New Job New Worries

billybob01

Just out of curiosity guys, if you were a desktop technician who found that one day your boss promoted you to look after the severs that are all up and running fine, where would you start? i mean in the sense that you needed to learn about the setup and network? what steps would you take in order to fully understand whats happening and would you expect support from your manager in the way of showing you?

janmike

First, and this is the(yawn.....) most interesting part, get the maintenance and downtime logs/records for each server and read about the events and fixes of the past. Basically, if it happened once, it will happen again. If you don't have these documents..........., START THEM!!

Second, be sure that you know what each machine serves to the network--DC, DHCP, DNS, print services, file server, Citrix server, etc. And, be sure you know exactly where they are physically located. And, get used to the normal sound, the smell, the look(how many cables are attached, maybe), and the normal temperature of the machine and the surrounding environment. Be sure they stay as cool as possible.

Third, look at the baseline stats from normal operation, and look and look and (yawn.....) look and compare them to present numbers--CPU usage, que times, RAM usage, page file writes, etc. If they aren't recent, run new ones. This is where developing hardware, storage problems will show up first. Act upon these stats.

Fourth, establish a maintenance/downtime schedule, and stick to it.

That's where I would start.

As far as support, ummm..., go fish--maybe and maybe not. And, good luck!

Pash

Yup, get visio out and start with the bigger picture just like janmike has suggested (DHCP, AD, DC DNS etc etc) where are they? what networks excist here? what devices serve which areas?

Also, most importantly understand if they go wrong what are the steps you need to take? You should really ask for procedure from your manager. If he doesnt give you a complete procedure then produce one yourself and foward a copy to him to look at...if you both agree on it then thats a good start. The from there you can think of scenarios and course of action should something go wrong. I mean no plans are full proof as we all know, but at least having a checklist of steps to take combined with your own troubleshooting techniques should pay off.

Btw there are hundreds of things you can ask yourself....I know i wouldnt think of everything to start with but starting out with a drawing is always what i would do and visio is pretty handy if not ideal.