student i hope to one day have as much knowledge as you!

My beginnings were shaky too, I felt dumb in the start so don't feel bad!!! ...Just put one foot in front of the other and fight for your dreams. My dream is for my MCSE and CCNP so I could be a Sr. System Administrator. One of these days I'll get there but that dream is what drives me each and every day. Plus I'm very athletic and always positive and so far being positive and cheery has been a cornerstone of my personality coupled with a can-do attitude.

One can't succeed without failing first; for me my first failure was a 55mph wipeout skiing down a double diamond at 6 years old and I just got right back up and kept on going...since then I've failed a ton, but succeed way more because of it...

Deathmage

So It's been officially 1 month at the new job and I must say the atmosphere and feeling of the company is like that of my job at PCG and I like it. My co-worker in IT is a awesome 44 year old, basically just a 14 year's senior to me spitting image; we get along well. Plus he's a Trekkie and loves loves Starcraft!

The past months I've basically stabilize a network that was on the brink of collapse.....

.... had a domain with a failing primary DC and a secondary DC not doing anything. day 1 I spun up the not-used Dell R720xd with 32 GB's of RAM with ESXi 5.0 free on it and one VM and upgraded it to 5.5. P2V'd about 7 server to the ESXi host and upgrade them all from Windows 2003/2000 servers to 2008 that were virtualized (once it was found none of the legacy application had complications with 2008 - found none, the server just were never upgraded or maintained for 8+ years, literally no patch either!!) and recently finally removed the legacy 2000 native DC from the network after spinning up a 2nd virtual DC and moving the domain master's to that DC and then 'adprep /forestprep and adprep /domaindrep' the servers for a 2008 R2 forest upgrade which was successful and didn't break anything!

Also the servers were all patched and designated swap drives were created for each server, mainly on the still physical boxes, the VM'd server well we know VMware is awesome, nuff said! .... last night in-fact I got stuck at work and pulled a all-nighter and defragged every server hard drives and boy do they fly now...

Security is now finally fixed too with a dual Sonicwall NSA 220 DMZ for our FTP server on a HP Procurve 2910al 16 port switch (DMZ zone) and a CA has been implemented so we now have certificates thank god!!!!

I've also deployed 4 wireless access points and plugged them in a HP Procuve 8 port PoE switch that is connected to one of our Sonicwalls for externally facing wireless with a corporate and guess zone that has a pass-through to the internal network with bandwidth throttling and content filter now on all spectrums of web browsing; also IPS and IDS have been enabled (I sleep better now knowing security is better - probably overkill though, lol!!!!!)

Group policy wasn't being used but it is now and boy does it make the network much easier to use, love it! - well from a admin perspective I'm sure my users hate have a blue wallpaper and not a high graphical picture of there kids or random **** - and they can't store documents on there local profiles anymore (wanted to limit the chance of profile corruption) - .... they have vented discontent with these changes but frankly I don't care in this instance since now everything is backed up to one server and it makes backing up there files so much easier!


Overall in one month I can tell they are happy with me being onboard, they basicaly gave me the keys to the kingdom since my co-worker in IT could tell I knew my **** and let me roam freely fixing things and now one month later the systems/network are way more stable, reliable, and perform to the level that is needed. I'm sure moving forward I will only increase my learning. I actually was surprised how much I learned from being at President Container since my boss was delittling, ego-tistical, never gave me a thanks; so I never fully understood how well I knew stuff.

Next month I get the last Dell R720xd for the cluster and the Dell N2048 switches for the network fabric (planned for 4 more vlans baby!) and a single fiber run that goes 450 ft to replace a extremely-overextended Cat5e run to a IDF with 48 connections so more performance gains are coming!!!

nster

wow that seems the like perfect situation for both you and the company, congrats on the great fit!

Deathmage

gigitty gigitty, I got my 3 months salary increase 1 1/2 month earlier. just under 70k now.

Guess they want me as a keeper.

ninjaturtle

Deathmage wrote: »

gigitty gigitty, I got my 3 months salary increase 1 1/2 month earlier. just under 70k now.

Guess they want me as a keeper.

*high five* Niiiiice!! What are we going to buy?!

coreyb80

Congrats and keep it up!

Deathmage

ninjaturtle wrote: »

*high five* Niiiiice!! What are we going to buy?!

a (2) 3750X used 48 port switches for home.

