Is there anything more fun and rewarding in IT than automation?

I find the biggest thrill in IT is automating something that usually requires hours of effort. The thrill and excitement is priceless not to mention the value add. Sorry just wanted to see what others thought about automating task. It's just so much fun!

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ptilsen

I agree 100%. It is the best, the absolute best, to see a good automation solution work well.

N2IT

I had a serious addiction to certifications now my addiction has transitioned to automation! I'm always thinking how can this been done faster, more accurately, less effort and pain.

sratakhin

I'm working on automating desktop deployment and as much as I used to hate installing Windows, I kind of enjoy it now

DevilWAH

I think IT is automation. Writing a program is automating tasks, configuring routing it automating sorting of data packets, setting up email is again automating a process.

Scripting and scheduled tasks is where we get to start from scratch and do some thing that no one else has, or at least do it in a different way or a new approach. I love it, and every few months I get the bug and play with a task I want to get out of the way. I agree some thing so good in implementing some thing that can save time.

One of my favorites was writing some code that took input from an excel spread sheet that was a list of switches, ports and vlans. With one click of the mouse it took each in turn and log in to the switch and checked the state of the port, confirming it was not active. backed up the port config and then applied the new vlan information, again checked the port was still showing as non connects but now non shut down and backed up the new port config and created a report to say what it had done. It also of course only logged on to each switch once no matter what order the ports where in the spread sheet.

It could do 900 ports in 15 minutes, while a person could do about 2 ports in 5 minutes, and the script never made errors.

LarryDaMan

I disagree, manual is definitely the way to go. I'm always thinking about how something can be done slower, less accurately, with the most effort and pain. And the camel in the Geico commercial says: "Do you know what day tomorrow is... HUMP Day!!"

But seriously, N2IT, what are some examples of this that you've been working on?

N2IT

Anything from simple web hosted dashboards to generating individual templates off of a large record data set. My most recent piece of automation is a macro I created in Excel that goes out to the production SQL server and pulls down 100,000+ rows of data (essentially refreshing the ODBC connection), then spits out two reports one as a PDF from the dashboard page off of the workbook with the macro and then another PDF to a network location where web services picks up the file and publishes the dashboard on several 50+ inch monitors in several different states. This is off of one button click, it took me a while to set up it and I am still working on automating the email piece. The pdf and xls file that is saved are currently pointing to a network folder, but I want those files to go to a email template that has the script in the body and the DL list created and to automatically send it from the VBE. Almost there. Some other things I do is mass transpose and a lot of data clean up that would take hours and I can get done in 20 minutes or so. I am still a big time amature but I continue to gain knowledge.

Qord

I would agree, automate everything you can safely do! And by safely, I really mean just don't automate yourself out of a job!!! I love looking at certain groups in AD knowing I don't have to manually manage them anymore, getting that emailed report every morning about IP address usage from the day before, even that email that tells me there is a new hire that needs to be processed. Without that last one, I'd be getting in trouble for not giving access to people I didn't know existed!

N2IT

Qord I agree completely.

CodeBlox

I work for a financial institution and one of the phone systems that the customers call into is not the best... It's been known to fail without warning. Supposedly the vendor fixed that finally after a year of it breaking everyday. We would have to constantly check this phone system throughout the day until one of our Sr Engineers automated the task of making a call into the phone system and checking for certain phrases. Now, we never have to check it manually again thanks to him. He enjoyed the project very much too.

RobertKaucher

phoeneous wrote: »

Great, can you tell me how to automate the update of over 200+ ssrs .rdl files with a new shared data source? Mmkay thanks.

Are these not just XML?

N2IT

phoeneous wrote: »

Great, can you tell me how to automate the update of over 200+ ssrs .rdl files with a new shared data source? Mmkay thanks.

Sounds like you are outside your skill level. You may want to hire a consultant to help deliver a solution you seem to be struggling with. BTW I was very impressed with the 1997 South Park reference.

instant000

N2IT: I like automating stuff, if it can save time, respond to a trigger, etc. I found some VB that might be something you can modify to get where you're going. FreeVBCode code snippet: vbSendMail.dll Version 3.65-- Easy E-mail Sending in VB, with Attachments Myself, I've used "blat" in the past: Blat - Windows Command Line SMTP Mailer | Free Communications software downloads at SourceForge.net You may have to interact with your Exchange and/or network people, in order to allow your server to send through the Exchange server. Also, I do not know anything about your company's security policies, so make sure you abide by those. I haven't had to deal with automating e-mails from the command line since Exchange 2003. Maybe there are some more appropriate solutions out there. I recall that the blat syntax was very simple, and it supports attachments. I If someone else has an idea, please contribute. Hope this helps.

N2IT

Thanks a lot I appreciate the time and effort. I'll check this out later this evening.

instant000

It was about two minutes of effort

I've spent more time trying to fix the formatting. Carriage returns aren't where I want them to be, but it's near bedtime, so I'll have to let it be.

XSkatepunk586

Dropping on a mini ramp and being able to ride the ****.

N2IT

@ Instant - The formatting is completely off I agree with that. As far as thanks, its called being polite. <Shakes Head>

googol

Finishing that big project and having it all work, great, sucessfully...respect.

Saundie

LarryDaMan wrote: »

I disagree, manual is definitely the way to go. I'm always thinking about how something can be done slower, less accurately, with the most effort and pain. And the camel in the Geico commercial says: "Do you know what day tomorrow is... HUMP Day!!"

