Received NO documentation from former IT company

tdean

well, 2 weeks into my job, replacing an outsourced IT company. I still have received absolutely no documentation regarding the network. all fsmo roles are on 1 server, i cant get into the vcenter server, i went through AD, and there are over 30 people listed in the enterprise admin group. there are OU's set up for one site, for the other site everyone is lumped into the "users" OU. the GPO's are a mess. it appears they used vb scripts to map printers for some people, not all. i cant get into the NAS, and have no idea if/when any MS updates were run or if there are any incompatibilities with critical apps etc...

other than that, lookin good!!!

undomiel

Sounds like my job every few weeks! At least you're not struggling against horribly wrong documentation, that can sometimes be even worse. Have fun with it as it'll be good experience to have. A big one I'd look into is if you have credentials for their registrar. MX records mysteriously "disappearing" can be a real killer for having a good start.

tdean

undomiel wrote: »

Sounds like my job every few weeks! At least you're not struggling against horribly wrong documentation, that can sometimes be even worse. Have fun with it as it'll be good experience to have. A big one I'd look into is if you have credentials for their registrar. MX records mysteriously "disappearing" can be a real killer for having a good start.

yes, i've completed the transfer of the domain name etc to myself and my boss. i've also finished the diagram of site links, including adding a cisco 5510 asa. they have 3 term servers, 2 running. apparently the other company couldnt set up any load balancing, so the 3rd was never used. there are 3 vmware server, each with ~1- servers running..... all of which i know nothing about. oh, except the roaming profiles are stored on the "finance" server... lol.

ajs1976

Make sure that the A-V is running and up to date. Check to make sure you are getting good backups.

tdean

ajs1976 wrote: »

Make sure that the A-V is running and up to date. Check to make sure you are getting good backups.

the A/V expires in 2 months. they are on an old version of CA. im blowing that out and going with Vipre. The backups are offsite and i dont have a customer # or any contacts there.

it_consultant

That sounds like a lot of networks I have walked into. Complete messes, either from internal guys or other IT companies. It makes us look really bad as IT professionals.

RobertKaucher

Backups need to be your first priority. Make sure you get that handled ASAP. Then make sure nothing is going to die. If you are a single IT guy shop, this does not surprise me at all. I agree with Undomiel. Wrong documentation is worse than none and when you are alone, you rarely have time to keep things up-to-date. Just remember, if some one takes over after you they will probably be thinking a lot of the same things... One man's perfect organization is another man's total chaos.

arwes

tdean wrote: »

well, 2 weeks into my job, replacing an outsourced IT company. I still have received absolutely no documentation regarding the network. all fsmo roles are on 1 server, i cant get into the vcenter server, i went through AD, and there are over 30 people listed in the enterprise admin group. there are OU's set up for one site, for the other site everyone is lumped into the "users" OU. the GPO's are a mess. it appears they used vb scripts to map printers for some people, not all. i cant get into the NAS, and have no idea if/when any MS updates were run or if there are any incompatibilities with critical apps etc...

other than that, lookin good!!!

You might get some use from this.

Network Documentation Made Easy with SYDI

Your predicament reminded me to load this back up on my machine. Really nice tool, especially for free!

tdean

arwes wrote: »

You might get some use from this.

Network Documentation Made Easy with SYDI

Your predicament reminded me to load this back up on my machine. Really nice tool, especially for free!

this looks great, however my understanding of scripts is lacking to say the least. do i just click the server script? or should i open the cli and go to the folder and enter this ?
cscript sydi-server.vbs

i have emailed that old company twice today with no response.

arwes

Yep, cmd prompt and just run cscript sydi-server.vbs. It then pops up prompts for which server you want to document & such. I'm going to try out the Exchange & SQL stuff he made later today and see how well it works.

tdean

arwes wrote: »

Yep, cmd prompt and just run cscript sydi-server.vbs. It then pops up prompts for which server you want to document & such. I'm going to try out the Exchange & SQL stuff he made later today and see how well it works.

awesome.... thanks. i'll let you know how it works for me as well.

tdean

arwes wrote: »

Yep, cmd prompt and just run cscript sydi-server.vbs. It then pops up prompts for which server you want to document & such. I'm going to try out the Exchange & SQL stuff he made later today and see how well it works.

awesome!!!!!

i got "access denied" on one of the main servers here... you ever get that?

arwes

Can't say that I have. I used my domain admin account earlier and had no problems with it.

tdean

arwes wrote: »

Can't say that I have. I used my domain admin account earlier and had no problems with it.

well, i can live with that... i got scans on 20 other servers that i know about. looks like updates havent been run since 11/09.

tdean

im getting this on that one last server.

