What key information must be passed from one IT Admin to the next?

I am trying to come up with some policy and procedures for when my organization (small group 2-3 people) gets a new client and we take over the IT management.

The size of the organizations I am dealing with is relatively small. Think Windows server environment, 2-5 domain controllers, 1-3 sites, no more than 200 users/workstations. Maybe a phone system like Avaya.

What information is critical for me to collect from the prior IT management? Is there an existing reference for something like this? A guide? Some obvious things I can think of:

Credentials/passwords for ... windows, e-mail accounts, ftp, web hosting, routers, back up archives etc, pretty much anything that needs a pw. . .

IP of all computers and devices, maybe MAC addresses too?

Location of certain things on the network (backups, confidential docs, public folders).

The more I think about this, the more items I can think of that I would need to get from the previous IT admin. Even things like which ports are open on the server and for what reason. It doesnt sound very important, maybe the server has some special issue or workaround that requires some specific ports to be open. Is that something that is usually documented and passed on?

Do you have a checklist or outline you look at whenever you are taking over management of a network? This seems especially important when the prior IT admin was extremely unorganized.

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Comments

Forsaken_GA

Dmaul wrote: »

Do you have a checklist or outline you look at whenever you are taking over management of a network? This seems especially important when the prior IT admin was extremely unorganized.

If prior management was disorganized, you pretty much can't trust anything they give you documentation wise. You'll pretty much need to audit it yourself, just make sure you have all the proper credentials.

If they have commercial support for any hardware or services, make damn sure you get the account numbers and logins for those as well.

Dmaul

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

If they have commercial support for any hardware or services, make damn sure you get the account numbers and logins for those as well.

That is really good, thanks a lot.

What other information should I make damn sure that I get???

ccnxjr

gotta weigh the situation and environment, some of these may apply some may not.

-any b2b extranets?

-inventory, the company's OWNED assets vs LEASED equipment, spare parts?

-keys? got physical locks on the servers? cabinets? electrical closets? (yes physical ones, or card access, etc, just pay attention when you do inventory)

-speaking of electrical, here in NYC any building wiring needs to be handled by an electrical worker who is a member of Local Union #3 . Is there a contractor or someone in particular who is familiar with the building/wiring?

-colocator hand off, if the organization is renting rack space in a managed data center do they know that you may be visiting? in some places the security is pretty tight, even though your contracted to manage some of the equipment in their space they won't let you in unless you've been authorized or on some list, sometimes that authorization is temporary (or conditional on you being escorted)

-problem/trouble log (if they have one), do you need to sacrifice a jelly donut every 4th tuesday to appease the pdc?

This is more hygene than anything else:
-expanding on the IP addressing, check which devices have static IPs/DHCP reservations, just in case someone cycles power to a printer and all of a sudden it's unreachable ditto for servers of any sort.

-UPS battery maintenance/testing, how frequently? are the batteries replaced on a schedule or just if they drop in performance between testing?

rsutton

I don't have a formal list but going from memory:
-Public website management credentials & account info
-Public DNS management credentials & account info
-Public domain registrar management credentials & account info
-SSL certificate management credentials & expiration date (make sure you change the email notification for it's expiry to your own)
-Vendor support information. How much support, account info, phone numbers, expiration of support contracts
-Service account & privileged account credentials
-Local administrator passwords for workstations and servers
-Hardware login credentials (UPS, Routers, Switches etc.)

Make sure you also understand what the expectations are for the support you provide. If they expect you to support the Avaya phone system, make sure you have the skills to do so. If not, now might be good time to find someone you can contract that work out to. If they have Cisco gear, same deal. Find out how many mobile users you have and if you are expected to support their phones. Find out if employee phones are on a company plan and if so make sure you have that account information.

Once you have all the above credentials, I would recommend going in and changing the passwords on everything. You should treat the previous IT company as a fired employee and make sure they don't have access to *anything*.

This is your chance to put together a run book of all this information, to gather baseline data on servers, create network diagrams if there are none etc

Best of luck.

Dmaul

Thanks a lot for the great replies guys. This is exactly what I was looking for.

the_Grinch

Copier logins if they have/changed them.

Printer ip addresses and locations (I work for an MSP and I can't tell you how much of a waste/pain it is trying to get a printer ip, even worse when you get one and it isn't the one they wanted!)

Service tag numbers (another pain to get when dealing with end users)

Phone directory of each location (believe me, we get calls all the time where the user gives us the wrong number/extension)

Desktop setup guide (standard software loaded to every machine)

Scan user password (nothing worse then getting new copiers and not knowing the scan user password)