While you may joke about it, this is essentially the ethos of the company I work for. We spend most of our days "re-inventing the wheel", doing everything from scratch without templates, without standard processes, without learning from our mistakes. It means that we can keep sending "consultants" to customers. To most people would seem counterproductive, but for us it's our "bread and butter" - we charge customers an hourly rate for a physical visit, whereas remote support is charged annually in advance.

At my previous workplace I had almost free reign over the whole IT and telephony infrastructure, and as I was salaried it was in my best interest to make everything as efficient as possible. I was quite proud of myself the first time I got RIS to deploy XP, then automatically install Office etc without my intervention. I can certainly appreciate the satisfaction of being able to look at the fruits of your labour knowing that you'll never have to do something manually again. If only end users were so appreciative

blargoe

I agree N2. I don't high off of process automation, but I do get a thrill from the problem solving aspect of it, and a sense of satisfaction when I can demonstrate higher efficiency when executing a previously manual process.

I have been working on a scripted solution that calls my list of Windows servers from an admin workstation, queries/downloads required Windows Updates to each server, initiates the install remotely, performs a reboot/wait/check-status, rinse and repeat until no required updates remain, and finally reports back to WSUS (WSUS reports are how we prove to management that all systems were updated to the same level), with history logs and error checking.

I'm still tweaking, but this is probably saving me 6-8 hours per month of effort because the entire process is automated;I just start up the script, and when it's done I follow-up on the servers that did not completely install updates due to an error, if needed.

I use Powershell a lot to quickly report on things like NTFS permissions inheritance, querying Windows OS properties, system uptime, VMware automation, AD queries, mass reconfiguration of registry keys, and the list goes on. When you have limited human resources, tight deadlines, and wear a lot of hats, investing a little time in automating your work is a must.

gkca

blargoe wrote: »

I have been working on a scripted solution that calls my list of Windows servers from an admin workstation, queries/downloads required Windows Updates to each server, initiates the install remotely, performs a reboot/wait/check-status, rinse and repeat until no required updates remain, and finally reports back to WSUS (WSUS reports are how we prove to management that all systems were updated to the same level), with history logs and error checking.

Would you mind sharing that script?

N2IT

@blargoe that is impressive - I hope you nail it. Are you using VB, Powershell or a 3rd party software like Sydi? (Which uses Powershell)

gkca

N2IT wrote: »

3rd party software like Sydi? (Which uses Powershell)

Sydi is a VBscript...

Everyone

blargoe wrote: »

I have been working on a scripted solution that calls my list of Windows servers from an admin workstation, queries/downloads required Windows Updates to each server, initiates the install remotely, performs a reboot/wait/check-status, rinse and repeat until no required updates remain, and finally reports back to WSUS (WSUS reports are how we prove to management that all systems were updated to the same level), with history logs and error checking.

I've got one that does this, been meaning to polish it up and get it published for a while now, just haven't had time. You guys should look into attending the PowerShell Summit next year in Bellevue WA. Be on the lookout for my sessions if you do go (which I still need to submit, fingers crossed that I'll be presenting.)

N2IT

I use PowerShell/Sydi to report against AD. LazyWinAdmin: Powershell - SYDI - Convert all my XML to DOC Files I believe you have to use Python in a Linux environment (not sure though)

veritas_libertas

I've been having fun with Powershell. I have to agree that it's great fun to automate tasks.

N2IT

Okay South Park...........

blargoe

N2IT wrote: »

@blargoe that is impressive - I hope you nail it. Are you using VB, Powershell or a 3rd party software like Sydi? (Which uses Powershell)

All powershell right now, still working on it though.

SteveLord

I still don't have an automation that takes my lunch order, retrieves it and brings it back to me. Interns are close. But they are protected by laws and junk like that.

the_Grinch

Everyone (the user) helped me automate a task at the MSP I was at. Customer called and wanted to know every service that was being run under a non-standard account on every server they had. This basically amounted to around 30 servers or so. Being the night guy, of course the task came to me. I knew Powershell would have a way to do it, but was lost on the details. Everyone swooped in and showed me what to do. What my company said would probably take a week, the script did in less then 15 minutes. Customer was surprised to say the least when I emailed him the Excel spreadsheet with everything in it. Also, he didn't realize some of the accounts that were running services were people no longer with the company and not disabled.

Second automation I did was at my last job. I got stuck being the web tester for the new student application we released. Basically amounted to filling out name, dob, etc and then submitting it. Major headache that took about 15 minutes per application. We brought some automation software, but it literally worked poorly and didn't support all browsers. Plus it would take a day to build a script for it to follow. Thinking there had to be a better way I did some searching and found Selenium. Within four hours I had a working script that would fill out applications in about 6 minutes. Setup the server and clients, I was filling out 10 applications at a time. The funny thing was we brought in another company that was doing a beta of web testing software and Selenium was the underpinning. They were thrilled with me because I needed little training and wound up fixing several of their bugs as they were issues I ran into.

So I definitely agree, nothing better then automating a task and saving everyone a ton of time.

RouteMyPacket

N2IT wrote: »

I find the biggest thrill in IT is automating something that usually requires hours of effort. The thrill and excitement is priceless not to mention the value add. Sorry just wanted to see what others thought about automating task. It's just so much fun!

Automation is precisley what any experienced System Admin or Network Engineer that have a clue strive for.

Automation = Less Administrative Overhead = A more effective administrator overall

Then again, this is IT and it's hilarious to go into an environment and see all these IT "Pros" and "Experts" that add permissions one account at a time. Change local database passwords on switches/routers one at a time. lol

Or even my personal favorite, log into each switch/router and copy/paste the running config as your backup solution. lulz