C:\Net>cscript sydi-server.vbs
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.
Input Error: There is no script engine for file extension ".vbs".

arwes

I initially had to do this to get it to work on a couple of machines:

Enable WMI for Remote Monitoring

tdean

arwes wrote: »

I initially had to do this to get it to work on a couple of machines:

Enable WMI for Remote Monitoring

thanks again... i'll give it a try.

Essendon

What an awful inheritance, tdean!! Man, I wish you all the luck you need to sort out this mess. Looks like the network was run by monkeys before you took over...Heck, even monkeys would know better. Does this place have a DR strategy of any sort ?? (the place is probably a disaster already...)

tdean

oh, another funny thing is that none of the workstations or thin clients were given proper names. just left as whatever they were out of the box, so i have a mess of 300+ "things" in AD that have to be renamed and organized somehow.



arwes, i still couldnt get that last server. i'll check out some other solutions on that site tomorrow. it worked famously on everything else though. great find.

it_consultant

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Backups need to be your first priority. Make sure you get that handled ASAP. Then make sure nothing is going to die. If you are a single IT guy shop, this does not surprise me at all. I agree with Undomiel. Wrong documentation is worse than none and when you are alone, you rarely have time to keep things up-to-date. Just remember, if some one takes over after you they will probably be thinking a lot of the same things... One man's perfect organization is another man's total chaos.

You would be surprised how many times I have taken over networks and heard endless complaints about how the former IT company had no idea what they were doing and were screwing everything up. After a couple of minutes of poking around I find the network built very well. The problem was with perception or attitude. I've even had my boss fuming over something he thought was wrong (with one of our annexed networks) and I had to tell him it was fine and actually a good idea. He simply never saw it that way or didn't understand the idea and technology behind it.

Turgon

tdean wrote: »

well, 2 weeks into my job, replacing an outsourced IT company. I still have received absolutely no documentation regarding the network. all fsmo roles are on 1 server, i cant get into the vcenter server, i went through AD, and there are over 30 people listed in the enterprise admin group. there are OU's set up for one site, for the other site everyone is lumped into the "users" OU. the GPO's are a mess. it appears they used vb scripts to map printers for some people, not all. i cant get into the NAS, and have no idea if/when any MS updates were run or if there are any incompatibilities with critical apps etc...

other than that, lookin good!!!

First thing you need to do is push back on BAU stuff. If you try and run normal provisioning of jobs, requests and user tasks while you deal with this chaos you will have problems. Talk to the boss and get him to cut you slack. Your looking at a 1 week/1month/6 month recovery period. Concentrate on the essentials for now. The larger straightening out jobs you will need to buy time for. Dont make a bad situation worse by diving in, the infrastructure is unfamiliar to you.

jibbajabba

tdean wrote: »

oh, another funny thing is that none of the workstations or thin clients were given proper names. just left as whatever they were out of the box, so i have a mess of 300+ "things" in AD that have to be renamed and organized somehow.



arwes, i still couldnt get that last server. i'll check out some other solutions on that site tomorrow. it worked famously on everything else though. great find.

On the flip side - it keeps you busy and in the job

twodogs62

If they just outsourced there is no telling what you walked into. This could be hostile environment, so you may have to figure things out yourself. If there is any documentation, it may be obsolete. I'd say document what systems you are responsible for. Having passwords to systems and backups are first start. You'll probably have to build your own notes.

Balantine

Turgon and Twodogs62 ring true to me. I walked into an 80K IT Director position with a fresh Associates. Ran into really weird I-quit-and-want-my-job-back politics plus complete lack of infrastructure and documentation. People running Windows 98... wireless routers in the ceiling... the month before I came in there was a fire in the server room because of no ventilation... second to last admin was fired because of too much pornography... financial IT audit failed in the month previous as well... no IT audit done for years, skewed old firewall and network plans floating around, few tools, no policies (HR either) processes or procedures, and lastly, no documentation on what was installed where (just 200 random productivity and OS installation media laying in a pile).