Really getting in thick into Cisco and I'm getting into a groove with networking and love it.

sticking to my goal of CCNP: DC for this year, but I want MCSA: 2008 too so I'm in super focused mode!

Deathmage

This week has been fun.

I made a Appassure Server for work, we had been using the Appassure Backup tool in a trial from Dell for the past month, so on Tuesday I resurrected a Dell R510 server and popped in (2) 146 GB 15k SAS drives for the OS and (6) 3 TB 7.2k WD RED drives into the server for a total storage space of roughly 14.8 TB's of space in a RAID 5, so now a server that was off now sheds light as a cold-storage platform.

... to make it even better, the drives we just found in a box in the closet not even opened!

Jon_Cisco wrote: »

I would be interested in seeing a followup to this in 3 months. It has been my experience over the years that when a key employee that can't be replaced finally leaves the company just keeps on going without them.

I do wish them and you both well and I am sure it's going to work out for everyone. This is just something I suggest you reflect on in a few months to give you perspective on the situation after you are removed from it and have seen it play out. I find many people live in the moment and forget the importance of reflection.

Great news on the new job!

Jon

Jon and party,

I followed up with my former employer and took a day trip to the NJ location to say hello to everyone. I went down to NJ To have lunch with a few former co-workers to catch up and to say hello. Upon arrival, word spread fast and everyone came to see me...Everyone was like "OMG Trevor! - you're here to fix our problems, 'Problems' I asked with a perplexed face " ... of course they all hugged me and chatted with me for a few minutes, there were a 2nd family for 3 1/2 years; some very close. -- needless to say the company I left them with is failing and they weren't fixing issues. My former 'Stalin/Hitler-dictator' boss became the keeper of the kingdom for IT and he apparently relied on me more than I thought to bridge the IT gap.

You guys remember when I said he treated me like crap and made me feel small and made it seems like her knew everything about IT; well he only knew what he got from me; once I left he was a big ego'd moron basically. Everything in the company that is broken needs to go through him to get approval to get fixed and for someone that know enough to be dangerous but really knows nothing is a bad idea. (I'm sure you all know the kind of executive I'm talking about here)

Well I find out there have tons of printer problems, desktop issues, what to me seems like QOS problems with the WAN since the P2P was dropping Terminal Service connections to the 450+ Wyse clients in the time I was there about 6 or 7 times that whole day. When I left it was maybe once a week. They are having problems with backups and users losing files. Most of the custom application like UPS Worldship and Esko AutoCAD I had to fix that day cause I'm nice since the IT firm didn't know how to fix it....

I was in a touchy spot since it wasn't my network anymore, but I got approval from the owners to fix what I could and I did and it made them happy for that day. I'm just kind of upset that becasue I left they have had nothing but headaches and problems. it's comforting that they do miss me in the sense of me as a person but also in how much I did to keep that company running and now it's basically in shambles..... My former boss made the IT firm out to be the superheroes and me the moron and now 6 months later it looks like quite the opposite.... kind of a ego boost for me, but I'm a humbled person and I don't like holding ego's I just do the work that needs to be done to make the network/systems work....and I did it everyday with a smile....

just makes me upset that's all...

Deathmage

Whelp it's official, the last and final pieces of the IT upgrade overhaul have been approved. I'm feeling very excited, the last piece is upgrade ESXi 5.5 from essentials to Enterprise Plus, adding 45 Terminal Services CAL's and adding Dell Appassure to the network for solid backups over Backup Exec (the backup world's most hated tool, at-least for me!).

It's nice to see the networking rounding out now.

Who know what I'll know in 3 years time. I can't even fathom!!!!!

now I need to stop working out at the gym so much, gone from 27% BFI to 14.5% in 5 months, and focus more on my studies and get my CCNA already at-least for 2015! ...so much to do, so little time; I want 12 pack abs DAM IT, but I need under 9% BFI.

thomas_

Awesome thread! It took me awhile to read through it, but it's really inspiring to see what can happen when you have the right skills, certs, and personality.

anoeljr

Lol keep at it bud. I know you'll do good at whatever you do. I gotta start hitting the gym now too. I'm done with school for the time being so there's no excuses now.

[Deleted User]

Way to go!! Keep it up! I'm excited to have my degree done within 1 week till graduation and hopefully have my Server+ certification done with on Thursday.

Deathmage

Thanks guys!!

