New job, need some advice

azjag

I start a new position on 9/17 as the sole admin for 80+ servers, 4 departments and a few hundred users. I don't know exact counts as of yet cause I have not taken the reigns yet. The previous manager left at the beginning of the year and the admin left a couple months ago so a contractor has been keeping the lights on until a replacement could be found. My responsibilities include AD, VM, SQL, servers and layer one networking. Exchange, helpdesk and the rest of the networking duties are handled by other departments.

To say I am nervous would be an understatement. I know I can handle it and will adapt to the changes quickly, but, I don't know what I don't know. There are a lot of projects that were left half finished because other priorities took precedence. Based off some of the consultant work I have done in the past I have started a list of things to begin with.

Health check of major systems: DNS, AD, Storage and Servers.
Learn critical business systems and what they depend on.
Identify contacts and goto personnel.
Resolve outstanding issues.
Make sure monitoring system is tuned, repair or replace if needed.
Current security posture.
Upcoming projects, what is on the horizon.
Document everything, update visio's, create KeePass, organize in one location/onenote or Wiki.
Support and warranties are up to date.

Is there anything you can think of that I might be missing? Any advice? Good bars to visit to blow off steam?

SteveLord

Congrats. Are you still working in a government outfit? Or are you private sector now?

al3kt.R***

Good luck on your new job, hope its a career cornerstone for you!!!

Now to your list of things to do, it seems pretty complete to me, you have included every important maintenance and operation need-to-know-and-have, I can think of for a single site.
I only have one issue, are there no branch/remote offices and users/telecommuters of interest to you or are you dealing with a single location with no VPN/dial-in requirements?
If you have remote requirements tha you are responsible for then you should repeat the steps in your list for every remote user & location in mind (contact persons, H/W & S/W inventory and licensing/support, AD mgmt/tuning, VPN & security posture validation and NAC/NAP) plus verify satisfactory network performance for all your central site services offered to the remote endpoints (for example as a L1 responsible officer you may need to handle FiberOptics LAN/WAN speed & connectivity issues).

As a last remark create or update existing Security Policy for the sites, after you feel confident enough, to better suit yours, your management's and users' needs from the moment you took office.

Regards m8

joehalford01

Verify back-ups are taking place, where current back-ups are stored, etc.

azjag

SteveLord wrote: »

Congrats. Are you still working in a government outfit? Or are you private sector now?

I am still in government work. This position is for another agency within the county.

azjag

al3kt.R*** wrote: »

Good luck on your new job, hope its a career cornerstone for you!!!

Now to your list of things to do, it seems pretty complete to me, you have included every important maintenance and operation need-to-know-and-have, I can think of for a single site.
I only have one issue, are there no branch/remote offices and users/telecommuters of interest to you or are you dealing with a single location with no VPN/dial-in requirements?
If you have remote requirements tha you are responsible for then you should repeat the steps in your list for every remote user & location in mind (contact persons, H/W & S/W inventory and licensing/support, AD mgmt/tuning, VPN & security posture validation and NAC/NAP) plus verify satisfactory network performance for all your central site services offered to the remote endpoints (for example as a L1 responsible officer you may need to handle FiberOptics LAN/WAN speed & connectivity issues).

As a last remark create or update existing Security Policy for the sites, after you feel confident enough, to better suit yours, your management's and users' needs from the moment you took office.

Regards m8

There are 3-4 different sub-agencies that I will be responsible for. VPN is part of the "Parent" agency above my mine. In essence I am leaving that parent agency and going to this one. It is sad that the only way to get a raise is to move between government jobs. I have noted the other items you listed. Thanks.

azjag

joehalford01 wrote: »

Verify back-ups are taking place, where current back-ups are stored, etc.

That is one of the half done projects. They are consolidating the backups for 3-4 sub agencies into one and also adding a B2D step to speed things up. I don't know where that one left off. Plus a new SAN is in the works to replace the aging one.