I had to hack my way into my own servers my first day(s) on the job and then they expected me to support the entire PBX and rat's nests near the demarc too (newly and shoddily installed because the old one failed within the last year)...with no SLAs on any of the shared drives or in the 10 years worth of files cabineted away, all of which I read at home trying to get up to speed. The police department was on me in the first week asking why they couldn't upload reports (failing routers), and then I wound up accidentally answering the "Judge's phone" when it rang (undocumented party line inside the MDF...). "DUDE YOU ARE ON THE JUDGES LINE" - Oh, sorry for eavesdropping What I was trying to do, because I kept getting interrupted at my office, was call the last half-dozen contractors who might actually give a damn. Hostile? Yeah. Different culture AND long-time reports of insecurity... loads of Limewire traffic, etc. and slow network responsiveness.

A nice way to start your first "serious job" you know. Based on that experience, others going through 1-6 months of 10-30% productivity would not surprise me in the least. I feel for ya. Learn lots.

Turgon

Balantine wrote: »

Turgon and Twodogs62 ring true to me. I walked into an 80K IT Director position with a fresh Associates. Ran into really weird I-quit-and-want-my-job-back politics plus complete lack of infrastructure and documentation. People running Windows 98... wireless routers in the ceiling... the month before I came in there was a fire in the server room because of no ventilation... second to last admin was fired because of too much pornography... financial IT audit failed in the month previous as well... no IT audit done for years, skewed old firewall and network plans floating around, few tools, no policies (HR either) processes or procedures, and lastly, no documentation on what was installed where (just 200 random productivity and OS installation media laying in a pile).

I had to hack my way into my own servers my first day(s) on the job and then they expected me to support the entire PBX and rat's nests near the demarc too (newly and shoddily installed because the old one failed within the last year)...with no SLAs on any of the shared drives or in the 10 years worth of files cabineted away, all of which I read at home trying to get up to speed. The police department was on me in the first week asking why they couldn't upload reports (failing routers), and then I wound up accidentally answering the "Judge's phone" when it rang (undocumented party line inside the MDF...). "DUDE YOU ARE ON THE JUDGES LINE" - Oh, sorry for eavesdropping What I was trying to do, because I kept getting interrupted at my office, was call the last half-dozen contractors who might actually give a damn. Hostile? Yeah. Different culture AND long-time reports of insecurity... loads of Limewire traffic, etc. and slow network responsiveness.

A nice way to start your first "serious job" you know. Based on that experience, others going through 1-6 months of 10-30% productivity would not surprise me in the least. I feel for ya. Learn lots.

Yeah it can be bad. I took on a hosting DC once. Plenty of fairly modern equipment racked in there and the cabling wasn't bad, but the list of issues was simply horrendous:

1. No network diagram
2. No IP record
3. No documentation period
4. No backups
5. No password records
6. No support contracts
7. No media inventory
8. No media actually. Running Exchange 2003 and no media to do a reinstall
9. No licencing inventory (never saw a licence)
10. No spare parts
11. No tools
12. Flaky systems
13. No common understanding of how everything hung together
14. No access to a GNAT box
15. A firewall owned by a customer who had full access to it and everything was connected to it, other customers and the company LAN
16. AD and other things just installed, no design
17. Domain controller and Exchange all on one box
18. Mailserver practically out of diskspace
19. Hosted mail solutions constantly breaking
20. All customers DNS and mail not resilient (single CobaltRAQ)
21. No change control
22. No security policy
23. No patching
24. No SLAs I ever saw
25. Unsupported SQL server and terminal servers
26. Mysterious ISP arrangements.
27. No network monitoring, SNMP, syslog etc
28. Lousy customers

The whole thing was a liability and the company kept provisioning to customers constantly while it kept breaking needed constant support and straightening out. I documented the lot, got the backup investment, recommended a dedicated FW for the company, got tired of keeping everything going and left after 3 months. The whole company tanked 1 year later. Still a useful experience though on 'how not to do hosting'. The whole thing was put together by a young man who they had to let go before I joined. He lacked real world experience. It showed.

it_consultant

14. No access to a GNAT box

GNAT box spells trouble in my experience.

Turgon

Forgot to mention that the parent company and management were completely out of their depth. Road to ruin really.