Network Tech/Network Admin - Daily Routine

LauZaIM

So not too long ago I landed a job with a small business as there only IT guy. I am responsible for pretty much all of the technology related stuff that goes on. From general help desk type of things to the network. My question for you is, what keeps you busy as a Network Admin? Lets say that everything is running fine, how would you keep yourself occupied?

jdballinger

Education and professional development & growth. If I don't have any open tickets in Remedy, there are no projects to be worked on (it HAS happened, don't laugh!) and I'm all caught up across the board? I will usually fire up SkillSoft and pick something that interests me. Or that is appropriate for whatever certs I want to get down the line. Or more than likely, start researching tech for future projects.

A good example would have to be my current schedule. It's been pretty slow as far as things breaking, and we just finished with a major boundary modernization and distro layer tech refresh. This means that I have a fair amount of downtime (I didn't get a single phone call or email on Friday, not one.) unless something happens out of the blue. So I have started hitting the books and learning Microsoft Hyper-V since we found out recently that we are going to be getting a new virtual server suite installed soon, and nobody at work knows anything about them. I enjoy making myself the resident expert (even if I am just the ASSISTANT network manager) on whatever we have laying around.

Of course this is all dependent on the HVAC repair guys not unplugging access layer switches so that they can plug in their tools ("Oh we're sorry, was that important? We didn't realize that this whole building would complain that they can't get to YouTube all of a sudden...")

Study hard and make yourself more valuable as a current and future employee, that's my advice.

Vik210

I was in a similar role once. I think this is really good if you want to study and learn something new. I was watching CBT videos for 3-4 hours every day.
If that’s not what you want to do, then create new projects and don’t want for others to tell you what need to be done. Write a small proposal to upgrade the server or to buy new switches. Talk to vendors; invite then to demonstrate new stuff to you. Look in to new technology and see how it fits in to your organisation. Your management may not accept your projects and spend thousands of $$ but this will help you getting familiar with writing project proposals and doing cost benefit analysis. I convinced my management to invest in document management system and door access system. See if it works for you. Create a small program for reception for manage their contacts.
I have seen people spending couple of years in such positions and getting an ‘IT Manager’ job in mid-size organisation. The kind of job you are in, you can grow in any direction.

her.yang

If you haven't done so already, you should really look into:

- Building your network topology diagrams, IP schemes, equipment warranty database, and other network documentation
- Establishing standard operating procedures for incident resolution, escalation, etc.
- Working on establishing a network security policy, physical security policy, continuity of operations plan, data backup plan--basically all the "oh sh--" plans

For someone in your position you should really take a look at the ITIL Foundation certification on your free time. Hope this helps.

Roguetadhg

her.yang is right. You'll be a busy person for a long time

LauZaIM

Just got home from my first day at the job and it was interesting. Most of my time was spent with the general setting up of usernames and passwords for me. I actually had to answer a request for a printer problem already too. (Not surprised)

The thing that stuck out for me was how unorganized things seemed to be. They haven't had IT people working on the equipment so there are a lot of things that are just plain screwed up. Its going to be an interesting place to work, that's for sure. I am not familiar with all of their systems so I'm pretty sure I'll be doing a lot of reading the first few weeks.

So far the people are great and the atmosphere is just how I like it, very relaxed and friendly. All in all I think this is a great opportunity..

If I had any advice to give to anyone looking for a job it would be to treat the search like a job. Apply to jobs every single day and go to every interview that's requested. Also, don't accept the very first job just to get a job, make sure you pick a job that is what you want. Eventually one will come around that will work out for you. My first job offer that I got was a NOC Tech position for $11/hr at 30 hours a week, I declined it and a couple weeks later I find myself with a $18.5/hr at 45 hours a week position.

Freestuff212

Congrats! I agree with her.yang. Since it's so disorganized sounds like you have a lot of documentation to write up. At least it will give you a good understanding of the network and SOP.

Danielh22185

I am glad my job has almost zero down time, sometimes its hard to find 30 minutes for lunch! With a network comprised of over 50,000 Cisco devices alone there is plenty to do. All the time. If I had extended down time I would probably find myself trolling around here more often but also applying that time to studies. However I have always lived by the notion there is always something that needs improvement / something to do.

NightShade1

LauZaIM wrote: »

So not too long ago I landed a job with a small business as there only IT guy. I am responsible for pretty much all of the technology related stuff that goes on. From general help desk type of things to the network. My question for you is, what keeps you busy as a Network Admin? Lets say that everything is running fine, how would you keep yourself occupied?

not fully network admin but my company offer outsourced admins... like we work as their network admin for a few hours a week.. for example i was assigned a school for a few months which do buy all their networking equipment to us and servers... i had everything in there running( i did not do any helpdesk.. they had their own helpdesk for pc stuff) i just did the networking and server stuff related to Microsoft. It was interesting in the way that they had nothing i did a lot of things in there which had me really busy all the hours they hired me i mean everything was working but i invest my time in making the network better... the normal network admin does not like to do any change i mean if it working then they wont touch it(at lesat in my country is like that i dunno in the US) it was really fun putting in there configurations like 802.1x authentication with radius for wireless and wired with certificates., CA, WSUS, downstream WSUS, Secundary DCs, DHCP DNS, Load balance, traffic shapping, Overhauling their netowork infraestructure, putting vlan poolings to their WLAN network and LAGGs and many other things that i usually do on other clients we got like banks or insurance companies...
The thing is that what i want to tell you is that i invested my time in making the Infraestructure better and secure, i did all the maintenance job, i did upgrade all Switches firmwares and Firewall, WLAN Controller and the SERVer firmwares myself... well i used to invest all time in that as the only issues that they normally had was pc related and i was not in charge of that..
That just to give you an example.

Stop speaking of being a network admin as thats just a few hours a week, in my normal job if i got nothing to do, i invest my time reading for a certification or making labs for something interesting i have not done yet, as for my luck we got a bunch of equipoment for labs... like 4 servers and in each we got a lot of ram HD to virtualize as many Servers we want.. we got unlimited liceses... WLan controllers swithces, firewalls etc etc...
Sometimes i just try to chill and i just talk with my coworkers... but thats a lil hard not having anything to do... most of the times im needing more time to do everything i have to do.