Dealing with disagreements with your boss

Smallguy

How do you deal with disagreements with your boss??

here is the situation my boss wants to have a fail over exchange server.... sounds great but here is where it goes wrong.

He wants me to share out the Raid 5 on server 1 to server 2 and make server 2 a passive node.

Now this is not what clustering is....and I have my doubts it is even possible let alone that it will even work.

I've already talked to him about how this really isn't a cluster and we shouldn't be telling upper management that it is a cluster. Along with what a cluster really is and what it is designed to prevent

He seemed to drop it but then yesterday said we need to get moving on setting up the Fail over cluster again.

We currently do have a good working relationship and I don’t want to jeopardize that but I'm concerned that trying to implement this cluster incorrectly could bring down the current exchange machine or cause several issues after.

Anyways how would you approach this?

keenon

write a detailed explaination of your concerns addressing this I would forward this in a email to him. in this explaination i would offer better solutions as it sounds as if budget is an issue. it sounds to me he wants to just say its been done but piss poorly. email this to him and when the **** hits the fan and people start looking for the goat you can provide proof that you did address your concern with him but he disregarded it ( thus making him the goat)

no real winners but you save your butt and let those above him that you do care about the work you do

Smallguy

I think it really is a budget issue but I think unfortunately the only way to handle this is get all my research to gether and before proceeding send him and email stating my concerns.

I really hope it doesn't blow up in my face should he choose to proceed as he is a great guy but he does hold grudges.

Kaminsky

If it's gone away once and then come back you can bet that he is being pushed to by his boss or higher. Regardless of whether you think it's the right thing to do or not, you have to do it or the relationship you currently have will go down the toilet. Cover your a$$ with an email explaining the probable knock on effects and then get it done. He will appreciate you helping him out in his situation rather than digging your heals in or, god forbid, going over his head.

I've been in this situation before when a boss ordered me to do something which was complete nonesense. I dug my heals in not realising he knew it was nonesense but was being preassured from above. Took months to rebuild the work relationship.

blargoe

I agree with outlining your concerns with his proposal in written email, and that you anticipate having issues with your exchange environment going forward. Then bearing that in mind, happily do as you boss has asked you and prove yourself right.

blargoe

By the way, I don't even think sharing out the raid on server 1 to server 2 will even work if you expect Windows to think the server is a cluster. WTF do you do when Server1 crashes? Plus Exchange server on server 2 will not mount an exchange database from a network drive or share if you "fail it over".

Smallguy

blargoe wrote:

By the way, I don't even think sharing out the raid on server 1 to server 2 will even work if you expect Windows to think the server is a cluster. WTF do you do when Server1 crashes? Plus Exchange server on server 2 will not mount an exchange database from a network drive or share if you "fail it over".

Don't worry we are on the same page

what scares me is trying to do this may effect the current servers stability should things "blow up". adn we mgiht end up re configuring it from scratch.


I'm getting to gether as much info as possailbe includeing the clustering best practices guide from Micrsoft...I'll tell him my concerns again in an email and then hope he sees the light if not I have my cya.

Smallguy

so I've been digging and all I've found is infoprmatino on setting them up hardware requirements and disk requirements

when I address my concerns would you advise that say something like

Dear Boss,

I've been looking into setting up the flai over clsuter you asked abuot but I have a concern, everytihng I;ve read states you need a shared qourum disk that is sperate from the 2 nodes of the cluster. For a 2 node clsuter we can use a SCSI connection but it has ot be a physical connection... there is not information about using a shared network drive.

then qutoe the info and give him the document I found it from???


I don;t wanan come of as pretencious but I do wnato get my point accross and make sure should I even had ot say " I told you so" that the information in my email is 100% clear and it can't come back to me and say it was misunderstood

garv221

Sounds like a plan. End the email with a bottom line that management would understand. Simply say this plan will not work. Your boss should have the balls to tell management certain demands cost money and without money it is not possible. What does he say when you explain what a real cluster is?

Webmaster

garv221 wrote:

Simply say this plan will not work.

I agree, simply do your job. You're the techie, you obviously know something he doesn't so it's up to you to convey this relevant information. Another benifit of emailing him is that you at least 'documented' the situation.

rossonieri#1

situation like this did happen most of the times - especially when you work for solution provider. the sales/marketing person or even your BOSS sometimes create things that dont fit to your expertise/knowledge - but they said : i've sold the service - done.

follow your heart...

imagine this :
- 1000 device in 1 subnet with expensive L2 switches?
- create another "same function" servers just for temporary replacement? they dont even have any problem
- create a point2point intranet link with public IP so you can do remote-troubleshooting? overkill
- try 2 migrate a production branch with full working data center inside to HQ - with no POC?
worst...

i've been around...
follow your heart...

Smallguy

How does this sound as a draft. I want to be professional and not have it look liek i'm tlasknig down to him and that we are a team etc. But I wanna be clear

all comments are welcomed

Hi Boss,

I have been doing a lot of research into the Fail over Cluster implementation. I have read articles from Msexchange.org on how to implement a 2-node cluster and guides from Microsoft on Creating and Configuring clusters but I’ve come across some issues.

We had originally discussed sharing out the Raid 5 in NewMail so that we can take the old mail serve (oldmail) and implement it as the passive node. The Problem here is that is a Virus or update Causes NEWMail to go down we will not be able to Fail over to Mail1 because the machine will not be “Up”. My understanding was that the whole reason for implementing as Cluster was to ensure that email would be accessible if KLD Mail Crashed unless it was caused by hardware failure and sharing the drive won’t give us that. According to the Microsoft guide to Configuring Cluster’s we need the following for hardware
“
• Two mass storage device controllers—Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) or Fiber Channel. A local system disk for the operating system (OS) to be installed on one controller. A separate peripheral component interconnect (PCI) storage controller for the shared disks.
• Two PCI network adapters on each node in the cluster.
• Storage cables to attach the shared storage device to all computers” – These can be SCSI or Fire wire depending on the number of nodes in our Case it would be SCSI

It also says
“All hardware should be identical, slot for slot, card for card, BIOS, firmware revisions, and so on, for all nodes. This makes configuration easier and eliminates compatibility problems. “– This Could also present a problem because the 2 Server are quite different


Based on this information we will have to budget some money for this project and it will not be as easy as we thought. I have concerns with trying to create a cluster by sharing out the Raid 5 on NewMail because I can not find any documentation on how to implement this type of configuration and if it doesn’t go well we might end up in a sticky situation with unstable mail servers again or worse end up rebuilding the KLDMail server and causing downtime

TechJunky

The information provided looks good....

However, have someone in your office fix the grammer....

Smallguy

TechJunky wrote:

The information provided looks good....

However, have someone in your office fix the grammer....

Grammer....I wish word would fix that better

kujayhawk93

Smallguy wrote:

TechJunky wrote:

The information provided looks good....

However, have someone in your office fix the grammer....

Grammer....I wish word would fix that better

Word sucks at grammar, but the spellcheck works pretty well!

Kaminsky

And remember to keep a hard copy of your email at home with all the other cover your a$$ emails just in case.

Once you have submitted it then you just have to do whatever is asked. You have your back covered, job done.