I will contest I keep my skills sharp by reading everyone helpful insight into threads on here. I kind of feel like I have a edge from being a member on here.

I don't know everything, but I know more than most just because I'm willing to break stuff but my troubleshooting skills are very high so I'm able to fix issues pretty quickly. Again I only have high troubleshooting skills cause I take risks and break stuff at home in my home-lab and when I do upgrades at work (my last job I was always doing upgrades on bandaids, lol). Lets face it you can plan, and plan, and plan for upgrades but it NEVER goes as planned....

fredrikjj

Is the thread title ever going to get fixed?

stryder144

Deathmage wrote: »

Lets face it you can plan, and plan, and plan for upgrades but it NEVER goes as planned....

Yes! I totally agree.

Deathmage

fredrikjj wrote: »

Is the thread title ever going to get fixed?

If only I could press 'Edit post' on 1st post I so would at this point, to something like "Deathmage's Progression" or something.

Deathmage

Well no time like the present I always say.

Found out today, I guess the company want to expand our infrastructure as a IaaS platform for other companies in our industry. So now I'm re-thinking network design and storage design to facilitate these needs. I may also be getting a larger budget for IT if this IaaS platform is going to be as large as the executive branch is making it out to be.

It's basically going to be terminal services connected into a centralized ERP system.

Looks like I need to take my CCNA soon and get cracking on my VCAP5-DCA or DCD

Deathmage

The SAN and the iSCSI/vMotion and L3 Network switches arrived this week....

Now for the final P2V's and for the real datacenter fun to begin...

...Nuff said

Deathmage

The SAN is alive!

doing the local-datastore-to-array-datastore and last two P2V's tonight!

Deathmage

Only one more server to go with P2V but it's 4.5 TB's in size! ... this weekend baby!

Deathmage

4 solid months of no cluster shutdowns... completely dissolved now.... Had to install this sucker for a automated cluster shutdown of our APC UPS that has three addon battery packs for 240 minutes of run-time.



Now it's integrated into vCenter for a automatic shutdown of all VM's and the Equalogic gracefully in the event of a long-term power outage. Stage 2 of 3 of our DR complete!!! ... no more manual shutdown required hoping the ISP's local node has backup power too!!!

So even though I needed to completely power off the UPS and all the ESXi hosts and other devices, I now have piece of mind from a $234 management Nic in the UPS.

Deathmage

So today I got a very tempting job offer in Westchester County NY as a Systems Migration Engineer for P2V's, Windows domain deployments, network deployments with VMware, Cisco/HP switching, and Dell servers/storage for $85k a year starting.

I'ver asked for more information, they like that I have a VCP5-DCV. Guess not many have it near Yonkers, which surprises me cause its 5 Miles from NYC..

scaredoftests

I guess he got out...

Deathmage

Well I want to ask you guys something:

So it's been a solid 6 months. I really enjoy the job but now I feel like I'm just riding a flat roller coaster. I fixed all of the issues: deployed VMware and have been maintaining it fine, fixed the network security, upgraded the windows domain to 2008 R2 from a domain level that was made in 2000 (to give you sys admins an idea of what Microsoft Server O/S was around back then), have a solid backups solution from a network than had 1 week of backups upon my arrival (no joke) ... basically I've completely overhauled the network from the ground up as many of you all know; no need to explain it all.

I'm well on my way to the CCNA (will get it no matter what sooner or later) and I feel my time here is limited growth wise. I want to stay and support their infrastructure that I deployed but I'm getting bored and find myself just surfing the web now since I got everything working so bloody well now...Like I'll go a whole day sometimes and just look at logs and performance graphs and see the SAN/Network performing so well that VM's don't even flinch when a there is a IO spike on the network or storage fabric. I designed the system/network so well it's performing but it makes me seem like I'm doing nothing, to me at-least. They love what I've done; they are super productive.

reflecting upon what I've done in 6 months with everything I'm really outpacing my certifications with my experience and it's humbling but I seriously wish these exams were so bloody Vulcan with their logic.

I'm wondering if I should stick it out for a solid year and then move on or what?

nster

Take that downtime to study... seriously, it's a great opportunity. Also the more you study, the more likely you are to find out about how to further optimize everything

Many people would kill for a job where they have enough downtime to study well

twodogs62

Don't do too much job hopping.
would be good for you to tune your skills.
work on education and certs.
if you have time each day to study, this is bonus and try to learn in depth the items you support.